The Tale of the Herald

A Parable by Cataline Sergius

The vast fires of the besiegers blanketed the once-beautiful plains surrounding Tor Keep as far as the eye could see, glowing a
hellish red-orange against a sky so dark from the smoke that mid-day
appeared to be twilight. The black legions of Evil
chanted, “he rises! he rises!” as the massive flaming boulders from
their gigantic trebuchets crashed into the Embarrassed-To-Be-So-White
walls of Tor Keep. Huge scorpios launched terrible bolts big enough to impale an elephant, or even a Swirsky.

The high walls of the keep, once thought to be completely
impenetrable, now showed massive cracks, They were the result of the thunderous
barrage of the mighty siege engines arrayed on every side, as well as the cunning mines dug  by the minions of the Supreme Dark Lord, which was totally unfair because they were so good at math.

The defenders of the
walls valiantly rained insults and condescension down upon their vile
faceless attackers, though despair now gripped every heart. The Embarrassed-To-Be-So-White walls were crumbling despite the tireless efforts of
the Diversity Wizards to magically reinforce them.

Far back
from the fighting and deep within the bowels of The Tower That Jordan Built, two herald-minions of the
Dread Lord stood before the women of the All-White-But-Nevertheless-Incredibly-Inclusive-and-Diverse-Because-They-Have-One-Gay-Asian-Guy-From-Silicon-Valley Council.

Their beautiful-in-a-very-different-way queen, Toadina the Squat, rose slowly from her heavily reinforced
throne, prompting great waves of magnificently turbulent fat to roll back and forth across her massive belly like an indecisive tsunami. She delicately cleaned one squinting yellow eye
with an elegant stroke of her forked tongue before clearing her swollen throat.

She addressed
the heralds in an imperious manner. “Here are the merciful terms we offer for your
complete and unconditional surrender. Behead your leaders. Kill one
in ten of the vile minions. Hand over two-thirds of your lands as well as all your present and future spawn. Admit your beliefs are sexist, racist, homophobic, and outdated, and renounce them. Then castrate yourselves. In
exchange we promise… to like you. A little.”

Blinking in astonishment, the two heralds looked at each other. Their faces twitched, and they appeared to be restraining deep emotion, but was it futile defiance or humble gratitude? Finally, mastering himself, the one with the number 289 branded on his right cheek stepped forward.

“I am sorry, Madam, but you appear to have mistaken us for Republicans.”

Is Grexit finally here?

The surprise call for a sudden referendum seems to indicate that Tsipras and Syriza want to make sure that the public shares the blame for Greece crashing out of the Euro.

In the aftermath of yesterday’s “nuclear option” announcement by Greece, when in a dramatic after-midnight speech Greek PM Tsipras announced that Greece would hold a referendum next Sunday, the day after the US independence day, the same Greek government made it very clear how it wants the Greeks to vote.

First, it was the Greek Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, head of the Left Platform movement of Syriza, who said in comments broadcast on state-run ERT TV that a no vote by the Greek people in July 5 referendum “will open the road for a new future for the country” adding that “the dilemma facing Greeks is “whether to live better or not. Greek people are aware of difficulties of a new starting point, they’re ready to support new national effort.”

Then the alternate health and social security minister Dimitris Stratoulis doubled down telling ERT-TV that Greeks are being given the opportunity to decide the way forward and “I’m optimistic” that they will give a “resounding” no to the “provocative” demands of the country’s creditors. The only issue is the question being put to the people in the referendum.” It got better when he said that “Greeks are being asked to vote whether the country should be a colony, or not, of creditors.”

Well, if that’s how the referendum question is indeed phrased then yes, it is clear how the Greeks will vote.

As was to be expected, the Greek opposition parties, except for the Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn, expressed horror at the referendum. Conservative main opposition leader Antonis Samaras accused Tsipras’ radical left government of advocating an exit from the eurozone and the European Union. “Mr Tsipras has led the country to an absolute impasse,” he said. “Between an unacceptable agreement and leaving Europe.”

Why? Because they know that despite the referendum move, which is clearly just a last ditch attempt by Tsipras to save his political career by punting the decision straight to the people, if there is a “Yes” vote to the proposed bailout, then Syriza is out and new elections have to follow.

As for the reason why Tsipras had to punt, it is a simple one: at the core of the ongoing Greek negotiation debacle is the inability of the local people to decide what they want: according to various recent polls 80% of Greeks want to stay in the Eurozone and keep the Euro currency, the problem is that 80% also want an end to austerity. Two conditions which are mutually exclusive. It is no surprise then that Tsipras had no clue how to proceed based on his mandate.

