How New Atheism leads to Neo-Nazism

Blimey! A very scary piece in The Guardian.


It started with Sam Harris, moved on to Milo Yiannopoulos and almost led to full-scale Islamophobia. If it can happen to a lifelong liberal, it could happen to anyone!

‘Alt-right’ online poison nearly turned me into a racist
The Guardian

I am a happily married, young white man. I grew up in a happy, Conservative household. I’ve spent my entire life – save the last four months – as a progressive liberal. All of my friends are very liberal or left-leaning centrists. I have always voted Liberal Democrat or Green. I voted remain in the referendum. The thought of racism in any form has always been abhorrent to me. When leave won, I was devastated.

I was curious as to the motives of leave voters. Surely they were not all racist, bigoted or hateful? I watched some debates on YouTube. Obvious points of concern about terrorism were brought up. A leaver cited Sam Harris as a source. I looked him up: this “intellectual, free-thinker” was very critical of Islam. Naturally my liberal kneejerk reaction was to be shocked, but I listened to his concerns and some of his debates.

This, I think, is where YouTube’s “suggested videos” can lead you down a rabbit hole. Moving on from Harris, I unlocked the Pandora’s box of “It’s not racist to criticise Islam!” content. Eventually I was introduced, by YouTube algorithms, to Milo Yiannopoulos and various “anti-SJW” videos (SJW, or social justice warrior, is a pejorative directed at progressives). They were shocking at first, but always presented as innocuous criticism from people claiming to be liberals themselves, or centrists, sometimes “just a regular conservative” – but never, ever identifying as the dreaded “alt-right”.

For three months I watched this stuff grow steadily more fearful of Islam. “Not Muslims,” they would usually say, “individual Muslims are fine.” But Islam was presented as a “threat to western civilisation”. Fear-mongering content was presented in a compelling way by charismatic people who would distance themselves from the very movement of which they were a part.

At the same time, the anti-SJW stuff also moved on to anti-feminism, men’s rights activists – all that stuff. I followed a lot of these people on Twitter, but never shared any of it. I just passively consumed it, because, deep down, I knew I was ashamed of what I was doing. I’d started to roll my eyes when my friends talked about liberal, progressive things. What was wrong with them? Did they not understand what being a real liberal was? All my friends were just SJWs. They didn’t know that free speech was under threat and that politically correct culture and censorship were the true problem.

On one occasion I even, I am ashamed to admit, very diplomatically expressed negative sentiments on Islam to my wife. Nothing “overtly racist”, just some of the “innocuous” type of things the YouTubers had presented: “Islam isn’t compatible with western civilisation.”

She was taken aback: “Isn’t that a bit … rightwing?”

I justified it: “Well, I’m more a left-leaning centrist. PC culture has gone too far, we should be able to discuss these things without shutting down the conversation by calling people racist, or bigots.”

The indoctrination was complete.

About a week before the US election, I heard one of these YouTubers use the phrase “red-pilled” – a term from the film The Matrix – in reference to people being awakened to the truth about the world and SJWs. Suddenly I thought: “This is exactly like a cult. What am I doing? I’m turning into an arsehole.”

I unsubscribed and unfollowed from everything, and told myself outright: “You’re becoming a racist. What you’re doing is turning you into a terrible, hateful person.” Until that moment I hadn’t even realised that “alt-right” was what I was becoming; I just thought I was a more open-minded person for tolerating these views.

It would take every swearword under the sun to describe how I now feel about tolerating such content and gradually accepting it as truth. I’ve spent every day since feeling shameful for being so blind and so easily coerced.

US election day rolled around, and I was filled with dread. Trump’s win felt like EU referendum morning all over again – magnified by a hundred. Although I never shared any of this rubbish with anybody, I feel partly responsible. It’s clear this terrible ideology has now gone mainstream.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Online radicalisation of young white men. It’s here, it’s serious, and I was lucky to be able to snap out of it when I did. And if it can get somebody like me to swallow it – a lifelong liberal – I can’t imagine the damage it is doing overall.

It seemed so subtle – at no point did I think my casual and growing Islamophobia was genuine racism. The good news for me is that my journey toward the alt-right was mercifully brief: I never wanted to harm or abuse anybody verbally, it was all very low level – a creeping fear and bigotry that I won’t let infest me again. But I suspect you could, if you don’t catch it quickly, be guided into a much more overt and sinister hatred.

