Hope for Holland

Geert Wilders Verified account ‏@geertwilderspvv
If I become Dutch Prime Minister next year I’ll crush Islamic terrorism, close our national borders and De-Islamize The Netherlands.

That sound you heard is the Overton Window moving. And that is the word for 2016 right there: De-Islamification. In the European context, it will be known as Reconquista 2.0. It will be interesting to see if we see Donald Trump begin using it.

UPDATE: two more bombs flash grenades go off in Brussels during police raid:

Armed police shot a terror suspect at a Brussels tram station as they launched fresh raids in the Belgian capital in the wake of the suicide attacks on Tuesday. Two explosion were heard at the start of the operation in the neighbourhood of Schaerbeek, north Brussels, after which local media reported that one man had been ‘neutralised’. Today’s raid in Brussels was linked to the arrest of ‘ISIS recruiter’ Reda Kriket, in a Paris suburb on Thursday. Kriket, a 34-year-old Frenchman, had been in the ‘advances stages’ of planning an attack in France prior to his arrest, and was found with heavy weapons and explosives in his apartment. 

Disney, Marvel, oppose religious liberty

Two prominent purveyors of cultural dysgenics join the NFL in threatening democracy in the State of Georgia:

The Walt Disney Co. and Marvel Studios indicated opposition to a Georgia religious liberty bill pending before Gov. Nathan Deal, saying that they will take their business elsewhere “should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law.”

With generous tax incentives, Georgia has become a production hub, with Marvel currently shooting “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” at Pinewood Studios outside Atlanta. “Captain America: Civil War” shot there last summer.

“Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” a Disney spokesman said on Wednesday.

It doesn’t speak well for Christians that they are so less willing to back up their beliefs with action than those whose objective is the dismantling and destruction of Christianity and Western civilization. I already refuse to use Disney products; it appears I will have to extend that policy to Marvel Studios as well. (I’m not going to bother changing the RP 2016 recommendations at this point, as Marvel’s actions thus far remain hypothetical.)

One hopes the governor does not give in to this corporate attempt to influence the political process. And if he does, I expect he will experience the consequences of putting corporate politics ahead of the clearly expressed will of the people.

The Ted Cruz affair crisis

The National Enquirer has run a story about “The 5 Romps that will destroy Ted Cruz”, complete with pictures of the five women with whom he has supposedly had affairs.

Oh dear, the National Enquirer has come out with a story claiming evidence of multiple sexual trysts by presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz.

Worse yet for the Cruz camp, the framework within the article is structurally very concerning:The National Enquirer is indeed a tabloid – and as such there are various grains of salt that should be applied when reviewing anything they present.

However, that said, they have been unfortunately accurate for more
than a few presidential hopefuls:  Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and John
Edwards to name a few of the more infamous examples. Beyond the story itself there’s a few presenting elements which point
to a high degree of confidence, and as a consequence ‘legal
avoidance’, on the publishers’ part.

Firstly, they post pictures of the collective mistresses.  NE would never legally “go there” if they did not hold a very reasonable certainty the outlined players were factually part of the story.

Despite being partially-obscured, three of the five women alleged to have been involved with Cruz have already been identified: Katrina Pierson, Sarah Isgur Flores and Amanda Carpenter. This story was already in the works at Breitbart, as Allum Bokhari had it back in February but was not permitted to run with it. The current timing strikes me as intriguing given the fact that Donald Trump already warned the Cruz campaign that there would be reprisals for their advertised attack on his wife Melania.

It also looks as if the Rubio campaign had the dirt on Cruz, but sat on it in order to keep him viable against Donald Trump.

They had their chance

Glenn Reynolds explains how David Brooks and company created The Trumpening:

Brooks is, of course, horrified at Trump and his supporters, whom he finds childish,
thuggish and contemptuous of the things that David Brooks likes about
today’s America. It’s clear that he’d like a social/political revolution
that was more refined, better-mannered, more focused on the
Constitution and, well, more bourgeois as opposed to in-your-face and
working class.

