A basket of deplorables

“You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables. Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.”
– Hillary Clinton, September 9, 2016

In fairness, we’re really on pace for 3 million this month. But if she keeps this up, we might be to 11 million by the time Trump is inaugurated as God-Emperor of America in January.

“Judeo-Christian” is antisemitic

“Judeo-Christian is not merely anti-Christian propaganda, but as one rabbi points out, it is also antisemitic:

The Constitution entitles you to your opinions and religious beliefs and even affords you the right to express those convictions in your pursuit of public office. But as a Jew and a rabbi, I am writing to ask you to please leave me, Judaism and my people out of your rhetoric. Don’t use “Judeo-Christian” to try to appropriate my religion and my people’s history to advance your agenda.

I can appreciate that Jews and Christians share many similar values and beliefs, just as I recognize that many of the values I learn from my tradition are also shared by many other religions. But while our respective religions have many things in common, we also diverge in significant ways. You and I read the same Bible very differently and draw sometimes contradictory conclusions from it. I honor those differences and I affirm that Jews and Christians (as well as Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and many others) can come together to exchange ideas and live at peace with one another. But your particular brand of Christianity bears little resemblance to the Judaism I practice, and when you use the term “Judeo-Christian” to really mean “Christian,” you erase the distinctions between our faiths — and you essentially erase Jews….

When you use the term “Judeo-Christian,” you give your particular brand of Christian ideology a veneer of universalism it does not merit. It is misleading to suggest that your ideas are part of a “Judeo-Christian tradition.” The term “Judeo-Christian” was originally coined in the 1930s by liberal Christians and Jews who sought to encourage ecumenical relations between those two faiths for the purpose of fighting the growing racism, xenophobia and nativism of that time. But in the 1950s the term was adopted by political conservatives who used the phrase “Judeo-Christian values” as a cudgel in the fight against fellow Americans they accused of being “Godless communists.” And since the 1970s the call for a return to so-called “Judeo-Christian values” has been used by the Christian right as code language to their base for a particular brand of conservative policies that are anything but inclusive.

Perhaps those Christians who are not even remotely concerned about endorsing an anti-Christian term will think twice about it now that they understand it is also antisemitic and deplored by Jews.

This is not an isolated example. The Jewish Press is even more straightforward in correctly rejecting the legitimacy of the term:

Let’s be clear: Far from “sharing” one tradition, Orthodox Jews are prohibited from marrying Christians, setting foot inside a Christian church—and we can’t even drink from an open bottle of kosher wine that has been used by a Christian. We reject the Christian idea of salvation, we abhor Christian divine teachings on every subject, and we are repulsed and outraged by incessant attempts by Christian missionaries to bring us into their fold.

It is particularly disturbing when Klinghoffer makes statements which reveal his complete assumption of elements of New Testament Pauline ideology, for instance, the requirement that wives submit to their husband’s authority. There is no mandate on precisely how a woman should behave with her husband—Jews expect the happy couple to work it out for themselves. Also, while divorce may be a tragedy, and God cries, it is in no way banned—in Judaism, that is. The story in Christianity, and Klinghoffer’s “Judeo-Christian Biblical America,” is different.

Incidentally, we have more in common with Muslims than we do with Christians; Jewish law permits Jews to enter a mosque… but not a church….

Jews and Christians differ on every single fundamental principle—even on the meaning of core Scriptural texts. More crucially, Christians rely on the Old Testament for legal delineation; whereas Jews rely solely upon our rabbinic tradition. We never, ever turn to our Bible for legal guidance, only to our rabbinic literature. To suggest that our Sages had anything at all in common with the likes of Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Carter or Pat Robertson is a slap in the face of 2500 years of scholarship.

“Judeo-Christian” is as valid a concept as happy-joylessness, or tall dwarves. Klinghoffer’s yearnings for this repugnant “ideal” is a deviant phenomenon without a trace of commonality in traditional Jewish thought, ancient or modern.

Considering that it is almost solely Christian Zionists in the US who proudly utilize the term, I tend to doubt there are many rhetorical ploys more powerful than accusing anyone who uses the term “Judeo-Christian values” of antisemitism.

I also think the term “Judeo-Christian values” is obviously racist, as if we are to apply the idiotic logic used to defend it, the more accurate term to describe the values upon which the United States was founded is “African-Christian values”, since everyone who is a United States citizen was, until very recently, believed to have been descended from an African ancestor and it is terribly racist to suggest otherwise, regardless of what the latest science might say.