I haven’t yet told my wife that this happened, and I honestly don’t know how to. I need to apologise for what I said and tell her that I certainly don’t believe it. It is going to be a tough conversation and I’m not looking forward to it. I didn’t think this could happen to me. But it did and it will haunt me for a long time to come.

The funny thing is that at no point did any of this strike the editors of The Guardian as a pure parody of their SJW Narrative about the Alt-Right. But we are now informed that this brave piece of soul-searching by one of the bravest, most deeply sensitive men on the Internet, the glorious Godfrey Elfwick.

Moreover, it points to the way in which Alt-Right ideas are beginning to appear increasingly seductive to white liberals, progressives, and SJWs, as the reality of identity politics is beginning to gradually penetrate their Narrative-numbed consciousnesses and they finally start to recognize what the eventual consequences of their ideologies are turning out to be.

This is what winning looks like

Mother Jones to Andrew Torba of Gab: “I’d appreciate if you could grant me access to Gab so that I can observe and interact with the alt-right. I’d be interested in interviewing you about your motivations for creating Gab.” 

Andrew Torba: “Wait your two weeks. We don’t interview with fake news sites.”

We don’t need them. We don’t need to genuflect to them, accommodate them, or even talk to them.

I’ve been on Twitter since 2009. I have 26,900 followers there. I’ve been on Gab for about four months. I have 11,579 followers there. At this rate of relative growth, I may not have any more reason to bother with Twitter than with MySpace within a year.

Illusion and observable reality

The chart above is a Google Trends comparison between three writers, John Scalzi, Jim C. Hines, and myself. What is interesting about it is the way that it completely demolishes both the SF-SJW narrative as well as the idea that one’s only path to success runs through the gatekeepers.

Remember, the SF-SJW Narrative is that John Scalzi was hugely popular due to Whatever being the most popular blog in science fiction. Tor Books signed him because of that massive success, and he subsequently became one of the leading authors of science fiction, which led to his massive $2.3 million book contract and his status as the unquestioned #1 author at Tor Books, itself the #1 science fiction publisher. He presently stands astride science fiction like a snarky giant, the one true heir to Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, H. Beam Piper, and Isaac Asimov, all in one.

That’s the Narrative, anyway. But as you can see, even at the time of my initial encounter with him in March 2005, his trend score was less than twice mine, at 26-17 the month before. And as we now know, he was always lying about his site traffic, exaggerating it by as much as a factor of 5x, although we should have known that by virtue of his lower-than expected Google Trend score.

Scalzi’s signing by Tor Books subsequently boosted his career, as the general growth, and two peaks in particular, demonstrate. But not even winning the Hugo, two major book tours, or the announcement of the biggest publicly announced book contract in science fiction was enough to help him break out and reach the level of a genuine leading author like Brandon Sanderson, and his declining site traffic actually has him trending well below where he was back in 2004. Sanderson’s current advantage is 54-12 and the 5-year average is 41-15. As I have repeatedly observed, Scalzi is a midlist author masquerading as a leading author courtesy of an amenable authority named PNH.

He’ll surely get another spike when Tor starts pumping up his next book in earnest next spring, but that effect will fade away as quickly as the previous attempts have. And that is when you have the benefit of the biggest publisher in science fiction pushing you on the world! No wonder he admits to feeling like an imposter, it’s because he is an imposter. He has been from the start.

Now look at Jim C. Hines, a lesser Tor author who has desperately tried to follow in Scalzi’s footsteps through a combination of award-pimping and very loud virtue-signaling. Despite all McCreepy’s efforts, he has barely been able to move the needle despite 12 years of hard slogging. One has to rather marvel at his stubborn persistence in this regard, because most people would have figured out by now that their strategy was not working.

The funny thing is that Hines is one of the many SF-SJWs who have constantly tried to push the Narrative that I am irrelevant. But neither Google Analytics nor Google Trends lies. Whether pageviews, book sales, or interest over time is the metric, it is obvious that it is Hines who is the irrelevant party.

Now, here is where it gets interesting. In case you weren’t certain that the Hugo Awards were irrelevant, and that the gatekeepers are now toothless, here is a comparison of Hugo Award-winner and New York Times columnist N.K. Jemison, Hugo Award-winner Kameron Hurley, and an oft-No Awarded outsider nominally banned from the respectable ranks.

That little spike on the red line, which only got Jemisin to within 6 points of where I was back in March 2005 when I first encountered PNH, TNH, and John Scalzi, is Jemisin’s much-ballyhooed Best Novel win. The effect has already worn off, of course, and Jemisin will likely return to her former obscurity quickly enough, as few of those unfortunate readers who sample her depressing, degenerate, award-winning work are likely to remain within her literary orbit for long.

