Musings on Immigration III

This is the third part of a guest post on the European migrant crisis:

In part II of this series, I considered ways the German and European authorities could attempt to handle the Migrant Crisis.  However, I rather doubt that the European Governments will have the nerve to embrace such measures.  They would have to cope with howls of outrage from the Left while balancing the suspicions of the Right that the measures utilized would eventually end up aimed at them.  Giving the government a vast amount of power may well mean, eventually, that the government will wind up using it in a manner you dislike.

Regardless of either intentions or morality, there is a further problem.  Germany, and almost every other European Governments, has been making alarming cuts in both its police and its deployable military forces.  Even if the German government works up the nerve to order draconian measures, it may find itself unable to actually enforce them.

Furthermore, as morale sinks within the police forces – it is unlikely that the German police very much enjoy the idea of putting down protest marches against rapist invaders – there may be a vast exodus of trained and experienced policemen. 

Therefore, it behoves us to study the three major possibilities for Germany’s future: Fascism, Balkanisation and Caliphate.

1. Fascism.

Let us assume, as I expect to happen, that Merkel’s government fails to both come to grips with the crisis and convince the vast majority of Germans that it is capable and competent.  As I said in the previous article, definite proof of a government cover-up ensures that the government will not be believed by the ordinary people.  As has been noted elsewhere, that which is half-seen is all the more disturbing to the imagination!  The government’s failure will both encourage the rise of vigilante groups of the streets of Germany and, almost certainly, empower politicians who intend to ride the crisis into power.  In times of crisis, voters tend to head to the right; a competent right-wing politician (a German version of Donald Trump) may well have a good chance of being elected into power.

He will be called a second Hitler, of course.  But how badly will that hurt his chances when Germans start asking themselves what Hitler would have done, faced with a howling mob of invaders?

Assuming this individual gets elected, what then?

Such a government will have few restraints.  International opinion rarely means squat to fascist dictatorships.  I imagine he would start by building up the police and security forces, then rounding up vast numbers of migrants and sealing them away in detention camps.  If there is nowhere else to put them, he may well open up the gas chambers and slaughter the migrants in job lots.  And if the situation in Germany continues, he may well be cheered as the migrants are summarily exterminated.

He will also purge Germany of everyone he considers politically undesirable.  The thought of Merkel standing trial for treason is quite a pleasing one, along with many other left-wing morons who somehow managed to climb into power.  However, it probably won’t stop there.  The technology available to the modern world for population control and surveillance would make the Spanish Inquisitors wet their pants.  Anyone who has expressed a politically-unsound opinion on Facebook (for example) would be targeted. 

Longer-term, he would need to come to terms with Germany’s demographic crisis.  I would expect ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ to be the order of the day for German womanhood; those babies have to be born!  General freedoms would probably be strongly limited; a smart fascist wouldn’t interfere too much with personal freedoms, but political freedom would be gone, once and for all.

There are people who would probably see this as a dream come true.  It isn’t.  The fascists might achieve their first set of objectives, but what then?  Staying in power would become a desperate imperative.  Why would anyone show them mercy when they have shown none?  Getting rid of a fascist government is far from easy.  Removing Saddam took a full-scale invasion.

Internationally, of course, a resurgent Germany with more than a whiff of Nazism would be a nightmare reborn.  And that’s about as far as I dare take this one.

2. Balkanisation

If we assume that the flow of migrants is not stopped, and the government fails to contain the situation, we may see, instead, the rise of a balkanised Germany.  The original no-go zones would expand rapidly to contain the newcomers, linking up into larger and larger communities where the original law no longer runs.   Without a strong police presence, real power would come to rest in the hands of radicals, men who will paint themselves as defending their communities against very real threats.  (By this point, there will probably be constant low-level fighting on the streets of Germany, giving them a genuine cause.)  Women will be forced under the veil; children will be taught to hate the surrounding German society.

Young German girls will be kidnapped and enslaved inside the communities.  There will be no hope of saving them from a life of rape and forced childbirth.

And any previous accommodation with the natives will be blown away.

