Be prepared this summer

The attacking antifas ended up getting their asses handed to them despite having a 6-1 advantage when they attacked a small nationalist rally in Sacramento, but next time they might be better prepared. This is still pretty tame, as civic violence goes, but outside of the occasional inner city rioting, it is nearly unprecedented in the last 45 years.

Note how the attack quickly breaks down into skirmish mode; even a modicum of discipline would be sufficient to rout either side. If you’re going to a rally this summer, go in groups and have attack, defense, and retreat plans in mind. And if your friends don’t have your flanks or back, keep your head on a swivel!

Notice that the antifas attacked the media too.

Apparently everyone is a Nazi now; “voxday” is listed as #8208 in the TrumpenReich.

A lost faith

Even some of the EU’s most instinctive supporters are turning from it in disgust:

 I actually used to be a big proponent of the EU. I was aware of the obvious problems, but I thought the achievements (long-term peace in Europe, war between Germany and France having become unthinkable, EU aid helping make the likes of Spain and Ireland more prosperous, and EU-required reforms making Eastern European countries modernize) more than made up for the organization itself being notoriously undemocratic. Europe was for a long time peaceful and prosperous, and the EU seemed to be a contributing factor to that.

However, during the last 10 years it has become very clear that the EU is simply not working. Take the Euro for example. While it’s very convenient to able to use the same type of money in many different EU countries, forcing vastly different countries (ranging from Cyprus and Ireland to Slovakia and Germany) to share the same currency basically imposed a rigid one-size-fits-all model on economies that had very little in common. As a result of losing monetary sovereignty, Eurozone countries could (and did) struggle mightily economically while lacking many of the monetary options for stimulating their economies that countries with their own currencies have at their disposal – like cutting interest rates. Member states are instead at the mercy of the European Central Bank, and good luck exerting influence over that behemoth if you’re a small country!

But losing monetary sovereignty is peanuts compared to what has happened to EU member Greece – a country in crippling debt and with a broken economy that instead of getting vital debt relief, or being allowed to go bankrupt in a controlled fashion, has been forced through a torturous journey of repeatedly cutting spending and raising taxes in return for short-term loans that hardly even benefit the Greek people. Forget about the fact that Greece is NEVER going to be able to repay its debt, and that forcing it to continue to try doing so only prevents the Greek economy from growing and adds to economic uncertainty in the EU as a whole. Germany, under the leadership of Angela Merkel (who is also the de facto leader of the EU), demands that Greece keep destroying its economy and society, while impoverishing its people, in order to set a good example to the rest of Europe/be made an example out of. It’s a Sisyphean task if I ever saw one.

Germany’s dominance over the EU under Merkel has generally been a complete disaster – whether it comes to her insistence of perpetually prolonging the Greek Crisis, imposing excessive Austerity across the EU in the name of reigning in budget deficits, stifling job growth and economic growth in the process (never mind that Germany itself ran significant budget deficits to boost employment and get its economy growing again little more than a decade ago) or her borderline treasonous refugee policy, Merkel’s stubbornness and stupidity has done incalculable damage to Europe as a whole. And the EU has only served to enable and amplify her madness.

For example, instead of trying to prevent Merkel from flooding Europe with Muslim migrants, the EU is looking for ways to fine and otherwise punish poor Eastern European countries (the kind of member states the EU of old would be trying to support and develop) for not letting themselves be “culturally enriched” by 3rd world Muslims. Instead of letting the people have their say about how the Establishment’s policies are hurting all of Europe, the EU is leading the charge to Censor the internet, one of the last remaining bastions of free speech. And instead of trying gradually fix their multicultural mistakes, the EU Elites are pledging to prevent the “far right” (the only force in Europe actually willing to prevent Suicide by Muslim Immigration) from ever taking power.

As socionomics would have it, the EU is an artifact of the psychological mood that accompanies economic good times, the result of collective intoxication on the heady stimulant of a massive credit bubble. It should come as no surprise to anyone who is socionomically aware that the financial crisis of 2008 has, after eight years of increasing turmoil, led to the political crisis of 2016.