But there are three larger lessons here than the fact that I am not above reminding SF-SJWs of their continuing inferiority and irrelevance. The first lesson is that you can NEVER trust an SJW narrative. They ALWAYS lie, and moreover, they will readily lie about things you can independently verify. Never take anything they say at face value. The SJW Narrative is that Jemisin, Hurley, and Hines are Important and Relevant Award-Winning Science Fiction Authors whereas I am a minor, vanity-published figure banished to the periphery, when the reality is that all of them sell fewer books than I do, all of them get considerably less site traffic than I do, and all of them cumulatively generate less than half the global interest I do.

The second lesson is the importance of building your own media platform and selecting your long-term partners carefully. As long as you are propped up by someone else, be it Tor Books, the New York Times, FoxNews, Universal Press Syndicate, or WorldNetDaily, you are going to be at least somewhat dependent upon them. That’s all right, as all of us need partners and allies, and it simply doesn’t make sense for most authors to try to become media savants and publishers as well as writers. Few of us are Mike Cernovich, Vaughn Heppner, or BV Larson.

There is nothing wrong with being helped, or working with a publisher, or taking advantage of a boost offered by someone else, unless it comes at a price you are unwilling to pay. But never confuse being helicoptered to the top of the mountain with climbing it on your own. It doesn’t make you a better climber.

The third lesson is that the gatekeepers are more interested in ideological conformity than in awareness, platform, or popularity. If you want to get signed by a science fiction publisher, you’re better off virtue-signaling on social media than building up a sizeable readership, a big Twitter following, or a popular blog. Of course, you’ll sell fewer books that way, but at least you’ll be able to enjoy the feeling that you’re a big-time author… right up until that fatal moment that you look at the Amazon rankings.

Expect candlelight vigils

If I was a Filippino living in the United States, I would immediately self-deport. Not due to the rising tide of nationalism and the ascendancy of the God-Emperor to the Cherry Blossom Throne, but simply to bask in the sheer awesomeness of President Duterte:

At least seven members of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s security team and two soldiers were injured in a roadside bombing ambush by suspected Muslim militants. The attack took place ahead of the president’s planned visit to the south of the country, AFP reported citing the president and the Armed Forces.

An explosive device planted along the road detonated when the presidential convoy headed to Marawi, the capital of Lanao del Sur province on the island of Mindanao, the second-largest island of the Philippines. “The truck carrying the president’s advance security detail was hit by an improvised explosive device,” Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said, as cited by Reuters. “There was no firefight.”

Lorenzana said that he advised Duterte to cancel his visit to Marawi, scheduled for Wednesday, as the situation is “still not under control.” The president chose to ignore the advice. Never one to take the easy way out, the combative Duterte said that “The advice was to postpone. I said no, I will go there. And if possible, take the same route,” the president was cited by Reuters, and added that “Maybe we can have a little gunfight here, gunfight there.”

I am confident that President Duterte’s response to the attack will be temperate, restrained, and proportional. Between Putin, Trump, and Duterte, it appears that the nations are beginning to produce strong leaders worthy of the challenge of the times.

The recounts are irrelevant

There is nothing in it. There never was.

Jill Stein has everything she needs to launch a presidential recount. She’s got the cash, the grassroots fervor and the spotlight of an adoring media. But there’s one thing she needs to overturn Trump’s victory: a calendar.

Stein missed Pennsylvania’s deadline to file for a voter-initiated recount. That blown deadline is a huge blow for Democrats who have pinned their hopes on recounts in the Keystone State, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“According to Wanda Murren, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Monday, “the deadline for a voter-initiated recount was Monday, Nov. 21.”

All of the dark conspiracy theories about overturning the election were nonsensical. Jill Stein’s call for a recount was driven by one thing: money. She raised far more money than was required for the Wisconsin recount, publicly stated that all the money raised would not be used for the recount, and publicly posted an incorrect date on the Pennsylvania deadline.

Cobb said they only factored in Wisconsin when they first publicized their $2.5 million goal on their website. Once the campaign realized the cost of a recount for other states, they upped the goal, he said.

The money will be used to pay off the Green Party’s campaign debt, which is to say, into the bank accounts of the staffers. It would be informative to know if they knew the November 28th filing date was inaccurate when they posted it.