Getting out of the Euro and the EU is absolutely the right move for the Greeks, but they’re afraid to go ahead and do it. But given the unacceptable price of the status quo, which is unemployment levels higher than anything the USA saw in the Great Depression, it looks as if they may be forced to do the right thing.

“We shall obey God rather than man”

The Lutheran Missouri Synod responds to the Supreme Court’s further rejection of representative democracy yesterday:

A one-person majority of the U.S. Supreme Court got it wrong – again. Some 40 years ago, a similarly activist court legalized the killing of children in the womb. That decision has to date left a wake of some 55 million Americans dead. Today, the Court has imposed same-sex marriage upon the whole nation in a similar fashion. Five justices cannot determine natural or divine law. Now shall come the time of testing for Christians faithful to the Scriptures and the divine institution of marriage (Matthew 19:3–6), and indeed, a time of testing much more intense than what followed Roe v. Wade.

Like Roe v. Wade, this decision will be followed by a rash of lawsuits. Through coercive litigation, governments and popular culture continue to make the central post-modern value of sexual freedom override “the free exercise of religion” enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

The ramifications of this decision are seismic. Proponents will seek to drive Christians and Christian institutions out of education at all levels; they will press laws to force faithful Christian institutions and individuals to violate consciences in work practices and myriad other ways. We will have much more to say about this.

During some of the darkest days of Germany, a faithful Lutheran presciently described how governments lose their claim to legitimate authority according to Romans 13…. “We shall obey God rather than man” (Acts 5:29). Christians will now begin to learn what it means to be in a state of solemn conscientious objection against the state.

One almost has to laugh at the disingenuous way in which the rainbow lobby is frantically claiming the matter to be settled. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the Lutheran pastor observed, the issue is now as settled as abortion in the USA, which means it will now become a much bigger and more divisive political issue than before.

The most significant problem with the decision has nothing to do with the actual issue at hand, but the way in which it rendered hundreds of millions of votes cast over decades to be totally irrelevant. The whole point of voting on divisive political matters like this is to avoid politics by other means. But when voting is no longer a permissible option, what else does that leave?

Nor was conscientious objection the only response to the decision, as ISIS took a decidedly different approach to the #LoveWins hashtag. “#Love”, such as it is, already has a bodycount.

 That’s “diversity”? It sure all looks the same to me.

The irrelevance of the neville

Aaron attempts to rationalize his own uselessness in the cultural war:

Danby, you’re just a partisan, like everyone else – you recognize no objective standards of honesty, or morality, rationality and merely wish to use naked aggression to support your cause, whatever it may be, rationality be damned. If that means banning someone who politely, intelligently, and honestly disagrees with you using logic and evidence, then rationality and fairness be damned.

I can’t respect that, but its human nature. I hold myself to a different standard of conduct than you and I am willing – I even feel I owe it to myself as someone with courage, strength, and nobility – to fight my enemies under the same overarching code of rationality and honesty that I hold myself to.

I’m not saying treat an enemy who has shown himself to be weak, scummy, and dishonest with rationality and honesty. Roosh, for instance, who has shown himself to be weak and dishonest, would simply be ignored by me.

But when I ban people for politely disagreeing with me I show MYSELF to be weak and pathetic. But this is an older tradition of thinking and feeling that seems to be dying out in the world, to be replaced by a tradition better fit for emotional weaklings like Roosh and those incapable of self-discipline.

It’s telling that Aaron thinks of himself as strong and noble when he is observably weak, self-centered, and feminine. This is what happens when white-knighting gammas venture forth from saving fair maidens from dragonish pick-up artists and enter the cultural wars.

What does a wartime general do when one of his soldiers doesn’t follow orders, but instead “politely, intelligently, and honestly disagrees using logic and evidence”? He has him shot for insubordination. Aaron is lucky this is only a cultural war at this point, and he’s only being banned by one of the leaders who is fighting it. To call someone like Roosh, who has taken more heat from the Left than anyone else I know, including me, an “emotional weakling”, is not only shamelessly dishonest, but downright laughable.

Aaron is a self-delusional liar. He wouldn’t ignore Roosh. In fact, he’s not ignoring him now, but repeatedly brought him up out of context here. Not only is Aaron projecting when he talks about Roosh being weak and dishonest, but his “overarching code of rationality and honesty” is obviously not something to which he actually holds himself.

We don’t need self-delusional nevilles on our side. They are literally worse than useless, always far more interested in trying to elevate their own relative stature by shooting at their own side instead of taking risks by taking on the other side. Roosh was obviously right to ban Aaron, and if he persists in attacking us rather than the SJWs, I won’t hesitate to do the same.

If Aaron genuinely wishes to be strong, rational, and self-disciplined, I would encourage him to revisit his assumptions in light of the way his behavior observably contradicts them. He should also recognize that focusing on the other side rather than tone-policing your own is not in any way tantamount to recognizing no “objective standards of honesty, or morality, rationality”.

Don’t mess with Texas

The Texas governor fires a warning shot:

“The Supreme Court has abandoned its role as an impartial judicial arbiter and has become an unelected nine-member legislature. Five Justices on the Supreme Court have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court’s previous decisions reserve to the people of the States.

“Despite the Supreme Court’s rulings, Texans’ fundamental right to religious liberty remains protected. No Texan is required by the Supreme Court’s decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage.

“The Texas Constitution guarantees that ‘[n]o human authority ought, in any case whatsoever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion.’ The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion; and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, combined with the newly enacted Pastor Protection Act, provide robust legal protections to Texans whose faith commands them to adhere to the traditional understanding of marriage.

“As I have done in the past, I will continue to defend the religious liberties of all Texans—including those whose conscience dictates that marriage is only the union of one man and one woman. Later today, I will be issuing a directive to state agencies instructing them to prioritize the protection of Texans’ religious liberties.”
– Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas

Not bad. I’d rather see the governor declare independence, but it’s a start.

Fire Irene Gallo

Hey, SJWs, do tell us again how it is totally unthinkable that anyone could lose a job as a consequence of a private Facebook post:

North Charleston police officer was fired from his position after posting a photo on Facebook featuring the Confederate flag. WCIV reports the post, which featured the officer wearing Confederate flag boxer shorts, went viral Thursday after it was posted a few days earlier.

The police chief terminated Sgt. Shannon Dildine’s position, saying the photo questioned his ability to improve trust and instill confidence between citizens and officers.

“Your posting in this manner led to you being publicly identified as a North Charleston Police officer and associated both you and the Department with an image that symbolizes hate and oppression to a significant portion of the citizens we are sworn to serve,” Police Chief Eddie Driggers wrote, as reported by WCIV.

The continued refusal of Tor Books to hold Irene Gallo responsible for her actions demonstrates that labeling Tor’s customers “racist neo-Nazis” and Tor’s own books “bad-to-reprehensible” is observably acceptable to its management, no matter what feeble protests Tom Doherty may offer.

Sgt. Dildine posted a picture of himself. Irene Gallo attacked her employer’s customers, her employer’s authors, and her employer’s products. Why on Earth is she still employed by that employer?

Remember

“I bathe in your sweet, sweet wingnut tears.”
– Anne Marie E Dickey

“Worst person in SF is angry and upset well SHUCKY DARN.”
– Christopher Bird

When the SJWs come crying to us about how we’re steamrolling them, disqualifying them, and disemploying them, remember how they acted when they thought they were winning. And show them the appropriate amount of mercy.

I’m neither angry nor upset. I’m not even remotely surprised. But I am deeply concerned about what is going to come next for the USA, because events appear to be proceeding more or less as I anticipated them 20 years ago.

More emanations and penumbras

And thus ends the last pretense of democracy in America:

The Supreme Court has declared that same-sex couples have a right to marry anywhere in the United States. Gay and lesbian couples already can marry in 36 states and the District of Columbia. The court’s ruling on Friday means the remaining 14 states, in the South and Midwest, will have to stop enforcing their bans on same-sex marriage.

Five people can declare a fish to be a horse if they like, but that doesn’t make it so. What’s so tragic about the abandonment of both traditional morality and the last vestiges of democracy in America is that it was done for such a petty little cause.

I observed that America was dead 11 years ago in a column entitled “You Can’t Fix a Corpse”. This is just the corpse beginning to stink.

It’s wryly amusing to recall all those Republicans who swore that the solution was to elect Republicans so they could nominate Supreme Court Justices. How did that work out for you, especially in light of what I predicted back in 2004.

Any last vestiges of hope in the Republican Party have been shattered by
the current regime, wherein a Republican President, Republican House,
Republican Senate and Republican-nominated Supreme Court have
demonstrated that they have zero interest in the timeless vision of
America’s founders. