An intellectual empire sans clothes

Steve Sailer explains why Donald Trump is simultaneously accused of stupidity due to his verbal simplicity even as he punctures the absurd pieties of the media Narrative:

Seven hundred years ago an English friar named William of Ockham gave his name to the traditional Western prejudice that the simplest feasible explanation is most likely to be true.

Six and a half centuries later we went to the moon.

Lately, however, we haven’t really felt all that inclined to figure out how the world works. It’s more important to demonstrate our mastery of socially preferred locutions.

For example, one pressing public-policy question of the day is: What are the main causes of Muslim terrorism? Now, an Ockhamite might surmise that one useful answer is:

Muslims.

But the respectable answer in 2016 isn’t supposed to be anything that blunt. In particular, any acceptable explanation must include the six-syllable word “Islamophobia.”

Logically, Islamophobia sounds like it would be an effect of Islamic terrorism rather than a cause.

But logic hasn’t been the goal in 21st-century America. Status is. Repeating the word “Islamophobia” demonstrates that you have been to college, or at least that you watch talking heads on TV who have been to college.

And that’s what really counts.

In summary, Trump has been able to galvanize American politics by telling so many unfashionable truths because the reigning dogmas of our day are smart in form yet stupid in content.

It’s more than a bit ironic that someone so famous for exaggerating should prove to be more fundamentally truthful than all the fact-checkers and media pedants who scrupulously report that which is technically accurate in order to mislead and deceive.

But no nation is ever likely to suicide itself, as the American nation has done, without being told, and accepting, many lies.

We live in a society that is every bit as dishonest with itself as the Soviet Union ever was. The USA is now the Evil Empire, and like its predecessor, it will collapse in disarray due to the increasing weight of those lies.

A point, missed

Kameron Hurley consoles herself:

If you are having a bad day, remember:
Ursula Le Guin has never written a bestselling book.
You’re welcome.

And they wonder why their SJW-infested work doesn’t sell very well when even their totemic inspiration didn’t.

The concept that their carefully-crafted political lectures are tedious in the extreme and will be avoided by most readers appears to be beyond their ability to understand. No wonder SJWs are increasingly gravitating towards children’s entertainment, as kids better tolerate being preached at and are much more amenable to swallowing even the most stupid ideas.

The Communist perspective on fascism

Keep illuminating article entitled “Divided They Fell” from International Socialism in mind when you observe the modern anti-fascists in action:

The Communist Party organisation began to change fundamentally in the mid-1920s. Concomitant with the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, Stalinisation of the KPD began under the leadership of Ernst Thälmann. Freedom of discussion and internal democracy were replaced piece by piece by a mood of unquestioning discipline and authoritarian leadership. Oppositional currents were discouraged from speaking openly and eventually forced out of the party. No longer held politically accountable to the membership, in 1929 Thälmann and Stalin agreed upon an ultra-left course against the SPD, concluding that the Social Democrats represented a form of “social fascism”. This disastrous line would eventually prove fatal for both the Social Democrats and the Communists.

The theory of social fascism dictated that Nazis and Social Democrats were essentially two sides of the same coin. The primary enemy of the Communists was supposedly the Social Democrats, who protected capitalism from a workers’ revolution by deceiving the class with pseudo-socialist rhetoric. The worst of them all were the left wing Social Democrats, whose rhetoric was particularly deceptive. According to the theory, it was impossible to fight side by side with the SPD against the Nazis under such conditions. Indeed, the KPD declared that defeating the social fascists was the “prerequisite to smashing fascism”. By 1932 the KPD began engaging in isolated attempts to initiate broader anti-fascist fronts, most importantly the Antifascischistsche Aktion, but these were formulated as “united fronts from below”—ie without the leadership of the SPD. Turning the logic of the united front on its head, SPD supporters were expected to give up their party allegiance before joining, as opposed to the united front being a first practical step towards the Communist Party. Throughout this period the leaderships of both the SPD and the KPD never came to a formal agreement regarding the fight against Nazism.

Another fatal consequence of the KPD’s ultra-leftism was that the term “fascism” was used irresponsibly to describe any and all opponents to the right of the party. The SPD-led government that ruled Germany until 1930 was considered “social fascist”. When Brüning formed a new right-wing government by decree without a parliamentary majority in 1930, the KPD declared that fascism had taken power. This went hand in hand with a deadly underestimation of the Nazi danger. Thus Thälmann could declare in 1932: “Nothing could be more fatal for us than to opportunistically overestimate the danger posed by Hitler-fascism”.The KPD’s seeming inability to distinguish between democratic, authoritarian and fascist expressions of capitalist rule proved to be its undoing. An organisation that continually vilified bourgeois democratic governments as fascist was unable to understand the true meaning of Hitler’s ascension to power on 30 January 1933, the day the KPD infamously (and ominously) declared: “After Hitler, we will take over!”