And then, there is this:

Just two days after confirming that he would participate in Jill Stein’s recounts in WI, MI and PA, Hillary campaign attorney, Marc Elias, is now publicly calling on North Carolina Republican Gubernatorial candidate, Pat McCrory, to halt his recount efforts and concede his race.

Once you open Pandora’s Box, don’t think you can control the demons that are released.

So-called or self-described

Early days, my friends. Early days. The AP gives the mainstream media its marching orders.

AP: Avoid using ‘alt-right’ without context

The Associated Press Monday released new guidelines for referencing the “alt-right,” which ask that journalists use the term alongside its definition and in context of its association with racist beliefs.

The new guidelines read: “‘Alt-right’ (quotation marks, hyphen and lower case) may be used in quotes or modified as in the ‘self-described’ or ‘so-called alt-right’ in stories discussing what the movement says about itself. Avoid using the term generically and without definition, however, because it is not well known and the term may exist primarily as a public-relations device to make its supporters’ actual beliefs less clear and more acceptable to a broader audience.”

It should be amusing to see them try to define it in the next set of guidelines. What this indicates, however, is that they’ve failed to stamp the Alt-Right as either Nazis or White Supremacists, which was their initial attempt to address it. They want to avoid so much as mentioning the term without providing the necessary context, which means framing it to fit their Narrative.

As it is written, SJWs always lie.

Meanwhile, the Romanian and Bulgarian translations of the 16 Points of the Alt-Right have been delivered and posted. We now have more translations than points; don’t hesitate to copy them and spread them around the Internet. While the Hoax Media is dithering and deceiving themselves and attempting to marginalize us, we’re rapidly expanding across the globe. Those in need of getting up to speed on the Alt-Right may wish to note that one can quickly access all of the Alt-Right-related posts on this blog via the link on the right sidebar below the various translations.

Dreapta Alt: 16 Puncte

În interesul dezvoltării unui nucleu filosofic al Dreptei Alt care va constitui baza evoluției viitoare.

1. Dreapta Alt este parte a dreptei atât in sens american cât și european. Socialiștii nu sunt parte a Dreptei Alt. Progresiștii nu sunt parte a Dreptei Alt. Liberalii nu sunt parte a Dreptei Alt. Comuniștii, Marxiștii, adepții marxismului cultural, neoconservatorii nu sunt parte a Dreptei Alt.

2. Dreapta Alt este o ALTERNATIVĂ la mișcarea conservatoare dominantă din Statele Unite ale Americii care, deși incapsulată ilustrativ în cele 10 Principii ale Gândirii Conservatoare ale lui Russel Kirk, în realitate a involuat spre progresivism. De asemenea, este o alternativa la libertarianism.

3. Dreapta Alt nu reprezintă o atitudine defensivă si respinge conceptul înfrângerii nobile și principiale. Este o filosofie de viitor, ofensiva, în toate sensurile termenului. Dreapta Alt crede în atingerea scopurilor prin perseverență și rămânerea în armonie cu știința, realitatea, tradiția culturală, și lecțiile istoriei.

4. Dreapta Alt crede că civilizația vestică reprezintă apogeul realizărilor umanității și sprijină cei trei piloni ai acesteia: creștinismul, națiunile europene, și moștenirea greco-romană.

5. Dreapta Alt își afișează în mod deschis și clar principiile naționaliste. Sprijină toate mișcările naționaliste și dreptul tuturor națiunilor de a exista, de a rămâne omogene și neafectate de invazii străine sau mișcari imigraționiste.

6. Dreapta Alt este antiglobalistă. Se opune tuturor grupurilor care au o agendă care conține idealuri sau obiective globaliste.

7. Dreapta Alt este antiegalitariană. Respinge ideea de egalitate din același motiv pentru care respingea ideea existenței unicornilor și spiridușilor, notând faptul că egalitatea umană nu există în nicio formă observabilă, fie aceasta știintifică, legală, materială, intelectuală, sexuală, sau spirituală.

8. Dreapta Alt își bazează concluziile pe metoda științifică, acceptă prezumtiv concluziile actuale ale metodei științifice, dar în același timp admite că a) aceste concluzii sunt susceptibile unei revizuiri viitoare, b) că actul științific este susceptibil la corupție, și c) că așa-numitul consens științific nu se bazează pe metodă știintifică ci pe acord democratic, și este intrinsec neștiințific.

9. Dreapta Alt conclude că identitatea > cultura > politica. Actul politic este precedat de cultura unei comunității care la rândul ei este determinată de identitatea celor care compun acea comunitate.