This will probably cause a mass exodus of German civilians, either to safer parts of Germany (if they exist) or somewhere beyond German borders.  (The Poles might find it amusing to take German refugees, if they’re willing to behave; Putin might see advantage in doing the same.)

Or, alternatively, ‘German’ enclaves will fight to defend themselves against both the Islamic enclaves and the government (or what remains of it).  German soldier and policemen will desert to join their communities, bringing weapons and training with them.  Muslim soldiers within the German military will probably do the same, in the other direction.  Both sides will work desperately to build up their stockpiles of weapons, as the government’s ability to do anything crumbles.

There will be a great deal of fighting before matters settle down, particularly as the various sub-states start to form successor nations.

Each enclave will need to control its own food supplies – although it might be possible to starve an immigrant enclave into submission – and other issues arising from its separation from Germany.  We would be looking at scenes out of the Thirty Years War, perhaps worse.  Modern society is just not organised to support a large population during a time of major disruption.  I would imagine a truly fearsome death rate as society breaks down completely.

Long-term, who knows what will happen?

3. Caliphate

Tom Kratman’s Caliphate predicted a unified Islamic Empire controlling most of Europe, apart from Britain and Switzerland.  As chilling as his predictions were, there were a number of issues with them.  Muslims do not have one vast hive mind.  Different groups of Sunni terrorists/insurgents (a category that includes both ISIS and Al Qaeda) have different ideas about how best to govern territory when they finally take it.  The differences between Sunnis and Shias are far greater, with both sides determined to destroy the other.  (There is something to be said for pulling out of the Middle East and letting them kill each other.)  Finally, Arabs are often extremely racist towards other Muslims, which causes far more friction in the Muslim World. 

A united Caliphate, therefore, is actually the least likely scenario.  I would say that it is rather more likely that there is an Islamic France and an Islamic Germany that hate each other fully as much as the natives did, between 1870 and 1945.  To have a united Caliphate would require a group that managed to gain control of the political levers without either fracturing or provoking resistance before it was too late.  In my experience, large-scale conspiracies rarely work out in practice

Remember, neither Hitler nor Stalin had  a solid plan from Day One to take total power for themselves.  Instead, they were opportunists.  In both cases, they were riding tigers.  One slip and it would have been the end of them.

But let us imagine, for a moment, a powerful and charismatic ‘moderate’ Muslim who manages to work his way into a position of power.  Perhaps he’s the leader of a ‘reasonable’ Islamic Party that claims to believe in the rights of everyone, even non-Muslims.  His words are enough to soothe tensions on the streets, a process made easier by steadily replacing senior police and military officers with his own men.  A handful of radicals who are too noticeable even in a tame media environment get stoned to death, just to bolster his ratings.  His party even works its way into the EU and different national politics, making it clear that they’re the good guys.  See?  Accommodation works!

And then, one day, the coup.  The remaining non-Muslims (and Muslims who won’t toe the line) in government get rounded up.  Borders are closed, new security forces appear on the streets, Islamic Law is imposed, the nightmare begins….

Plausible?  I hope not.

Barring a major change in mindset, the Caliphate will rapidly start to decay, whatever happens.  The Middle-Eastern mentality is not suited to running a modern state.  However, they will inherit control of both a reasonably-modern military force and a nuclear arsenal.  Would they fire on the United States?  Or Russia?  Or Israel?

I don’t know how Kratman envisaged his Caliphate coming into existence, but maybe it was a little like that.

I think it’s fairly clear that none of these possibilities are very good ones.  Long-term, Germany and Europe would be in deep shit.  Even the ‘best’ of these outcomes, a fascist government, would be a nightmare on a hellish scale.  It would probably take a joint American-Russian invasion to put a stop to the reoccurrence of a historical nightmare, but almost certainly they would be too late to stop millions upon millions of people from dying, or worse.

And considering that the Americans and Russians cannot even cooperate in the relatively smaller matters of Ukraine and Syria, how likely is it that that they will be able to act in concert regarding the fate of Germany or Europe?

But no matter what, one thing is clear: Merkel Must Go!