Alt-White and Alt-West

One of the chief pieces of evidence concerning the fact that #GamerGate was a primarily left-wing group is the way in which many of the supporters of the #AltRight are observably ignorant of the basic tenets of the most successful anti-SJW, anti-media action since the cultural war began. Every group and every movement has its tone and purity police, and usually, their activities are totally counterproductive. Consider this observation from the central rallying point of the GamerGate left, KotakuInAction:

I’m finding it hard to believe this needs to be said, but since it appears that Mark Kern (AKA Grummz) got mobbed, from within GG, by tone-policing PC assholes who took umbrage with him referring to Nyberg as “he” instead of “she”, to the point that he decided to quit GG, losing us a valuable ally and supporter, it would seem that this indeed needs to be said: Political correctness and tone-policing have no place in GamerGate.

Now, this doesn’t mean that entryism is not a serious potential problem or that there are those individuals who are best kept at arms-length, or further, for one reason or another. But in general, the tone and purity police are a much bigger problem in the early stages.

Therefore, in the interest of educating those interested in learning the tactics of those who have successfully used them in the past, it may be useful to read this document, which was widely accepted throughout GamerGate and helps explain how we successfully addressed the problem.

All of the following are counterproductive and damage ourselves ONLY:
No objectives, no goals, no demands, no philosophies, no lists.
  • It screws up the framing of the issue by forcing us to focus on specific issues.
  • The corrupt journos will adhere to the letter of the list and not the spirit. They will find a way to weasel around them.
  • The second nobody is looking, they’ll go back to being dishonest.
  • This idea was put forth by a well-meaning PR person, not someone experienced in consumer activity. PR is the journo’s game. Not ours.
  • It divides us into the goals we each specifically want and we don’t all want the same things. What appeases you will not appease another etc.
  • Demands are things that terrorists make. We are a consumer revolt. We are not violent. We are not underhanded. We are not a political movement.
  • Philosophies are for philosophers, not consumer revolts. We don’t need philosophy to obtain the moral high ground, the opposition has already given it to us. We have no benefit in philosophies.
  • Goals are for games, not a consumer revolt.
  • Objectives are for military operations, not a consumer revolt.
  • Lists are for nerds.
  • It is true that it may increase our numbers (in an absolute sense, but we’re still divided over the goals) because people have specific things to champion. However, this will bring us fence-sitters and those of weak will and not people that will do the work of writing emails and investigation of corruption. If they aren’t invested on the merits, they aren’t invested and thus are not helpful.
  • We do not need clear end points. If people are discouraged by a perceived lack of progress, take a break. This is an extended and long-term approach and you must take breaks. If you need specific goals for yourself, participate 2 or 3 days a week. Phrase it in those terms. Creating goals is not necessary.
  • It does not help people get into this. What does help people get into this is a more coherent and concise set of facts that they can evaluate and come to their own conclusions.
  • Numbers are not an argument. Facts create numbers. Numbers don’t necessarily create facts.
  • Phrasing these goals incorrectly will put them as lines in the sand. We cannot change them once they’re satisfied. We cannot move goalposts like they do.
No narrative changing.
  • As we are a consumer revolt and not a political movement, we do not need a narrative.
  • Narratives are for PR. PR is the journo’s game. Not ours.
  • We let the opposition change the narrative for themselves as they’ve done time and again for the last month.
  • We will go as far politically as we must (as we’ve been forced to do so far), but have no inherent desire to do so.
  • If a person is energized by narrative, they are in the wrong place. Narratives change and we would lose them when it changes anyway. Additionally, it’s unlikely that people that aren’t participating on the merits will do the requisite work involved.
  • We are about facts, logic, and reason. A narrative is a way of spinning these. We have no spin. Only truth.
  • We are actually inclusive and this has been demonstrated already. There is no need to push this or any message.
No leaders.
  • This is a 100% shill idea put forward by the opposition to make it easy to play the identity game. This is their bread and butter and they will co-opt or ruin anything that they can get their hands on.
  • We’ve lasted for a month and counting with no real dictators. We should continue this trend.
  • There are currently no weak points to attack.
  • As attacks against individuals intensify (people have lost jobs, been sent mafia-esque messages in the mail, and have been severely harassed for being involved), it’s clear that giving them heads that are more important than others is a bad idea.
  • Even discussing who you would pick implies some kind of extra importance. We do not want this. We’re all in this together.