10. Dreapta Alt se opune guvernării sau dominării unui grup etnic de către altul, în special în cazurile când acestea au loc pe pământurile de baștină ale popoarelor dominate. Dreapta Alt se opune obținerii de influență excesivă în societate de către grupurile etnice neindigene prin nepotism, tribalism, sau oricare altă metodă.

11. Dreapta Alt înțelege faptul că diversitate + proximitate = război.

12. Dreapta Alt este indiferentă la ceea ce crezi tu despre acest curent de gândire.

13. Dreapta Alt respinge comerțul internațional liber și mișcarea liberă a persoanelor care este intrinsecă acestuia. Beneficiile comerțului intranațional nu se constituie în evidențe care sa sprijine beneficile comerțului internațional.

14. Dreapta Alt conclude că supraviețuirea popoarelor albe și a copiilor albi trebuie securizată.

15. Dreapta Alt nu crede în supremația generală a oricărei rase, națiuni, popor, sau sub-specie. Fiecare rasă, națiune, popor, și sub-specie umană are proprile sale puncte forte și slabe, și posedă dreptul suveran de a sălășlui nestingherit în cultura indigenă preferată.

16. Dreapta Alt este o filosofie care prețuieste pacea între diversele națiuni ale lumii și se opune războiului ca mijloc de a impune valorile unei națiuni asupra alteia, cât și eforturilor de a extermina națiuni dinadins prin război, genocid, imigrație, sau asimilare genetica.

Dreapta Alt este o ideologie vestică sprijinându-se pe știință, istorie, realitate, și dreptul unei națiuni genetice de a exista și a se autoguverna spre a își atinge proprile interese.

Какво е алтернативно дясно

С
цел полагане на ядро от основни принципи
на алтернативното дясно (Алт-Дясно)
върху които други могат да надграждат:
  1. Алтернативното
    дясно е политическо дясно в американският
    и европейският смисъл на термина.
    Социалистите не са от Алтернативно
    десни. Прогресивизмът не е Алтернативно
    дясен. Либералите не са Алт-Дясни.
    Комунистите, марксистите, културни
    марксисти и неоконсерваторите не са
    Алтернативни Десни.
  2. Алтернативното
    дясно е АЛТЕРНАТИВА на преобладаващото
    консервативно движение в САЩ което е
    изразено от „10 консервативни принципа“
    на Ръсел Кърк, но всъшност се е изродило
    в прогресивизъм. То е алтернатива и на
    либертарианството.
  3. Алтернативното
    дясно не е отбранително перспектива и
    е отказ от концепцията за благородно
    поражение. Това е една модерна философия
    на настъплението – във всеки смисъл
    на тази дума. Алтернативното дясно
    вярва в победа чрез постоянство и идеята
    за хармония с науката, реалността,
    културните традиции и уроците на
    историята.
  4. Алтернативното
    дясно смята, че Западната цивилизация
    е короната на човешкият гении и поддържа
    трите основни стълба: Христианството,
    Европейските нации и гръко-римското
    наследство.
  5. Алтернативното
    дясно не крие своят национализъм. То
    подкрепя всички национализми и Правото
    на съществуване на всички нации,
    хомогенно и необезпокоявано от
    имиграционни процеси.
  6. Алтернативното
    дясно е анти-глобалистко. То е срещу
    всички онези които се застъпват за
    глобалистки цели и идеи.
  7. Алтернативното
    дясно се противопоставя на сляпият
    егалитаризъм. Отрича тази идея поради
    същата причина заради която отхвърля
    съществуването на еднорози и леприкони,
    като отбелязва, че хората не са равни
    по нито едно научно, юридическо,
    материално, интелектуално, полово или
    душевно състояние.
  8. Алтернативното
    дясно
    e научно
    ориентирано. То признава научните
    заключения на научният метод, като
    разбира: А) че тези въпросните заключения
    подлежат на преразглеждане; Б) че
    научната общност също е податлива на
    корупция и В) че така нареченият научен
    консенсус се основава не на науката, а
    на демокрацичната идея, откъдето и
    идват ненаучни заключения.
  9. Алтернативното
    дясно вярва в идентичност>култура>политика.
  10. Алтернативното
    дясно се противопоставя на угнетяването
    на един етнос от друг, особено ако
    първият е на собствена земя. Алтернативното
    дясно е срещу всеки чужд етнос който
    се опитва да достигне огромно влияние
    във всяко общество чрез непотизъм, клан
    или чрез други средства.
  11. Алтернативното
    дясно приема за вярно идеята, че
    хетерогенност + близост = война.
  12. На
    Алтернативното дясно не му пука какво
    мислите за него.
  13. Алтернативното
    дясно отхвърля идеята за международната
    свободна търговия и миграция на хора
    която свободната търговия изисква.
    Ползите от международната свободна
    търговия не е доказателство за
    предимствата на международната свободна
    търговия.
  14. Алтернативното
    дясно предполага нуждата от обезпечаването
    на съществуването на белите народи и
    белите деца.
  15. Алтернативното
    дясно не вярва в идеята за превъзходство
    на която и да е раса, нация, народ или
    друг подвидов. Всяка раса, нация, народ
    и човешки подвид има своите уникални
    качества, предимства и недостатъци, и
    суверенното право на спокоен живот в
    рамките на собствената си култура.
  16. Алтернативното
    дясно е философия която цени мира между
    различните нации в света и е срещу
    войните водени с цел да се наложат
    ценностите на един народ върху друг,
    както е и срещу всички опити да се
    унищожават отделните нации чрез война,
    геноцид, имиграция или генетична
    асимилация.
На
кратко: Алтернативното дясно е Западна
идеология която вярва, че науката,
историята, реалността и Правото на
народите да съществуват като генетични
нации и да се управляват като такава в
свой собствен интерес.