Since these events tend to follow a certain pattern, and they tend to pick up speed rather than slow down, we can reasonably anticipate that the political crisis of 2016 will lead to the political collapse of 2020, followed by the first war to take place in formerly EU territory in 2022.

So, I don’t think “reform” is an option for the EU anymore. It can be dismantled in an orderly fashion or in a violent and disorderly one, and considering the haughty, delusional self-importance of its unelected leaders, I anticipate their desperate attempts to hang onto power will bring about the latter.

After all, you can take the East German girl out of East Germany, but you can’t take the DDR out of her.

Angela Merkel says EU must act to stop countries “fleeing” EU.”

Perhaps she could build… a wall? (raises pinky to corner of mouth)

The Missionaries by Owen Stanley

The Missionaries is a story of the collision of three cultures. A
brilliant tale of ineptitude, self-righteousness, and human folly, it
combines the mordant wit of W. Somerset Maugham with a sense of humor
reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse.

When Dr. Sydney Prout is named the head of the United Nations
mission to Elephant Island, he believes he is more than ready to meet
the challenge of guiding its primitive inhabitants into the
post-Colonial era, and eventually, full independence. But neither his
many academic credentials nor the Journal of Race Relations have
prepared Dr. Prout to reckon with the unrepentant bloody-mindedness of
the natives, or anticipate the inventive ways their tribal philosophers
will incorporate the most unlikely aspects of modern civilization into
their religious lore and traditional way of life.

Author Owen Stanley is an Australian explorer, a philosopher, and a
poet who speaks seven languages. He is at much at home in the remote
jungles of the South Pacific as flying his Staudacher aerobatic plane,
deep-sea diving, or translating the complete works of Charles Darwin
into Tok Pisin.

We release a book or two every month, up to five or six if you include print editions and audiobooks. And while I always put up posts here to let you know about them, I seldom play favorites or make a hard pitch for a particular book.

But if you read just one Castalia House book, The Missionaries is the one you really ought to read. It is, in the collective opinion of everyone at Castalia involved in the production, one of the two best books we have published to date, the other one being John C. Wright’s Awake in the Night Land, if not the best.


The Missionaries is not science fiction. It is not military strategy. It is neither history nor political philosophy, and while it does contain a single reference to gardening, it definitely isn’t anything an expert gardener such as David the Good would recommend. We didn’t even have an internal category in which to list the book except “fiction”. It’s the first purely literary novel we’ve published, and yet, it is exactly the sort of book Castalia House was created to publish in the first place, the kind of book that no other publisher would ever dare to touch. The Missionaries is a satirical novel in the vein of Evelyn Waugh or Joseph Heller and it is not an exaggeration to say it is capable of one day being considered a classic.

Owen Stanley’s debut novel is intelligent, it is erudite, it is educated, it is almost astonishingly offensive to delicate modern political sensibilities, and above all, it is funny. One would have to either be perfectly politically correct or totally devoid of any sense of humor to read this book without occasionally finding oneself laughing aloud, usually in disbelief. If you are a reader, then you must read this book. Seriously, it’s that good.

But you need not take my word for it. From the early reviews of The Missionaries:

  • The author, Owen Stanley, writes in a rich, flamboyant style that I
    associate with the best early to mid-20th century writers, but without
    overdoing it and spoiling the story with grandiose verbiage. 
  • The work at hand is strongly recommended as thought-provoking, crafted
    with tremendous skill and control, brilliant in its choice of targets,
    and uproariously absurd.
  •  The Missionaries is both a rollicking, rip-roaring, old-fashioned great white
    hunter adventure as well as a hilariously stinging modern satire.
  •  It’ll probably be the funniest book you read all year. 
  • This one is Castalia’s best yet.

UPDATE: Thank you! The Missionaries is now the #1 bestseller in Literary Satire.