The silencing of the tech lambs

An anonymous developer explains why he has to remain anonymous:

Religious wars in software used to be about a fat bearded man named He-macs wrestling a pencil-neck named Vimmy over what text editor to use, but now FOSS devs are concerned about making sure marginalized human beings feel “welcome,” as if someone was trying to physically block newcomers. That opens the door to social justice and other buzzwords that prigs use to feel better about themselves, and utopian visions documented in “Codes of Conduct,” or CoC.

The sentiment behind a CoC is that there is no excuse for being an ass, which sounds great until you realize that only a select few people get to decide who’s an ass. So when open source leaders want to stop you from doing free work they can pretend that its your fault for violating their code instead of admitting they never really wanted to include just anybody. They’ve managed to make exclusivity look inclusive, and it makes me crazy that so few people see that….

They exempt themselves from their own standards and announce their
willingness to proxy dox anyone if persuaded to do so on subjective
grounds. There is no privacy for you: If you look privileged and someone
makes up a story about you, you might get a concerned email from HR
about something making the rounds on Twitter and causing a PR nightmare
for your employer. Whether or not you actually did anything wrong won’t
matter.

Hacker Eric S. Raymond noticed the manipulation at work and indicated that women at tech conferences were targeting male open source leaders with false allegations. Accusations have power, and the 2013 PyCon incident with Adria Richards proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

We need to acknowledge the problem. If you are not considered worthy
of protection by ideological CoCs, then there are people out there that
want you to at the very least lose your job. If they see you
demonstrating even the most innocuous affection or humor, they will
likely assume malice and retaliate, especially if you are the wrong
color or sex. These are the same people who humiliated a scientist for
landing on a comet because of a shirt he wore.

If you think it’s bad now, just wait. The next step is going to be taking open source projects and closing them so that they cannot be forked. After all, what is the point of going to all this trouble to take over OSS if the productive people can simply render all their efforts irrelevant by a fork?

They don’t want a seat at the table, they want control. And what good is control if you can’t control everything?

As for those who say it’s not possible because the rules of open source don’t permit it, remember, they don’t only exempt themselves from their own standards, they exempt themselves from anything that limits their ability to pursue their objectives.

I was hoping to do the Open Brainstorm tonight, but we’ll do it tomorrow at 7 PM EST instead. I’ll send out the invites to the VFM tonight, and post the link publicly tomorrow afternoon.

Facebook is not your friend

Facebook has transformed itself into Big Brother. If you’re on it, it’s time to get off the platform:

Facebook began a Europe-wide campaign on Monday to thwart extremist posts on social media, after German politicians in particular raised concerns about a rise in xenophobic comments linked to an influx of refugees.

The U.S.-based group launched its “Initiative for Civil Courage Online” in Berlin, pledging over 1 million euros (1 million pounds) to support non-governmental organisations in their efforts to counter racist and xenophobic posts.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said hate speech “has no place in our society”, including in the Internet.

Facebook’s ground rules forbid bullying, harassment and threatening language, but critics say it does not enforce them properly. On Friday, the firm said it had hired a unit of the publisher Bertelsmann to monitor and delete racist posts on its platform in Germany.

One of the first things Facebook has apparently done, as part of this campaign “to counter racist and xenophobic posts”, is to expel over 1,000 members of the Facebook group “#GamerGate & #NotYourShield”. The 2,300-member Facebook group #GG  was also shut down yesterday.

Some have said that it was a group mod who was responsible; I’m not on Facebook and I wasn’t a member of those groups, so I don’t know. All I know is from an email sent by a member of both groups who was expelled from the first one.

Regardless, it is important to understand that Facebook is not your friend. Facebook is your enemy and it is the enemy of Western civilization. So stop supporting it. Stop using it.

UPDATE: Facebook has also repeatedly removed the video of a 15-year-old German girl who expressed her fears of those who have invaded her country on the grounds of xenophobia:

Hello, you can read the newspapers but this video is about the real situation in Germany. I would like to tell everyone about this on Youtube and Facebook. I am almost 16. I would like everyone to know what is going on, what I am authentically feeling at this moment.