The thing is, we had that movement. It was the Tea Party movement….
Yet the tea party movement was smeared as racist, denounced as fascist, harassed with impunity by the IRS and generally treated with contempt by the political establishment — and by pundits like Brooks, who declared “I’m not a fan of this movement.” After handing the GOP big legislative victories in 2010 and 2014, it
was largely betrayed by the Republicans in Congress, who broke their
promises to shrink government and block Obama’s initiatives.

And now they call Trump supporters fascists and Nazis. So, guess what comes next if David Brooks and company are successful in keeping Donald Trump out of power?

The leader Europe needs

Viktor Orban is the one of the few European leaders worthy of the name:

Europe is not free. Because freedom begins with speaking the truth. Today in Europe it is forbidden to speak the truth. Even if it is made of silk, a muzzle is a muzzle. It is forbidden to say that those arriving are not refugees, but that Europe is threatened by migration. It is forbidden to say that tens of millions are ready to set out in our direction. It is forbidden to say that immigration brings crime and terror to our countries. It is forbidden to point out that the masses arriving from other civilizations endanger our way of life, our culture, our customs and our Christian traditions. It is forbidden to point out that those who arrived earlier have have already built up their own new, separate world for themselves, with its own laws and ideals, which is forcing apart the thousand-year-old structure of Europe. It is forbidden to point out that this is not an accidental and unintentional chain of consequences, but a preplanned and orchestrated operation; a mass of people directed towards us. It is forbidden to say that in Brussels they are concocting schemes to transport foreigners here as quickly as possible and to settle them here among us. It is forbidden to point out that the purpose of settling people here is to reshape the religious and cultural landscape of Europe, and to reengineer its ethnic foundations. — thereby eliminating the last barrier to internationalism: the nation-states. It is forbidden to say that Brussels is now stealthily devouring more and more slices of our national sovereignty, and that in Brussels many are now making a plan for a United States of Europe — for which no one has ever given authorisation.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today’s enemies of freedom are cut from a different cloth than the royal and imperial rulers of old, or those who ran the Soviet system; they use a different set of tools to force us into submission. Today they do not imprison us, they do not transport us to concentration camps, and they do not send in tanks to occupy countries loyal to freedom. Today the international media’s artillery bombardments, denunciations, threats and blackmail are enough — or rather, have been enough so far. The peoples of Europe are slowly awakening, they are regrouping, and will soon regain ground. Europe’s beams that rest on the suppression of truth are creaking and cracking. The peoples of Europe may have finally understood that their future is at stake: Now not only are their prosperity, cosy lives, jobs at stake, but our very security and the peaceful order of our lives are menaced as well. At last, the peoples of Europe, who have been slumbering in abundance and prosperity, have understood that the principles of life that Europe has been built on are in mortal danger. Europe is the community of Christian, free, and independent nations; equality of men and women; fair competition and solidarity; pride and humility; justice and mercy.

This time the danger is not attacking us the way wars and natural disasters do, suddenly pulling the rug from under our feet. Mass migration is a slow stream of water persistently eroding the shores. It is masquerading as a humanitarian cause, but its true nature is the occupation of territory. And what is gaining territory for them is losing territory for us. Flocks of obsessed human rights defenders feel the overwhelming urge to reprimand us and to make allegations against us. Allegedly we are hostile xenophobes, but the truth is that the history of our nation is also one of inclusion. and the history of intertwining of cultures. Those who have sought to come here as new family members, as allies, or as displaced persons fearing for their lives have been let in to make a new home for themselves. But those who have come here with the intention of changing our country, shaping our nation in their own image, those who have come with violence and against our will, — have always been met with resistance.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At first, they talk about only a few hundred, a thousand or two thousand relocated people. But not a single responsible European leader would dare to swear under oath that this couple of thousand will not eventually increase to tens or hundreds of thousands. If we want to halt this mass migration, first we must curb Brussels. The main danger to Europe’s future does not come from those who want to come here, but from Brussels’ fanatical internationalism. We should not allow Brussels to place itself above the law. We shall not allow it to force upon us the bitter fruit of its cosmopolitan immigration policy. We shall not import to Hungary crime, terrorism, homophobia and synagogue-burning anti-Semitism. There shall be no urban districts beyond the reach of the law, there shall be no mass disorder, No immigrant riots here, and there shall be no gangs hunting down our women and daughters. We shall not allow others to tell us whom we can let into our home and country, whom we will live alongside, and with whom we will share our country. We know how these things go. First we allow them to tell us whom we must take in, then they force us to serve foreigners in our own country. In the end we find ourselves being told to pack up and leave our own land. Therefore we reject the forced resettlement scheme, and we shall tolerate neither blackmail, nor threats.