     

    June Brainstorm

    If you’re a member, check your email for the registration information. We’ll be meeting tomorrow night at 7 PM EST. Author Nick Cole will be the guest, as we will be talking about some SIGNIFICANT new developments in the publishing world, how they relate to Castalia House and independent publishing, and how we plan to respond to them. I’ll also be providing an update on the progress of Big Fork.

    This is the monthly Members Only event. And speaking of email and Castalia House, those who are New Release subscribers should check your email tomorrow morning.

    If you’re not a member of Brainstorm and you want to take part as well as support the open events, information on how to join is on the left sidebar. It is not cheap, but the general consensus appears to be that it is well worth it.

    Gamma stalker fail

    Camestros Fellatrix is still butthurt over being depantsed in the midst of his attempt to pose as a master of Aristotelian rhetoric that he’s been commenting almost nonstop about me ever since. (shakes head) Gammas are nothing if not predictable. Anyhow, it’s more than a little amusing to see him try to figure out how he can try to figure out how to produce a justification for calling me stupid while simultaneously undermining the significance of IQ:

    In Vox Day’s case, his claim is this: the difference in IQ score between man-who-made-Vox-grumpy (MWMVG) and Vox is >50 IQ score points. If we assume the MWMVG is at least in the average range (90-109) Vox is claiming an IQ score of >140 and possibly >159. Note that the upper end of just ‘average’ IQ has Vox claiming to be pretty much at the limit of meaningful IQ scores on the most generous reading of IQ and even at the lower end well above the boundary which most reputable IQ test stop bothering to classify (around 130 IQ points). An informed (and presumably smart) person shouldn’t make a claim any more precise than ‘greater than 130’ – beyond that the figure as some sort of intrinsic property of a person that would be consistent across multiple methods of quantification doesn’t make sense EVEN ASSUMING IQ MAKES MUCH SENSE ANYWAY.

    Put let’s take that figure of 130. Let’s say Vox is taking a more grounded view of his own IQ and is seeing himself as 130. A 50 point difference would put the MWMVG at an IQ of below 80. For comparison, an IQ of below 70 is used diagnostically as evidence of intellectual disability. An IQ of 80 to 70 is likely to represent somebody who would struggle with school and many cognitive tasks (assuming the score was representative). Which would be an odd thing for Vox to claim – after he is attempting to write a point-by-point rebuttal of what the MWMVG and struggling to do so, claiming that he is struggling to counter an argument from a person with an IQ lower than 80 would be tantamount to claiming he really doesn’t know what he is talking about.

    Aaron doesn’t make me grumpy in the slightest. I find his determination, shared by a few similarly stupid File 770 headcases, to stake his reputation on my being wrong every single time in all circumstances, to be downright funny. It is always a pleasure to see one’s expectations met so reliably.

    Especially considering how his fixation led him to publicly conclude that LEEEROY JENKINS was the greatest battlefield commander in military history.

    Anyhow, Cammy has unnecessarily occupied himself with trying to assess “a more grounded view” of my IQ, in that its lower limit is a matter of public record. I was a member of Mensa, so obviously my IQ is above 132. More importantly, I was also a National Merit Finalist prior to the 1993 renorming of the PSAT, so it is equally apparent that my IQ must also be above 140. Therefore, the minimum estimated IQ for Aaron is 90, which is in the average range, and may actually be considered a little generous in light of the obvious silliness of his expressed position on tactical matters.

    And then, of course, there is the perhaps-not-entirely-irrelevant fact that I already posted it.

    We have now reached the point at which you should feel free to:

    • Explain why you reject IQ as a metric for intelligence. Preferably at length and with personal anecdotes.
    • Lecture us on the 34 different types of intelligence, as well as which ones are best.
    • Tell us how you were out partying the night before the SAT and you were totally hungover when you took it and besides you don’t care.
    • Brag about your 800 IQ.
    • Inform us of your Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy of Language from the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago!
    It’s totally going to fool everyone. I guarantee it. No one will ever be able to ascertain your true motivations. We’ve never seen or heard anyone do anything like it before.
    Anyhow, this is nothing more than Vox’s First Law in action: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.