    This is a section of a longer document, and was conceived as a comprehensive rebuttal to help GamerGaters address a specific type of shill known as The Changer. Other shills to watch out for included The Fear Monger, The Defeatist, The Dismissive, The False Flag, The Politico, The Discreditor, The Misdirector, The Uncertain, The Slider, and The Self-Shiller; the longer document recommended specific responses to deal with each of them. It may strike you as paranoid, but I personally witnessed multiple shills of each of these types, as SJWs repeatedly tried to infiltrate and redirect what, despite outsiders’ best efforts to categorize it as a hate group, a terrorist group, and a Twitter-based charade, remained a consumer revolt focused tightly on the corrupt games media.

    Now, obviously not all of these lessons are applicable to the #AltRight, because the #AltRight is a political movement, not a consumer revolt, it is positive and prescriptive in nature as opposed to being intrinsically defensive like #GamerGate, and it is addressing a very wide range of societal and historical issues instead of being obsessively focused on a single issue and industry at a specific point in time.

    Nevertheless, it is clear that there is an intrinsic tension within the Alt-Right, which is not necessarily a bad thing. On the one side is the Alt-White, which is pure white nationalist and predominantly pagan or atheist. This could be thought of as the NPI or Spencerian Alt-Right. On the other is the Alt-West, which is omni-nationalist and pro-Christian. I suspect Jared Taylor and RamZPaul are more of this persuasion, but I could be wrong. Regardless, it is the branch in which I would place myself. All of the 16 Points of the Alt-Right with which even Richard Spencer himself only has a few quibbles, can reasonably be considered an Alt-West perspective.

    But perhaps rather than thinking of them as branches, it is more helpful to think of them as roots, each being sustained by different pools, supporting the same glorious tree of Western Civilization. Because it is vital to understand that for the Alt-Right to be successful over time, Alt-White and Alt-West must continue to cooperate, refrain from internecine conflict, and continue to stand by each other in the face of the coming media assaults in the same way that GamerGate/KiA and GamerGate/chan did. (And believe me, the conceptual spectrum of the Alt-Right is CONSIDERABLY more narrow than that of GamerGate. Since they were able to coexist and cooperate, we definitely can.) Any claims to be the One True Strain of the Alt-Right are spurious and should be rejected by all sides, as anyone who subscribes to what Lawrence Murray has laid out as the Alt-Right’s big tent is correctly characterized, at the very least, as an ally of the Alt-Right.

    Besides, as we all know, the only true apotheosis of Pepe is Kek.

    It is worse than a waste of time, it is totally counterproductive to shoot at allies. In GamerGate, we had a simple and straightforward response to the shills, tone police, and self-appointed purity police who repeatedly attempted to redirect our efforts away from the primary target of the game journos: SHUT UP AND EMAIL. I suggest that both branches of the Alt-Right, Alt-White and Alt-West, would do very well to adopt a similar policy, especially as various shills do their best to divide and conquer. We would be foolish to do as the Left does, and spend vast quantities of time and effort seeking out and denouncing splittists, reactionaries, and false consciousnesses.

    SHUT UP AND SHOOT LEFT.

    Remember, it’s all very well to get excited about the fact that the media is paying attention to the Alt-Right, but never forget that the reason they are doing so is in order to discredit, disqualify, and destroy it and everyone who is associated with it. Don’t help them do it. The media game is to anoint and behead leaders, and they will always attempt to redefine you in the process, as Betsy Woodruff demonstrates at the Daily Beast:

    So the Alt-Right—helmed by the trio who gathered at The Willard on Friday—is the most extreme example of a shift on the American right: away from a nostalgic conservative focus on restoring the values of the Founders, and towards a forward-focused nationalism that prioritizes drastic limits on immigration and open hostility to globalism.

    But if that forward-focused nationalism sounds good to you, then regardless of whether you are more Alt-White or Alt-West, you are at the very least sympathetic to the Alt-Right.

    Milo discusses the “Alt-Right”

    There are a few who are viewing this appearance as Milo’s attempt to redefine the Alt-Right. They are completely missing the point. This is a masterclass on how to work the mainstream media. Never forget that dealing with the media is an intrinsically rhetorical exercise, NOT a dialectic one. One does not define anything, much less a broad-spectrum political perspective, in a few minutes on live television.

