Thank you, Winter-chan

It’s their fault and it’s not our problem. Besides, as both Napoleon and Hitler learned the hard way, invaders freezing to death during winter is a feature, not a bug.

Migrants crossing the Balkans will begin freezing to death as winter approaches, the head of European Union has said, as leaders warned the continent was “falling apart” trying to deal with the biggest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War.

As leaders of eastern European countries turned on each other at a foul-tempered emergency summit in Brussels, they said the Schengen visa-free zone and even the European Union itself could be pulled apart as states threw up borders to halt the influx.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, said a solution was urgently needed or thousands of refugee families facing winter temperature on the hillsides and freezing river-banks of Eastern Europe, would die.

“Every day counts,” he said. “Otherwise we will soon see families in cold rivers in the Balkans perish miserably.”

Miro Cerar, the Slovenian prime minister, said the EU was days from collapse as his country buckled under an “unbearable” influx of migrants. “If we do not deliver some immediate and concrete actions on the ground in the next few days and weeks I believe the EU and Europe as a whole will start falling apart,” he said.

Werner Faymann, the Austrian chancellor, said Sunday’s meeting would “either consolidate the unity of Europe or watch the slow decomposition of the EU.”

First of all, the continent of Europe is not going to fall apart no matter what happens. Second, the EU has already started falling apart, as the various walls going up and Euroskeptic parties winning elections in former EU candidates like Poland demonstrates. Third, what “unity of Europe”? Faymann might as have reasonably appealed to consolidating the unicorn of Europe. The EU is already mortally wounded, it just hasn’t stopped thrashing about yet.

If the EU leaders genuinely care about the poor families in cold rivers” (which they absolutely don’t), there is a very simple and straightforward solution that is certain to save thousands of lives. Start sending immigrants back to their homelands and show it on television. Repeatedly. Incessantly. Once people see that the entire arduous ordeal is guaranteed to be for nothing, they will turn back. Or not begin the long march in the first place.

The EU leaders clearly don’t understand that most Europeans will be as happy to see the invaders fall to General Winter as the Russian people were to see the French, and later the Germans, do the same. They’re about to learn what the US leaders learned after Sandy Hook: the sob stories are not fooling anyone any longer.

With 3,175 migrant deaths in 2015 vs 125 total Berlin Wall deaths, Angela Merkel has killed more people than any German leader since Hitler.

NFL open thread

Well, starting the Bills defense against Jacksonville looked a lot better on paper than it has in London. This is your weekly NFL open thread.

Hard-core wargamers only

A rather interesting situation has presented itself. I was looking up a much-anticipated reprinting of a board-and-counters wargame that is a particular favorite of mine, and in doing so, I reached the conclusion that the publisher was a one-man operation that is desperately in need of the sort of volunteer help that has made Castalia House so successful.

In the interest of paying things forward, both Ender and I have volunteered certain of our services that are needed; we are translating the new rules into two languages and I’m planning to create a weekly blog post at CH dedicated to wargaming to which various wargamers, myself included, will contribute. This weekly post will prominently feature the publisher’s games, particularly the occasional new release. We’re also going to help proofread and playtest the game being reprinted.

I think other wargamers here will be interested in helping out in various capacities, which could even involve petty investment to help cover the initial print runs. These are the sort of hobby businesses that die on the vine without the support of the community, and unfortunately, the sort of men who are inclined to rescue the obscure heritage of the past are almost always the sort of men who have absolutely no ability to build the sort of communities that can sustain them.

If you’re an old Avalon Hill/SPI wargamer and this sounds of interest to you, email me with WARGAME in the subject. I’ll be hosting a Brainstorm concerning this soon; after I email you back, I’ll want you to think about what you might be able to bring to the table. And if we really want to get crazy, if we have the right combination of talents, we could even think about taking some of these games digital.

Mike Cernovich explains social media

If I learned one thing from having dinner with Mike in Barcelona, it is that he really knows what he’s talking about with regards to social media. I am absolutely convinced that if he was an attractive, thirty-something blonde woman, he would already have his own show on Fox.

Here is his response to people requesting links from him:

Book reviews by me have led to sales of:

    500 copies of Get Serious
    250 copies of Launch by Jeff Walker
    500 copies of Choose Yourself
    100 copies of SJWs Always Lie
    50 copies of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

The average book sells 250 in its first year. A review from me can sell that many by itself.

Those reviews also sell books forever, as many people find them after Googling, “[book title] review.”

Those are direct sales. Once you factor in word out mouth from your recommendations to your friends, the numbers are much higher.

I’ve sold more pre-sale copies of Essays on Embracing Masculinity in a few days than most authors will ever sell.

That’s not bragging. That’s simply reality.

Be honest. You want links from me because you want money for yourself. You want my links because you want money in your pocket or fame, or whatever.

That doesn’t make you a bad person. Be honest about your motivations when asking me for something. You’re not fooling me.

One reason that Mike, Milo, Roosh and I get along so well in spite of our many obvious differences is that we understand and respect what the others have accomplished in gradually building their platforms. I respect Mike’s mastery of social media, Milo’s incendiary star quality, and Roosh’s dogged courage. But above all, each of us comprehends the importance of being straightforward with the others and presenting a consistent allied front in the face of attacks from enemies and moderates alike.

As Mike notes, most people are short-sighted and self-serving. Such people can never be regarded as allies, not even if they share your beliefs and objectives, because they will turn on you the moment they believe, rightly or wrongly, it is in their immediate interest to do so. There are plenty of people who are regarded as “good” or “nice” who I do not trust at all and with whom I would never ally simply because I have seen them turn on someone for inconsequential reasons.

So, to expand on what Mike is saying a bit, if you want links and if you want assistance from more influential people in social media, you have to demonstrate your credibility and why you merit any such assistence and attention. First, show that you’re useful. Second, and perhaps more importantly, show that you’re loyal to your existing friends and allies; if you can’t demonstrate that, then how is anyone supposed to believe that you will behave any differently with them once they’ve given you what you want?

Translation: if you not only haven’t reviewed Mike’s book, but can’t point to your reviews of anyone else’s books either, why should he review yours? I haven’t been stabbed in the back as often as Mike has, but I have certainly been disappointed to see an individual show his true colors on more than one occasion. Then again, I am more pessimistic about human nature than Mike, so perhaps that is why I am less often surprised to the downside.

Regardless, as Mike says, “You must show you are a man of integrity and loyal.”

Anyone with even a modicum of social media influence is already under a constant barrage of requests, demands, and “hey, I just thought you might be interested” from more directions than you can probably imagine. I’ve lost track of how many new social media platforms alone contact me several times a week, to say nothing of the online advertisers and authors who want me to review their books when I am already behind on Castalia submissions.

Neither Mike nor I are complaining; we are big boys and this comes with the territory. But perhaps it is useful to put these realities into perspective if you’re wondering why you don’t have similar alliances.

In any event, I know I am very, very fortunate to have such a battle-hardened, enthusiastic, and loyal group of readers, regulars, tifosi,
or however you might prefer to label yourself. A few social media
stars have emailed me to express their amazement and awe about the Dread
Ilk, and ask me how they can similarly energize their followings. I
don’t know if my answer, “be very, very evil and show neither mercy nor
remorse to the contemptible foe” was particularly helpful or not, but we Supreme Dark Lords are
nothing if not obliging.

Also, I would be
remiss if I failed to note that the VFM are now 450-strong. And if you hear nothing but silence for months, fear not. Your summons will come in time.

Why new readers don’t read old authors

John C. Wright explains why in the midst of delving into literary aelvipology.

We are in the Dark Ages, and the darkness influences all things in society, including speculative literature. I mean the term not as an exaggeration or a metaphor: the technological products of our enlightened forefathers spring from the worldview which says science is a proper way to discover the mind of God by studying His works. Eliminating that God from one’s worldview eventually eliminates the respect for human life, free thought, and reason in law and custom which are necessary precursors to scientific endeavors, and eliminating science eliminates technology. Once the lamps go out, the darkness is everywhere, even in the little corners of society where children read books about spacerockets or elves.

The moderns have been taught to hate and loath their own country, their ancestors, their parents, and been told everything written before the current day is racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transcismophobic, and pure evil. These nutbags think that their own standard bearers of the Progressive movement, the founders of their genre, were not Progressives like themselves.

One need only hear sexual libertarian and radical egalitarian nut Bob Heinlein being excoriated as a member of the misogynist phallocratic patriarchy to realize how far off the edge of the world the lunatics have sailed the ship of fools.

This is not some lunatic fringe belief. It is lunacy, of course, but not fringe. It is mainstream. The core institutions and standard bearers of Science Fiction, the largest publishers, the most prestigious awards, our once-respected guild the SFWA, the oldest and most famous magazine: they all buy into the narrative and all support the narrative with a singleminded fury that is Bolshevik in its vehemence, patience, and pettiness.

Progressives hate the past and seek forever to blacken, demean, and obliterate it. Anyone reading the older books would see immediately that the modern works are only merely equal, not as innovative, and that the modern award-winning works are notably inferior.

The notion of progress is the notion that the past is bad and the present is better and the future will be better yet. If you read old books and find that they are either slightly better or remarkably better than modern offerings, you see a decline, not a progress,  and the foundation of progressivism, is overthrown.

The reader will probably recognize that while the elves of Selenoth are a blend of Tolkienian and Longaevian, the Faeries of the Eternal Warriors trilogy are explicitly Longaevian.

The impracticality of pragmatism

Canada’s voters taught the political pragmatists the same lesson I’ve been telling Republicans for over a decade: pragmatism in politics is ultimately self-defeating:

Unless the culture (of the Conservative party) changes, it should not count on being returned to power any time soon. We should be clear where the roots of that culture lie. The nastiness of Tory politics under Harper, the mindless partisanship, the throttling of backbench MPs, are not outgrowths of conservatism. They were born, rather, of its repudiation: of the decision to sterilize the new party of any ideological convictions, the better (it was supposed) to remove any obstacle to its electability.

Politics fills a vacuum: in the absence of substantive differences with your opponents, partisanship takes its place. If, what is more, a party no longer stands for much as a party, then its policies will default to whatever the leader decides. And the leader, having been given that power and that assignment — win at all costs — can tolerate no deviations from MPs still under the impression that the party harbors some lingering principles.

There has been much talk of how Red Tories were made to feel unwelcome in the party. But the truth is no sort of conservative could really feel the Harper government represented them: not fiscal conservatives, $150 billion in debt later; not social conservatives, forbidden even to say the word “abortion”; certainly not old-time Reformers, the sort of people who went into politics to make governments and leaders more accountable, not less.

The only party faction that was really served was the yahoo faction, the “toxic Tories” as a friend calls them, to whom this government truckled and whose loyalty was rewarded in turn. MPs who were willing to say the opposite of what they believed, or believe the opposite of the facts, were promoted; those who were not found themselves out of cabinet, or indeed out of the party.

The people around Harper, always convinced of their own cleverness, grew drunk on their own cynicism. Having made the initial compromise with their principles — on policy — they found the next much easier, and the next, until they became contemptuous of anything resembling a principle, or anyone still able to discern a line — political, personal, ethical — he would not cross.

Ideological principle is the lifesblood of a political party. The more a party focuses on “electability” and “pragmatism”, the more it cuts its own wrists and drains its own blood. Eventually, the point is reached that the party exists for no reason but to profit the party elite, which is understandably not of interest to anyone outside that elite.

What do the Republicans stand for today?

Pragmatism in politics is like cocaine. A little bit goes a long ways. You not only win, but you feel like an all-conquering tiger. But gradually, you start needing more and more to achieve the same affect, until finally, you overdose and your heart stops.

Doing something about immigration

If the politicians won’t, it is now readily apparent that the people will:

Swedish police today confirmed that the letter found in Lundin-Pettersson’s home proves that the attack was a planned racist hate crime and that he acted alone.

‘It was a kind of suicide note, I believe the letter was hand-written,’ head of investigation Thord Haraldsson told a press conference earlier today. ‘He writes that he has to do something about the immigration politics in Sweden.;

When asked if Lundin-Pettersson made clear in his letter that he did not intend to survive the attack, police said that it ‘can be interpreted that he thought he was going to die’.  

Security footage from the school in Trollhattan, north of Gothenburg, shows Lundin-Petterson marching through school corridors armed with a sword and a knife, and stopping to talk to light-skinned students. ‘He selected his victims and attacked the dark-skinned ones and left the light-skinned ones alone,’ Haraldsson said today. ‘Everything points to this being a hate crime.’ 

Lundin-Petterson’s second victim, Ahmed Hassan, 15, who died in hospital on Thursday afternoon, had arrived in Sweden with his parents and eight siblings from Somalia in 2012.

It’s fascinating. Lundin-Petterson was willing to die for his people; he literally died defending his nation against invaders, and yet the global media is desperately trying to paint him as some sort of hateful monster. But how is he any different than the tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers who died defending their country? Should we regard the sailors and soldiers who died at Pearl Harbor as racist hate criminals who should be denounced as anti-Japanese bigots? The Japanese weren’t even planning to invade, let alone colonize Hawaii, after all.

Lundin-Petterson died fighting in his homeland, on his native soil. Most American soldiers can’t even say that.

Like it or not, immigration is war. That is the history of immigration. And these mass migrations are why there will be war.

UPDATE: Speaking of which, European nationalists are now attacking the invaders’ sea transports.

Grupos de personas con la cara cubierta han perpetrado ataques contra barcas y lanchas que transportan a refugiados desde Turquía hasta Grecia, en algunos casos inutilizando sus motores o incluso devolviendo estas barcas a aguas turcas.

You don’t say

Who could possibly have seen THIS coming:

The Federal Office of Criminal Investigations (BKA) has warned that not only refugees but also people who work with them are under increasing threat from violent far-right groups.

The BKA’s warning comes in a secret document seen by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and NDR, which was written before a knife attack on the Cologne mayor, Henriette Reker, over the weekend which had an apparent far right motive.

“Especially politicians and people who look after asylum centres may be in the target group for far-right attackers,” the BKA report states.

The BKA expects far-right violence against the refugee policies of the German government will increase, adding that the otherwise “very diverse far right scene” has found an ideological consensus on the issue.

Three things the European politicians would do well to keep in mind:

  1. It’s not just the “far-right” who hates them and the invasion they encouraged.
  2. William Tell is a national hero.
  3. So are the White Rose Society. 

At this point, it looks as if everyone in Europe who doesn’t want his nation to disappear under a flood of invaders “has found an ideological consensus on the issue”.

If I was an elected German official, I would apologize to the German people, denounce Merkel, demand the immediate repatriation of all immigrants from 2014 and 2015, and resign my office.

Spiegel also reported Thursday that the number of attacks on refugee homes for the first three quarters of 2015 had risen to 505…. In 2013 the number was only 18.

I wonder what changed? What could possibly have created this massive increase in xenophobia?

Immigrants don’t share American values

The Magic Dirt Theory is clearly not working as advertised. Immigrants are heavily anti-gun rights:

The millions of foreigners the U.S. government voluntarily imports each year can be counted on to vote en-masse in favor of unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, Winkler explains:

Polls show that whites tend to favor gun rights over gun control by a significant margin (57 percent to 40 percent). Yet whites, who comprise 63 percent of the population today, won’t be in the majority for long. Racial minorities are soon to be a majority, and they are the nation’s strongest supporters of strict gun laws.

The fastest-growing minority group in America is Latinos. Between 2000 and 2010, the nation’s Latino population grew by 43 percent. Hispanics, which make up 17 percent of the population today, are expected to grow to 30 percent of the population in the coming decades.

Gun control is extremely popular among Hispanics, with 75 percent favoring gun safety over gun rights.

Asian Americans also represent a growing anti-gun demographic. Although only about 5 percent of the population today, the Asian American population is predicted to triple over the next few decades. A recent poll of Asian American registered voters found that 80 percent supported stricter gun laws.

I find it remarkable, although not exactly surprising, that so many people are so determined to defend their idiotic theory that all immigrants will magically become Real Americans, real life nephews of their Uncle Sam, reborn on the Fourth of July by virtue of geographical relocation, thereby instantly negating of all of their racial, ethnic, religious, political, and cultural traditions.

How very shocking to discover that immigrants place no value on “rights” that don’t exist, and have never existed, in their alien cultures. As I have repeatedly pointed out, immigrants have no understanding of limited government nor do they harbor any love for it. None. Let’s face it, even after generations in the USA, many descendants of the previous waves of European immigration still don’t grasp the basic concept.

It’s bad enough that the Magic Dirt theory is absurdly stupid; logical criticism should be sufficient to convince those who subscribe to it to abandon it entirely. But when they first reject the logic and then continue to cling to their theory in the face of actual evidence of the sort cited above, well, at that point we might as well just call them fat, ugly, and out-of-date. That sort of rhetoric will be more likely to persuade them that they are wrong, because it is obvious that neither facts nor reason are enough to do the trick.