And I am so scared everywhere. For example, if my family and I go out together, or if I see a movie with my friends. Usually I stay at home, but sometimes I stay out until 6 pm in winter, and it is so scary. It is just very hard to live day-to-day life as a woman.

I just want to say that I am not a racist. But one day, a terrible thing happened at the supermarket. I ran all the way home. I was so frightened for my life. There’s no other way to describe it.

My aunt and her friend have said you have to grow up. Why should we, children, have to grow up in such fear? It’s not just me, my friends too. You can see on Facebook, a 17 year old attacked, a 15 year old attacked, two 12-year olds attacked, so many. It is really so sad that this is happening … because of YOU PEOPLE. 🙁

Championship Weekend

I’m going to go with the conspiracy theorists. New England over Denver, because Brady is the better representative of the Old School NFL. Carolina over Arizona, because Cam Newton is a better representative of the New School NFL.

Then New School NFL over Old School NFL for the 50th Anniversary Super Bowl, thereby symbolically denoting the transformation of America into the New America. Predictive programming calls for Carolina.

One could, of course, reach the same conclusion simply by comparing teams, but it’s more fun to prognosticate The Game of Pigskins via the NFL Narrative.

Fear and fascination

Having successfully circumvented and stared down the American imperialists in both Crimea and Syria, The Saker suspects Vladimir Putin is about to purge Russia’s 5th column:

One of the possible signs of a purge to come is the fact that the Russian media, both the blogosphere and the big corporate media, is now very critical of the economic policies of the government of Prime Minister Medvedev. Most Russian economists agree that the real reason for the current economic crisis in Russia is not the falling price of oil or, even less so, the western sanctions, but the misguided decisions of the Russian Central Bank (such as floating the Ruble or keeping the interest rates high) and the lack of governmental action to support a real reform and development of the Russian economy. What is especially interesting is that vocal opponents of the current 5th column now get plenty of air time in the Russian media, including state owned VGTRK. Leading opponents of the current economic policies, such as Sergei Glazev, Mikhail Deliagin or Mikhail Khazin are now interviewed at length and given all the time needed to absolutely blast the economic policies of the Medvedev government. And yet, Putin is still taking no visible action. In fact, in his latest yearly address he as even praised the work of the Russian Central Bank. So what is going on here?

First, and to those exposed to the western propaganda, this might be difficult to imagine, but Putin is constrained simply by the rule of law. He cannot just send some special forces and have all these folks arrested on some kind of charge of corruption, malfeasance or sabotage. Many in Russia very much regret that, but this is fact of life.

In theory, Putin could simply fire the entire (or part) of the government and appoint a different Governor to the Central Bank. But the problem with that is that it would trigger an extremely violent reaction from the West. Mikhail Deliagin recently declared that if Putin did this, the West’s reaction would be even more violent than after the Crimean reunification with Russia. Is he right? Maybe. But I personally believe that Putin is not only concerned about the reaction of the West, but also from the Russian elites, particularly those well off, who generally already intensely dislike Putin and who would see such a purge as an attack on their personal and vital interests. The combination of US subversion and local big money definitely has the ability to create some kind of crisis in Russia. This is, I think, by far the biggest threat Putin his facing. But here also we can observe a paradoxical dynamic:

One one hand, Russia and the West have been in an open confrontation ever since Russian prevented the USA from attacking Syria. The Ukrainian crisis only made things worse. Add to this the dropped prices on oil and the western sanctions and you could say that Putin now, more then ever, needs to avoid anything which could make the crisis even worse.

But on the other hand, this argument can be flipped around by saying that considering how bad the tensions already are and considering that the West has already done all it can to harm Russia, is this not the perfect time to finally clean house and get right of the 5th column? Really – how much worse can things really get?

Only Putin knows the answer to this simply because only he has all the facts. All we can do is observe that the popular discontent with the “economic block” of the government and with the Central Bank is most definitely growing and growing fast, and that the Kremlin is doing nothing to inhibit or suppress such feelings. We can also notice that while most Russians are angry, disgusted and frustrated with the economic policies of the Medvedev government, Putin’s personal popularity is still sky high in spite of the fact that the Russian economy most definitely took a hit, even if it was much smaller than what the AngloZionist Empire had hoped for.