    Everybody else is racist!

    A cuckservative clucks an oft-heard theme:

     The norm throughout history has been that different peoples are different, and that one people would either replace another peoples culture, or even replace them outright genetically.  That is the default, and a default which is still the norm in this day and age throughout most of the world.  The great exception to this is the exceptionalism the embodies America.

    Ours is a civic heritage that transcends ethnicity and is not restricted by geographic extent.  And because that is so ingrained into the very essence of America, that there is a revulsion against the global and historical default to define a people by blood or land.

    And so, the not-so-great hullabaloo of the “cuckservative” flap reared its head.  The vast majority of conservatives, including the veritable Ace of Spades, the veritable Stacy McCain, Erick Erickson, the folks over at HotAir, and especially SooperMexican (who was subject to rac­ist insults), have outted the White supremacists who are pushing the term — though the term has had its defenders….

    These groups and individuals who used “cuckservative” to rage against racial marginalization are defaulting to the tribal norm that has held back humanity throughout the world and throughout history.  It is a rejection of American Exceptionalism, just as much as the Progressivism is a rejection of the same.

    But it is true that destroying Western Civilization and America more specifically is a goal of the Progressive Left in order to create a “blank slate” upon which they may paint their deluded pseudo-utopias.  Sweden is but one international example, but this drive towards eliminating White people eliminated in a “soft genocide” does exist and there are indeed those who would love to do exactly what many of the “anti-racism” crowd most fear.

    In conclusion: Would you prefer an America with the physical characteristics and beliefs of Thomas Sowell, or an America with the physical characteristics and beliefs of the Swedish Prime Minister?

    First, this is more of our friend Sarah’s ridiculous “born American in Portugal” nonsense. It isn’t historical, it isn’t true, and it isn’t intellectually honest. It’s just lofty, but nonsensical rhetoric meant to convince through evading one’s logical circuits by appealing directly to one’s emotions. The American civic heritage does not “transcend ethnicity”, as I, or any other American Indian, can tell you. And it is restricted by geographic extent. The Chinese, the Portuguese, the Swedes, and the British are not Americans.

    Second, a people are defined primarily by their blood, secondarily by their land, tertially by their religion. There are no other definitions. America is not a Proposition Nation, which is easily provable as no one has ever lost their American status for failing to abide by whatever these mythical propositions might be, or granted American status on the sole basis of claiming to accept those propositions.

    If you still claim that America is a Proposition Nation despite it having been conclusively proven that it was not and never was, you are worse than ignorant. You are either in denial or you are a deceiver.

    Third, the Alt-Right does reject American Exceptionalism. There is nothing exceptional about America except its superior founding stock and its geographic advantages, both of which are now significantly reduced. Indeed, in light of how rapidly America squandered its unique post-WWII military and economic superiority, one can quite reasonably argue that it is the least exceptional empire since the Austro-Hungarian.

    Fourth, I would absolutely prefer an America with the physical characteristics and beliefs of the Swedish Prime Minister to those of Thomas Sowell, especially after the Sweden Democrats take power. This is for three reasons:

    1. Genetic Reversion to the Mean.
    2. The MAOA-2R gene.
    3. Based on my personal interactions with him, Dr. Sowell is neither as smart nor is he as intellectually honest as most conservatives wish to believe.

    Fifth, an absolute priority of not being racist is neither a functional ideology nor a sound foundation for public policy. Regardless of one’s personal perspective, the historical reality is that racism is far closer to being the solution than it is to being the problem.

    The decline of entrepreneurship in America

    The media is beginning to notice that there are fewer and fewer startups in the USA every year:

    If you look at what’s happened in big cities around the U.S. in recent years, it’s easy to think we’re living in Startup Nation. Thanks to the plummeting cost and increased availability of digital tools, as well as greater access to early-stage funding, we’ve seen what the Economist has called a “Cambrian moment,” with digital startups “bubbling up in an astonishing variety of services and products.” The number of companies in Silicon Valley that got seed funding from investors, for instance, more than doubled between 2007 and 2012. Venture capital funding in the U.S. over the last five years has totaled a remarkable $238 billion, and 200 companies today are so-called unicorns, privately valued at more than a billion dollars each.