To this day, “fascism” still means nothing but “any and all opponents to the right of the speaker”. Note that SPD refers to the Socialist Party which established the Weimar Republic and is currently the junior partner in Germany’s governing coalition, and the KPD is the Communist Party.

Now he’s just trolling Catholics

The current pope has gone from reprehensible to ridiculous:

Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed a special commission to examine the role of female deacons in the Church, in a potentially historic opening on the possibility of women joining the clergy.

The 13-member commission, made up of seven men and six women, will study the question of female deacons with a particular focus on the history of women having played this role in the early years of the Church, the Vatican said in a statement.

The move follows a pledge made by Francis in May during a question-and-answer session with members of female religious orders.

Advocates of women serving as deacons have long argued that they are pitifully under-represented in the Church’s hierarchy and decision-making processes.

Allowing women to enter the clergy at a rank just below a priest would represent a first step towards correcting this imbalance, they argue.

They also insist there is no theological obstacle to the move because of the precedent established by women performing the role in the early centuries of Christianity.

At this point, given what we know about the deleterious effects of female ordination on every single Christian denomination, this has to be considered an intentionally destructive act.

At this rate, he is going to change his name to Francine, declare himself a trans-woman, approve married clergy, and announce his marriage to an imam before Christmas.

“The West will die….”

A Hispanic reviews Cuckservative: How “Conservatives” Betrayed America:

I read quite a bit but this is the most powerful political book I’ve ever read! Vox Day lays it out plain and simple – Western Civilization is in a VERY DANGEROUS situation right now because of reckless immigration policies created by liberals and politically correct cuckservatives. This book acknowledges that Donald Trump has played a huge role in pushing this very important issue to the forefront of political discussion.

Cuckservatives are so afraid to oppose uncontrolled mass migration from the Third World that they’re instead willing to let the United States move away from Western Civilization and become less free. I’m Hispanic and I agree with the argument in this book that Hispanics are not natural conservatives/libertarians who favor limited government and a broad range of freedoms. The voting patterns of Hispanic immigrants, their children, and their grandchildren are evidence of these voting patterns but cuckservatives have let their own self-interest and fear of being called racist prevent them from standing up for the survival of the country. As the book points out, we also have seen a similar paralyzing fear in other parts of the West such as Western Europe where Third World immigrants are flooding in and failing to integrate because they don’t embrace Western values, not because of any inherent racism on the part of the host country.

What I absolutely LOVED about this book the most is the bravery in talking about human biodiversity. The author points out that even the The Economist has written about a plethora of scientific research proving that there are biological differences between the races. And yes, this makes some races better at some things than others. Vox Day, Charles Murray, and Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio are such brave souls to talk about this incredibly important but controversial topic. Ann Coulter briefly mentions this issue of IQ differences between the races in her book, “Adios America” but Vox Day really lays out the evidence without giving a damn about what is politically correct. How refreshing to find an honest, brave, and politically incorrect book like this standing up for Western Civilization!

It’s hard for the older generation to realize things are as bad as they are. Trapped in memories and increasing isolation, they have no idea what the USA has become. It’s all but impossible for the younger generation to realize what they have lost, or more precisely, of what they have been robbed.

Conservatives have betrayed America. Progressives have destroyed it. What remains is the tattered remnants of a nation that still cannot grasp that not only is it not stronger, healthier, and more powerful than ever before, but it is on the verge of collapsing under the weight of its invaders. The USA is like a cancer-stricken patient whose oncologist keeps assuring him that the cancer cells are white blood cells that are strengthening his immune system.

The great irony is that immigrationists point to the great waves of past immigration to whom the adulteration and ideological misdirecting of the nation can be directly traced, the Germans, the Irish, the Italians, the Scandinavians, and the Jews, and using them to justify the beneficial nature of the current wave of Central American, Asian, Arab, and African immigration.

But what we have witnessed is the invasion and destruction of the American nation. You may not understand this yet, you almost certainly will not accept it, but you have nevertheless witnessed it, and soooner or later, you will eventually grasp what you were seeing.

There is a reason the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution for their posterity, and for their posterity alone. There is a reason they limited naturalization to whites. There is a reason they enacted the Chinese exclusion act. Americans foolishly abandoned the wisdom of their forefathers for a self-serving myth concocted by immigrants in the name of anti-racism, and they will experience the inevitable consequences of that foolishness.