My strictly personal explanation for what is happening is this: Putin is deliberately letting things get worse because he knows that the popular anger will not be directed at him, but only at his enemies.

Vladimir Putin is a patient man, but he is also capable of acting very quickly when he senses an opportunity. And the global economic crisis combined with the European migrant crisis is going to permit him to act without fear of a coherent and effective response, particularly in light of the way in which the Trump insurgency has them far more concerned about their control over the seat of their power than about the fate of their vassals in Russia.

For five decades, the imperialist trump card has been the economy. Play along and get rich, refuse to play along and get replaced by someone else who will get rich. But the credit boom ended in 2008 and the game of musical chairs began. The imperialists are now half-occupied with making sure they have a seat; there is no room at the table for new players.

The game has changed. How the new game will take shape is, as yet, unknown, but I am certain the attempt to keep it going by banning cash and exerting total financial control will not only fail, it may take down those authorities who turn to it.

Forget “interesting”. These are frightening, but absolutely fascinating times. These are the interesting parts of history.

Mailvox: a convention, converged

The lesson, as always, is this: don’t ever take McRapey’s advice:

Arisia is a mid-sized sf and fantasy convention in Boston which has been taken over by SJW’s despite some of us attempting to resist them. This year’s GOH was John Scalzi who triggered several changes to the code of conduct.

However, the con chair wasn’t satisfied was that. She insisted that every attendee sign a printed copy of the COC, even though it required 5 point type to fit on a single page. The con cobbled together new registration software and procedures to fulfill this requirement, but there were many problems with it. The registration line reached nearly 3 hours though its peak last year had been about 20 minutes.

Furthermore, faced with this fiasco, the con chair still was unwilling to back off the requirement to expedite registration.

Prediction: attendance at the conventions that have adopted Codes of Conduct that affect the experience in any way will gradually fall off. I know that in the Django project, the amount of emails and posts have already fallen off considerably, because everyone is, quite rightly, afraid that saying anything will make them a target of SJW attack.

This is why you don’t permit their entryists in the first place, and why you certainly don’t give into their demands. Convergence always eventually kills the converged organization unless it can latch onto a host that will financially sustain it.

No Code of Conduct

Paul M Jones provides another good way to address SJW entryst attacks:

What is NCoC

No Code Of Conduct is a groundbreaking new idea. Designed to help you find communities and projects that will not get stuck endlessly debating how members should behave in their communities, only to be found to never be fully resolved to anyone’s liking. What if… we all agreed?

    We are all adults. Capable of having adult discussions.

    We accept everyone’s contributions, we don’t care if you’re liberal or conservative, black or white, straight or gay, or anything in between! In fact, we won’t bring it up, or ask. We simply do not care.

    Nothing else matters!

Q: Great! How do I add this to my project?

Simply copy CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md into the root directory of your project. You may modify it to your needs.

Q: How do I promote No Code of Conduct?

Feel free to talk about, discuss, and promote No Code of Conduct anywhere you wish, and use the hashtag #NCoC on Twitter.

Q: What if, this makes me feel discriminated against?

If you feel this way simply because we do not have a code of conduct, it is hard for anyone to relate to you. This is not intended to discriminate against anyone. Simply because we don’t babysit people on our site to make sure they treat you with respect, does not mean we hope you feel unwelcome, or that you are treated without respect. That is just not something we have time for.

I still favor the One-Finger Code of Conduct myself, but there is certainly a place for the No Code of Conduct as well as the Code of Merit.

SJWs in tech

“Women in Tech” is not only code for “SJWs in Tech”, but it is a massive waste of resources and it is extremely harmful to the women who are coerced and encouraged to waste their lives doing something for which they have neither the interest nor the commitment:

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
No individual with a useful skill set capable of delivering needs to be babied or coerced into working.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
You do women a terrible disservice by trying to convince those who are not seriously interested in the field to enter it.