    Meanwhile, though, a host of economic researchers have been telling a much bleaker story: American entrepreneurship is actually on the decline, and has been for decades. As the economists Ian Hathaway and Robert Litan documented in a 2014 Brookings Institution paper, the percentage of U.S. firms that were less than a year old fell by almost half between 1978 and 2011, declining precipitously during the recession of 2007-’09 with only a slow recovery after. According to the Commerce Department, the number of new businesses started by Americans has fallen sharply since 2000, and so too has the percentage of American workers working for companies that are less than a year old. Indeed, in 2013 Americans started fewer businesses than they did in 1980, when the country’s population was much smaller. This decline isn’t just due to the aging of the U.S. population—Americans of all ages just seem less likely to open new businesses than they once were. And, as Hathaway and Litan put it, the decline “has been documented across a broad range of sectors in the U.S. economy, even in high-tech.”

    Speaking as a successful entrepreneur who left the country, who is the son of a very successful entrepreneur who is presently in prison, it’s not exactly difficult to understand why Americans are considerably less inclined and less able to start businesses than they were 36 years ago.

    1. The rapacious and criminal tax agencies. You would probably not believe the shenanigans and outright lies these agents habitually engage in if you did not see it in black-and-white documents right in front of you. Even those who think my father merited an amount of jail time for his actions are aghast when they find out what actually happened, and how absurdly egregious the behavior of the various agencies was.
    2. The increasing regulatory and reporting burden. Why go to the effort of building up a company when doing so is the equivalent of painting a big red target on your chest? As one of my entrepreneurial friends said after shutting down his company and taking a job for a big tech firm, “it’s so nice not having to deal with all that shit anymore.” In the USA, self-employment often feels more like working for the government as a paper-pusher. Just trying to get your head around why part-time external contractors who are clearly not your employees must be treated as employees for various compliance purposes is enough to give anyone a headache.
    3. The criminalization of commerce. These days, it’s more work to file the paperwork required to get paid by a big corporation than it is to do the work itself.
    4. The dumbing-down of the populace. Thanks to post-1965 immigration, Americans are 4-6 IQ points less intelligent than they were back in 1980. Less intelligent people are less inclined to start jobs.
    5. Emigration. Many of the American expats I meet around the world are highly intelligent and entrepreneurial. Few of them have any desire or intention to return to the USA. This is a fairly small group of people, but they are a statistically significant percentage of the entrepreneurial class.
    6. International competition. The Internet and semi-free trade means that one no longer needs to live in the USA to have access to its markets. So, would-be American entrepreneurs are much more likely to be beaten to the punch by foreign entrepreneurs exploiting American markets than was the case in 1980.
    7. The politicization of culture. Why start, say, a bakery, if you know you’re going to be forced to choose between being sued into oblivion and violating your conscience as well as your right to free association?
    That being said, the situation isn’t much better elsewhere. The worse the global economy gets, the more desperate the various governments are for tax revenue, and the more intensely they go tax-hunting among the successful entrepreneurial class. The first country to offer legal protection and operational assistance to the international entrepreneurs being preyed on in this manner is going to do very well indeed, and do so at the expense of the other countries.

    Just wait, Germany

    I don’t think the German leadership has yet understood the lesson of #Brexit:

    German Leadership Aghast at a Brexit It Helped Cause

    Germans – especially German politicians – are waking up this morning to the Brexit reality, and their initial reactions are predictable.  Shock appears to be the overwhelming emotion, followed closely by sadness, anger, and then subdued panic.

    The Social Democratic Party, a partner in the governing black-red coalition, has called for an emergency session of the Bundestag today.  (One wonders what this would accomplish except perhaps to issue a statement aimed at shoring up EU solidarity in other wavering member states, or maybe just express petulance.)  Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of a “sad day for Europe and Great Britain,” while the leader of the Left faction, Sahra Wagenknecht, used the occasion to lambaste the influence of corporations and lobbyists in Brussels (a non-factor in the British vote, as far as I know).