Milo reviews Silenced

He gives himself 10 out of 10. And, he also happens to mention, as a brief aside, Mike Cernovich’s film isn’t bad either:

I feel compelled to set aside my trademark modesty in order to review Silenced, a new documentary in which I briefly appear. To get the most important thing out of the way, I rate my performance 10 MILOs out of 10.

Silenced was crowdfunded by producer and Twitter celebrity Mike Cernovich and director Loren Feldman to document the state of free speech in America. The timing couldn’t be better, as we’ve just witnessed Twitter attempting to purge the alt-right and various libertarian and conservative personalities from its platform as revenge for Donald Trump’s victory.

Several of the people who appear in Silenced were targeted in the purge, including Pax Dickinson and the pseudonymous Ricky Vaughn.

Silenced is a different type of documentary to Cassie Jaye’s The Red Pill, which I also examined recently. Jay’s movie told a specific story: her exploration and eventual sympathy with the men’s rights movement. Silenced takes a different approach, relying on its interview subjects to make the case for free speech.

Mike and Loren did a solid and professional job on an important subject, and they’ve paved the way for the Right to start fighting the culture war on a new front: film. Thanks very much to all of the VFM and Dread Ilk who helped them do it!

I’m in it too, by the way. I give myself 3 MILOs. Frankly, it was bordering on the miraculous that Loren managed to figure out a way to get me in there at all.

An endorsement of General Mattis

General Krulak thinks very highly of him. That’s a good sign. He’d be a great choice for Secretary of Defense.

A couple of months ago, when I told General Krulak, the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, now the chair of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors, that we were having General Mattis speak this evening, he said, “Let me tell you a Jim Mattis story.” General Krulak said, when he was Commandant of the Marine Corps, every year, starting about a week before Christmas, he and his wife would bake hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Christmas cookies. They would package them in small bundles.

 Then on Christmas day, he would load his vehicle. At about 4 a.m., General Krulak would drive himself to every Marine guard post in the Washington-Annapolis-Baltimore area and deliver a small package of Christmas cookies to whatever Marines were pulling guard duty that day. He said that one year, he had gone down to Quantico as one of his stops to deliver Christmas cookies to the Marines on guard duty. He went to the command center and gave a package to the lance corporal who was on duty.

 He asked, “Who’s the officer of the day?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it’s Brigadier General Mattis.” And General Krulak said, “No, no, no. I know who General Mattis is. I mean, who’s the officer of the day today, Christmas day?” The lance corporal, feeling a little anxious, said, “Sir, it is Brigadier General Mattis.”

 General Krulak said that, about that time, he spotted in the back room a cot, or a daybed. He said, “No, Lance Corporal. Who slept in that bed last night?” The lance corporal said, “Sir, it was Brigadier General Mattis.”

About that time, General Krulak said that General Mattis came in, in a duty uniform with a sword, and General Krulak said, “Jim, what are you doing here on Christmas day? Why do you have duty?” General Mattis told him that the young officer who was scheduled to have duty on Christmas day had a family, and General Mattis decided it was better for the young officer to spend Christmas Day with his family, and so he chose to have duty on Christmas Day.

General Krulak said, “That’s the kind of officer that Jim Mattis is.”