Nothing good has come of this. And worse is yet to come. But none of this means that the American nation cannot rise again, if the surviving posterity returns to the principles that made America great in the first place.

Recant your absurd equalitarianism. Give up those ridiculous myths that enchain your mind. Embrace your American identity and stop thinking that because a member of a competing identity is nice, or polite, or smiled at you, that their interests are not diametrically opposed to you and your people. The survival of America, and possibly Western Civilization, depends upon it.

The map is not the territory. The state is not the nation. The citizen is not the national. The metaphor is not the material.

The content censors

Instagram shuts down street artist’s account:

There is an interesting free speech controversy in Melbourne and on the Internet. Melbourne street artist, Lushsux, has not only been told by a city council to remove a parody mural of Hillary Clinton but his Instagram account has been shut down. Once again, the concern is that there remains a overt liberal bias in the sanctioning of comments or images on the Internet.

Lushsux had more than 100,000 Instagram followers who enjoy his paintings and images — work that extends almost two decades. He noted that “It’s fine to go on and do a mural on Trump, but when I go and do one on Hillary Clinton, my account is gone.”

Notably, there are plenty of suggestive murals splashed across Melbourne’s street-scape, including murals featuring Republican nominee Donald Trump and a topless Melania Trump emblazoned with the Mrs Clinton’s campaign catchphrase, “I’m With Her.”

You know, I didn’t sweat it when Goodreads banned me and a few others over being Rabid Puppies. And while Milo didn’t deserve to get banned from Twitter, it wasn’t exactly shocking considering the way he’d been actively baiting them. But things are really starting to get very creepy and 1984 fast.

The SJW left controls the social media high ground and they are making no bones about their complete willingness to abuse their position in order to further their political agenda. Keep that in mind once the alternatives begin to present themselves.

Speaking of social media censors, Facebook has suspended Michael Savage:

Facebook has temporarily blocked talk-radio host Michael Savage from posting stories to his page after he put up a link to a story about a Muslim migrant killing a pregnant woman in Germany.

A message from the social media giant on Savage’s page said: “You recently posted something that violates Facebook policies, so you’re temporarily blocked from using this feature.”

The message then refers the user to Facebook’s “Community Standards” and states the block will be active for 21 hours.

Why Trump?

Tom Kratman answers the question and explains why anyone, with any sense at all, will be supporting Trump over the status quo candidate:

Trump is pissed – dare I say “royally pissed”? – at the DC establishment that wants his money but shuns him. There’s a better than fair chance, and a better chance than we’ve had since Reagan who, at the time, had bigger sturgeon to slice, for us to have someone in the White House who may actually purge the bureaucracy that’s taken over the country. Oh, no, he won’t do everything we need and stand the upper echelons of the Agency and State, EPA, Justice, etc., against a wall with the Old Guard providing the firing squads. But he’s fairly likely to trim them badly enough to put the fear of God – which is to say the fear of you and me; “Vox Populi, vox Dei!” – into the remaining swine.

And then there’s what I think is the most important thing, the answer to the question of why Trump is even running. To me, it’s obvious: He doesn’t need graft or girls; he wants a better place in the history books than the one he’s earned so far as “slumlord to the elite.” He wants to earn that better place. This will tend to make him controllable, to make him at least try to keep his campaign promises in a way we haven’t seen since Reagan and defeating the Soviet Union. I expect that wall on our Southern border to go up. I expect him to repudiate the globalist “Free trade” agreements that have allowed the world’s piratical and parasitic “elite” to loot us, Russia, Europe, everyone not of their little class. I expect some bureaucracy trimming. Why? Because he’s such a great guy? No, because he wants that place in the history books.

That’s my impression too. Trump doesn’t need the money or the power. He doesn’t need the fame or the babes. What he wants is a meaningful place in history, and there is only one way he can achieve that.

You can’t trust Donald Trump’s principles, his words, or his commitment to Jesus Christ. But if you can’t trust in his vanity, if you can’t place any faith in the vanity of a egocentric man who has stamped his name in gold letters on everything he can, in what can you possibly trust?

Another Magic Dirt fail

Well, that, or Germans are taking an extraordinary interest in Turkish politics:

Around 50,000 supporters of Turkey’s Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have rallied in Cologne, Germany to demand his authoritarian reign continues. The Islamist crowd chanted “Allah hu Akbar!” and held signs reading, “Erdoğan is a human rights activist”, whilst opponents waved banners insisting “Stop the Erdomania!”

Members of the Turkish-nationalist, fascist-leaning “Grey Wolves” group were among the crowd that gathered on banks of the Rhine River with the city’s huge gothic cathedral in the background.