    One of the more thoughtful commentaries today is from Torsten Krauel in the right-of-center Die Welt.  Krauel asks whether German Chancellor Merkel is partially to blame for the Brexit and concludes her asylum policy almost certainly played a major role.  And indeed, the spectacle of Germany unilaterally deciding to change the face and future of the European Union by announcing Berlin had opened the doors to all comers – regardless of the wishes of or the impact this would have on other EU states – has been a powerful symbol of elite disconnect with the concerns of average Europeans and an uncomfortable reminder that Germany has come to dominate the union.  Krauel also points out Dover, the British end of the Channel Tunnel to the continent, voted 60 percent to leave.  Maybe this has something to do with the thousands of North African migrants seeking to storm the tunnel and cross to England?

    While loathe to admit it, Germans at some level suspect their country’s role in the discontent in Britain.  Speaking to German friends over the past several years, it’s been difficult not to come away with the sense many view the EU as an extension of Germany policy and as a respectable outlet for German nationalism that has been suppressed since the end of World War II.  A new path to German greatness, if you will, camouflaged by warm and fuzzy words about “Europeaness” and immune to complaints of skeptics, all of whom immediately are labeled as right-wing extremists – the kiss of death in German politics.

    For me, one of the takeaways from the referendum is the reminder that people care deeply about things other than pure economic interest.

    Imagine how surprised the German elites will be when their own nationalists throw them out of power, and if justice is served, put them on trial for their crimes against the nation.

    Quintessential cuckservatism

    Rod Dreher demonstrates the effete and useless nature of modern conservatism:

    The Speaker of the House of Representatives was shouted down by Democratic Congressman as he attempted to regain control of the House of Representatives. Actual US Congressmen behaving like a bunch of giddy Oberlin undergraduates.

    They had better not give in. Look, on gun control matters, I am generally — generally — more sympathetic to Democrats than to Republicans. But this mob insurrection on the House floor is profoundly unsettling. I have not looked closely at the legislation, so it is entirely possible that I might support the Democratic proposal. But to attempt to get one’s way by showing utter contempt for rules of the House? No. No, no, no. Their passion does not justify their behavior.

    This country is in trouble.

    You know he’s serious when he resorts to no less than FOUR (4) nos. This useless, limp-wristed excuse for a purported conservative “opinion leader”, this hapless, low-testosterone shadow of a man, is more concerned about fucking etiquette, than he is about the single most important right in the Bill of Rights.

    “Dear God, they’re sitting on the floor! Heavens to Betsy, whatever shall we do?”

    If you want to understand the key difference between the Alt Right and the Conservative movement, all you need to do is look at Rod Dreher. If he strikes you as a strong and principled Christian man standing up for what is right and true and important, then you are most definitely a Conservative.

    If he strikes you as missing the point so badly that he would have done far better to put on a dress, smear some lipstick on his face, and record a video reading from Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette, you just might be Alt Right.

    Why gun control will never happen

    Scott Adams explains the political impossibility of gun control in the USA:

    On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime.

    On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense.

    If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible.

    But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.

    That’s a gross generalization. Obviously. Your town might be totally different.

    So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles. And you can’t reconcile those interests, except on the margins. For example, both sides might agree that rocket launchers are a step too far. But Democrats are unlikely to talk Republicans out of gun ownership because it comes off as “Put down your gun so I can shoot you.”

    It does indeed, and not only to Republicans. What gun control advocates don’t understand is that they are advocating a very violent civil war that will lead to the end of the Union. Millions of Americans all across the country will absolutely shoot anyone who attempts to disarm them, and moreover, are also willing to shoot anyone who advocated their disarming.

    We all know that the government has its lists. Do you really think that gun owners don’t too? The only reason they’re not shooting gun control advocates now is because they don’t believe it to be necessary in order to keep their guns.

    Do you really want to convince them otherwise?