The time has come to ring the warning bell. The time has come for opposition and resistance. The time has come to gather allies to us. The time has come to raise the flag of proud nations. The time has come to prevent the destruction of Europe, and to save the future of Europe.

Read the whole thing at Gates of Vienna.

If we can’t have it, nobody can

Jonah Goldberg pronounces time of death for the GOP:

Nominating Donald Trump will wreck the Republican party as we know it. Not nominating Trump will wreck the Republican party as we know it. The sooner everyone recognizes this fact, the better.

Denial has been Trump’s greatest ally. Republicans and commentators didn’t believe he would run. They didn’t believe he could be an attractive candidate to rational people, no matter how angry with “the establishment” voters said they were. They — which includes me — were wrong.

The denial lasted longer for some than others. Long after many observers had come to the realization that Trump was the front-runner, Jeb Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, believed Bush’s real rival was Marco Rubio. It spent $35 million trying to destroy Rubio before it dropped its first $25,000 attacking Trump.

Over the weekend, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus showed the first public signs of acceptance about what’s in store for the party. He finally acknowledged that the Republican nominee was probably going to be determined on the convention floor in Cleveland.

La, the drama! This is just the butthurt talking. Jonah is still in modest denial. I’ll make three predictions:

  1. Donald Trump is going to acquire the necessary 1,237 delegates before the Republican National Convention
  2. Donald Trump is going to be the Republican candidate for president
  3. There will be no GOPe third-party candidate. The GOPe will, however reluctantly, fall in line behind Donald Trump.

I’m not saying every neocon will; Bill Kristol may well lose it and announce that he is supporting Benjamin Netanyahu for president, but once the big money guys realize that Trump is not only going to be the nominee, but beat Hillary Clinton handily, the small fry will obediently fall in line, however much they might grumble.

There are going to be more Islamic State attacks. Some of them may be in the USA. And every single one is going to drive more support to Trump. Remember, these guys have no principles. Once the Trump Train looks sufficiently inevitable, they’ll all be scrambling to avoid being the last on board.

Bud Grant, philosopher

I only met him once, but I still love the old man. He defines old school common sense and toughness:

The MMQB: If Marv Levy hadn’t lost four Super Bowls with the Bills, your team would’ve been the NFL benchmark for almost winning it all, over and over again. Do you feel more pride in having reached four Super Bowls, or ignominy for having lost them all?

Grant: We got paid. We won. We came back, and we won again and again. But you have to remember one thing: Football is entertainment; it’s not life or death. Once the game is over, you’re already talking about next year and the draft. It’s just entertainment. It’s like going to a play: When it’s over, you walk out the door and it’s over. There are no residuals to it. You’ve got to start all over again. If winning or losing is going to define your life, you’re on a rough road.

There you go. You cannot let winning or losing define your life, whether it is a paralyzing fear of failure or a psychotic need to win at everything. Do the best you can, train hard, and when you line up for the playing of the national anthem, you damned well stand up straight and in a straight line.

And after the game, whether you win or lose, you face your opponent and you shake his hand. If you can’t even do that, then what good are you?