I wonder why these bona-fide, no-question, Genuine and Real True Germans are so interested in Turkish politics all of a sudden?

And to think people ask how mass deportations could possibly be conducted. I should think there is a pretty good hint right there.

“Viva Mexico rally today. Free burritos and tequila shots!”

A new milestone: 2.5 million

I have a good reason to appreciate the material contribution that McRapey and a few of his more rabid fans have made to this site. For the first nine years of the blog, I didn’t pay much attention to my site traffic. The traffic had grown steadily over time, but it never occurred to me to think much of it because most of my readership was at WorldNetDaily and the blog had initially been little more than a place for me to record my passing thoughts and address many similar emails in one fell swoop. I started VP in 2003, but it wasn’t until 2012, when some of Scalzi’s fans began repeatedly mocking the way in which my site traffic compared unfavorably with that of Whatever, that I began looking into the implied connection between Scalzi’s perceived success in the science fiction community and his reported traffic.

As Verne, a commenter at AG, put it: “Once upon a time there was a low level geek (gamma) who managed to get himself a wee bit of power and bragging rights by way of the stupid Whatever blog and a position in a Sci/Fi org that no rational man would seemingly want. He used that power to tear into man of greater station and talent. That better man had up to that time not taken his blog and many other forms of networking seriously. A angry bear was awakened and has been steamrolling all in his way ever since.”


That’s more or less how it went, although I’m not angry at anyone about any of this. I realize many people won’t believe it, but until 2013, the 10th year of the blog, I didn’t care much about its traffic because I simply didn’t believe it had any particular significance beyond simple vanity. After all, what difference did it make if you had 5,000 pageviews in a month or 250,000 when WorldNetDaily had 5 million, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution had 19 million, and your column appeared weekly in both? I have to conclude that my very modest amount of success in the old media and old publishing worlds misled my perception of the digital media’s importance.

That’s why I was late to ebooks, why I was late to Twitter, and why I was very late to the utility of site traffic. It’s also why I rather cluelessly ran for SFWA office.

But just because I’m late to the party doesn’t mean that I’m stupid, or that I’ve lost my ability to see things that most people can’t. As chronicled in SJWs Always Lie, once I started paying attention, I very quickly recognized that McRapey was significantly exaggerating his traffic. More importantly, I also came to understand why he was lying about it and how he was effectively using public perception of that “extraordinary amount of traffic for a writer’s website”.

And I was downright astonished to discover that my blogs were already seeing very similar traffic, as I learned after reading McRapey’s 2012 summary that, as  it later turned out, proved to be the high water mark for Whatever.

That looks genuinely impressive at first glance.  8.165 million views!  But the last number made me do a double-take. And then it made me laugh. You see, Google Analytics also tracks Vox Popoli and Alpha Game. Those two blogs happened to combine for 719,700 views in December.  719,700, if I recall correctly, happens to be a little bit more than 718,000.  Nor is it an anomaly, as that was actually down from 745,857 in November.  This inspired me to look further into the matter of comparative blog traffic.

Of course, it’s not much of a comparison anymore, as Whatever now averages less than 500,000 pageviews a month while Alpha Game alone sees more than that. July 2016 saw record traffic for both VP and AG, with 2,078,989 pageviews for the former, 510,093 for the latter, and a total of 2,589,082 for the month. It may not be a competition, but as long as Whatever exists, it will serve a useful purpose for me as both a goad and a scalp.

So, 2.5 million monthly pageviews, what does that matter? Isn’t that just vanity and ego-stroking? Well, no. That’s the same mistaken perception that I used to harbor. The truth is that engagement is the social media fuel upon which the engine of Internet influence runs, and pageviews are how engagement is measured. That’s why so many people try to fake engagement by click-baiting and buying fake followers and posting pictures of cute girls in bikinis and videos of cute animals doing cute things. If gold can be adulterated and inflated, then it should be no surprise that pageviews can be as well. As we know, they can even be entirely fictitious pageviews that are invented in interviews.

But as with gold, only pageviews based on genuine engagement matter in the end. And the sort of pageviews one receives on an old-fashioned, text-heavy site are 24-carat quality. I’d much rather have my readers, and their 2.5 million pageviews, than 10 million pageviews of the sort produced by the readers of a Gawker-style clickbait site. I think VP will eventually reach 10 million monthly pageviews, and it will probably do so sooner than any of us reasonably expect. But we’ll do it for real or we won’t do it at all.

Castalia House and DevGame and Brainstorm and Big Fork and other projects that you haven’t heard about yet all exist because there is a material difference between 5,000 pageviews and 2.5 million pageviews per month. That is why this milestone matters, and that is why I am pleased to be able to celebrate it with you today.