Jennifer Medina ‏@JenniferJMedina
You do everyone a terrible disservice by discouraging every human being from being introduced to more of what life has to offer.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
You’re wrong. I save those people years of their lives and thousands of dollars by showing them what it ACTUALLY involves.

Jennifer Medina ‏@JenniferJMedina
I don’t give a flying fuck about your anecdotal evidence. Your personal views and life are not on the table of discussion here.

Wrongfan ‏@Badthincks
I am a STEM woman (mathematics) and he is right.  In fact I spent years trying to push girls into STEM.

Wrongfan ‏@Badthincks
It’s a waste of time to try and push ANYONE into something they have no genuine inclination for.

Considering how there are already far too many PhDs for the number of positions available, and that there are already 1,000 people applying for 12 game development positions, it should be obvious that encouraging uninterested women to go into a field where they are almost guaranteed to go unemployed is reprehensible.

Stats provided by Creative Skillset show that in 2014, 60 universities and colleges offered 215 undergraduate and 40 master video game courses. The most recent stats available, courtesy of the Higher Education Statistics Agency for the 2012/2013 academic year, show that 3,125 students were taking games as a subject of study.

Compare this with the 620 studios in the UK, according to TIGA, and you can see the difficulties studios face when lending experience in such a highly competitive field. Lenton says a local studio in  Leamington Spa, which houses around up to 300 staff, recently had over 1,000 applications for a dozen places.

What are the chances that a girl who required hand-holding and cheerleading just to get her to pay any attention to the industry in the first place is going to be talented and driven enough to beat out the 98.8 percent of highly competitive young men and women who want nothing more than to make games?

That’s not career advice. That’s a fantasy novel.

National Review risks non-profit status

Justin Raimondo observes that Rich Lowry appears to have committed a serious legal blunder, as well as the obvious political one, with the “Stop Trump” issue:

The publication of a special “Stop Trump” issue of National Review was heralded in a blaze of publicity. Editor Rich Lowry appeared on Fox News and was interviewed by Trump nemesis Megyn Kelly, where he proceeded to denounce The Donald as a threat to the intellectual integrity of the conservative movement….

All well and good: there are plenty of reasons for principled conservatives (and libertarians) to oppose Trump. However, there’s one big problem with this well-publicized blast at The Donald.

In March of last year, Politico reported that National Review was becoming a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, which would enable it to solicit tax-deductible donations: “Since its launch, the magazine has operated as a not-for-profit business, even as it came to rely on more and more donations in recent years. Starting next month, it will become a nonprofit organization, which will make it exempt from federal taxes. National Review also plans to merge with the nonprofit National Review Institute, its sister organization, according to a source with knowledge of the plans.”

Rich Lowry averred that the shift would be good for the magazine, which was fighting a costly lawsuit and had never been profitable anyway. “We’re a mission and a cause, not a profit-making business,” he told Politico. “The advantage of the move is that all the generous people who give us their support every year will now be able to give tax-deductible contributions, and that we will be able to do more fundraising, in keeping with our goal to keep growing in the years ahead.’”

This anti-Trump issue of National Review is, in effect, a campaign pamphlet directed against a political candidate—indeed, the cover proclaims “Against Trump”—and, as such, is in clear violation of IRS statutes regulating nonprofit organizations.

The regulations are quite explicit that nonprofit organizations must “not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.”

I’m sorry, I have no cogent analysis to offer; I’m not even sure what the article said. I found it hard to pay attention after cracking up when I got to the part about “the intellectual integrity of the conservative movement.”

That’s a good one!

Pity the poor orcs

The Head of the White Council writes an important letter to the Minas Tirith Times:

One of the major challenges that we face today, on a global scale, is how to protect people who have been forced, by armed conflict, human right abuse or other forms of persecution to flee their homelands.

  Overwhelmingly, refugees do not willingly leave their homes and families.   They do not come to Gondor seeking financial advancement.   Most do not even leave with a final destination in mind.

   They leave because of the fear of what will happen to them if they don’t.

  They leave because of the persecution and abuse that they have faced on a daily basis.

  As a country, Gondor shares responsibility with the rest of the international community, for protecting these refugees by offering them a place where they can be safe. 

Read the rest of it there.