A world of niches

Mike Cernovich explains the true meaning of “be yourself”:

People ask me why I do what I do on Twitter. The only reason my antics seem “off” is because you’re comparing me to others in my genre. You have a vision based on how I am supposed to act. That vision is based on how others act.

What good would it do me to act like everyone else?

But there is no one else like me online. I’m more than a troll. I combine a unique blend of mindset, masculinity and trolling with a nuanced discussion of sensitive issues.

If I played Mr. Reasonable, I’d be another fungible good. There are hundreds of other people saying the same stuff as everyone else. Why join a conversation only to be like everyone else?

If I played up the Mr. Self Help Guru game, I’d have to get Botox like Tony Robbins and pretend to like people in order to take their money. I’d rather call out assholes than kiss up to them for cash.

You gotta play your own game.

How can you find that game? As cliche as it sounds, you must first find yourself.

In like manner, I often have people telling me how much more effective I would be if I was more patient, less contemptuous, and played more nicely with others.

But that’s not who I am. Just as Mike is a cheerful brawler who gets in people’s faces, I am an arrogant, solitary creature of the night who silently broods about things and makes plans while other people are sleeping.

A study recently came out that said intelligent people are happier if they don’t spend too much time with their friends. I think that’s largely true. I am one of the happiest people I know, which is somewhat remarkable in light of how it’s hard not to see violence, bloodshed, conflict, and war on almost every horizon. But I’m happy nevertheless because I only spend time with my favorite people and otherwise doing exactly what I want to be doing… for the most part. I rather like the niche in which I have found myself; dark lording suits me.

That being said, paperwork is the bane of my existence. You have no idea how much paperwork is involved in running the Evil Legion of Evil.

And from the Christian perspective, how can we serve God if we are trying to be someone else, and play someone else’s role? Play your own game. Don’t try to play someone else’s, because it rings false, it won’t suit you, and you will not play it well.

Some things never grow old

I’m not sure what amuses me more: 1) the way atheists get annoyed whenever they see my name among the Best Sellers in Atheism, or, 2) the way the SF-SJWs always try to minimize category bestsellers by pointing out the fact that there are lots of niche categories on Amazon.

Which is, of course, true, but the relevant point is that in these particular cases, it’s not just any category, but intellectually significant categories such as Atheism, Politics, and Philosophy. Which makes me, quite literally, a bestselling philosopher. Sadly, I have thus far been unsuccessful at convincing Spacebunny to tell people that “philosopher” is my occupation. Maybe if I started wearing a wooden barrel….

In any event, I would like to sincerely congratulate my co-author, Dominic, for his first top-three bestseller in the Atheism category. Not bad for a former denizen of richarddawkins.net. And I’d like to thank all of you for making that happen.

Let me explain how this Internet thing works

Bryan Thomas Schmidt doesn’t seem to realize that it’s a very bad idea to say one thing in public and another in private.

He posted this on Facebook yesterday:

“So apparently the abominable Vox Day put me on his Hugo list this year. First I heard if it. I have paid NO attention this year to lists, etc. I would demand removal but he clearly cares not what people think and states flat out he will not entertain removal requests. I “No Awarded” him last year and would again. I do not approve of this and see it as his attempt to do me further harm. Just going to ignore.”

Just a few hours before emailing me this:

don’t have eligible works of any note this year for Long Form Editor. FYI. Would appreciate being left off the list.

Thanks.
BTS

Now, I find it mildly amusing that Bryan Thomas Schmidt thinks I care enough about him to attempt to do him any harm, especially because he has managed to destroy his credibility more thoroughly than I could have if I tried. But as we are reliably informed that he has no eligible works of any note, I have replaced him in the Best Editor, Long Form category with Jim Minz of Baen Books. I trust he will be suitably grateful for my kindness.

I respect confidences, I abide by NDAs, and I keep the secrets I am told, but I do not provide cover for liars.