    There is a time and place for precision and dialectic. Appearing in front of a three-man discredit-and-disqualify panel on CNBC is not one of them.

    Harambe

    @Harambe followed you

    Never used to tweet, now I tweet for Harambe
    I was really shallow now I’m deep for Harambe.


    Let’s just be humble.

    Speaking of Twitter, if you ever want to know why I married Spacebunny, this should suffice to explain it.


    Space Bunnyopoulos ‏@Spacebunnyday

    Feminists should worry less about being triggered and more about being harpooned.

    Gondor’s choice

    John C. Wright laments what he sees as internecine warfare on the Right in the place of a unified effort against the Left:

    The Dems are merely the political arm of the darkness.

    It was the Reds who invented the idea of Critical Theory, that is, accuse Christendom of each and every imperfection imaginable, especially in areas, such as race relations or the equality of sexes, where the criticism cannot exist outside Christendom. It was done to weaken confidence in Western institutions, especially the Church, the family, the marketplace, the townhall, the entertainment industry, the courts, the academy, and the press.

    Over the decades, the press was captured partly and then fully, then the academy (which is now merely a seminary for Leftism), then the courts of law (which began systematically to undermine rule of law), and Hollywood (Sen McCarthy was right, and the Hollywood ten were commies) and then townhall (which was taken over by a donor caste of Leftwing millionaires, with whom Trump broke ranks and turned against).

    Wall Street was basically bought and broken to the whip after the sabotage by the government of the housing market, the student loan industry, the motor car industry, and health care practice. The marketplace is firmly under Leftist control, which is ironic, since the millionaires learned that by funding politicians who denounce them, the millionaires can maintain their wealth and power and suppress free market competition.

    The family was successfully smashed to bits among the inner city blacks, American Indians living on reservations, and poor whites. No fault divorce is to blame, and the normalization and celebration of sodomy is the victory lap.

    The Anglican and Episcopalian denominations have spat in the face of Christ and embraced Caesar, and kneel to give oral sexual favors to the homosex lobby, so these congregations had declared their fealty to antichrist. The Roman Catholic Church, a fair and strong fortress, still holds out, but the press has decided on a policy of pretending Pope Francis is one of them, and many an unwary reader, including Catholics who should know better, are deceived.

    The darkness is on the brink of absolute victory. The last few lamps are fluttering and guttering and the oil is scarce.

    And there is still no organized opposition to any of this.

    For a time, I had some hope in the voters electrified by Trump, but, like the Tea Party, both the mainstream conservatives and the newer movements and the treasonous establishment GOP have decided to fritter away their energy attacking and provoking attacks from each other. Instead of riding to the aid of Gondor, the Riders of Rohan decided this was the best moment to loot Minas Tirith.

    What I think the estimable Mr. Wright has failed to observe is that the ideological Right has turned out to have considerably less intellectual integrity than most of us previously believed it to possess. Who would have imagined even one year ago that relatively high-profile conservatives such as Mark Levin, Bill Kristol, Ross Douthat, Russell Moore, and George Will would openly turn against the Republican candidate for President? (I know, Levin has since done a 180, but still.) Who would have thought that media conservatives such as (((Jonah Goldberg))), (((Cathy Young))), (((Jeff Goldstein))) and (((Ben Shapiro))) would take orders from Hillary Clinton, follow the lead of the Washington Post, NPR, the Atlantic, and the New Yorker, and launch a concerted assault on the ideological Right?

    I suggest Mr. Wright has the analogy wrong. Gondor is under siege and divided, and in his despair, Denethor has thrown in with Mordor and Isengard and sent half his army to march with the orcs, the Uruk-Hai, and the Haradrim against Rohan and the remnants of the West.

    The transition from ideological politics to identity politics is difficult to understand for many and even more difficult to accept for some, particularly those whose identities are complicated and whose connections are mixed. But that doesn’t change the reality that the transition is upon us, is in increasing effect, and cannot be stopped or denied.

    In fact, the only reason Hillary Clinton and the Left are still even in the game today is due to the 60-million strong invasion of the West by the orcs and the Haradrim. Two-thirds of whites support Trump. If the men of Gondor want to survive, if they want to defeat the armies of Mordor, they have to a) stop expecting Rohan to accept their outmoded and self-destructive lead, b) stop attacking Rohan for focusing on the primary issues rather than their preferred targets, c) focus on fighting the actual enemy.

    Here is the essential strategic point. Even if you prefer ideological politics, the historical statistics, the polls, and the politics of the countries from which the immigrants have come all make it very clear that the only way to win ideologically is to get on board with identity politics.

    I’ve been reading Charles Oman’s incredible History of the Peninsular War. It’s an incredibly detailed history; I’m still in the middle of Volume I of VII. One of the things that struck me most in my reading so far is that the most important French advantage over the Spanish was their artillery, as several of their sieges of Spanish towns failed for want of enough guns. It was also hard for all three armies, French, Spanish, and British, to come by enough horses and mules to transport the artillery; occasionally guns on both sides were left behind due to insufficient animals. However, despite the courage of the Spanish irregulars, who did not hesitate to try to defend mountain passes and river crossings against much larger French forces, I saw no sign that they ever focused their attacks on the horses pulling the guns in order to neutralize the element that posed the most significant danger to them.

    In case the historical analogy is not sufficiently clear, immigration and diversity are the big guns of the Left. Without them, they cannot win.

    In light of that, conservatives and independents must now choose for what and with whom they will stand: a diverse USA, globalism, and the Left, or a white America, nationalism, and the Alt-Right. There are no other meaningful options.

    An Alt-Right Reagan?

    If Ronald Reagan were alive today, I wonder if he would still be a conservative.

    “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”


    Ronald Reagan
    address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce
    Mar. 30, 1967

    We’re already at that point. At this point, our children already don’t know what it is like to live in a white country, and our grandchildren are likely to learn what it is like to have to fight a civil war.

    That being said, Ronald Reagan is one of the individuals responsible for the USA’s current predicament due to a) signing the California no-fault divorce law and b) the 1986 Immigration Amnesty. As conservatives are wont to do, he stood up to the external enemy and surrendered to the internal enemy. As internal enemies are always more dangerous, he failed to fight when it counted most.

    So, yes, upon further reflection, he probably would still be a conservative, attacking the Alt-Right for seeking to do what he wouldn’t.

    Convergence at AirBnB

    What a pity the stock is not public, because it’s time to short AirBNB. They are no longer in the business of providing connecting people who need places to stay with people who have places to rent, they are now converged and in the business of social justice:

    Airbnb has been under fire lately for instances of racism and discrimination exhibited by some hosts on the home-sharing platform. In order to combat that, Airbnb is making several positive changes to the platform and its company policies, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky sent in an email to hosts and guests this morning.

    This includes guaranteeing short-term bookings for people who have been discriminated against, deemphasizing the use of user photos, blocking out availability if a host claims a space is taken when it really isn’t and working to increase the number of Instant Book listings, which don’t require hosts to approve specific guests, to one million by the beginning of 2017.

    “Discrimination is the opposite of belonging, and its existence on our platform jeopardizes this core mission,” Chesky wrote. “Bias and discrimination have no place on Airbnb, and we have zero tolerance for them. Unfortunately, we have been slow to address these problems, and for this I am sorry. I take responsibility for any pain or frustration this has caused members of our community. We will not only make this right; we will work to set an example that other companies can follow.”

    Airbnb’s issues with racism date back to at least late last year, when a Harvard study showed that renters with black-sounding names were less likely to receive a booking through the site. Then, in June, an Airbnb host in North Carolina canceled a booking on a black person and sent her a slew of racist insults. Shortly after that incident, Chesky said that racism is not allowed on the platform and Airbnb permanently banned the host.

    Later that month, the Congressional Black Caucus urged Airbnb to take further action in addressing the issues of racism and discrimination on the company’s platform, citing how Title II of 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in places like hotels and motels on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.

    Today, Laura Murphy, former head of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington D.C. office, laid out Airbnb’s game plan for tackling instances of racism and discrimination on the platform. Airbnb has been working with Murphy since June to ensure that the company is doing everything it can to fight racism.

    “Even as the institutions have been invaded and coopted in the interests of social justice, they have been rendered unable to fulfill their primary functions. This is the great internal contradiction that the SJWs will never be able to positively resolve, just as the Soviet communists were never able to resolve the contradiction of socialist calculation that brought down their economy and their empire 69 years after Ludwig von Mises first pointed it out. One might call it the Impossibility of Social Justice Convergence; no man can serve two masters, and no institution can effectively serve two different functions. The more an institution converges towards the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice, the less it is able to perform its primary function.”
    – from SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police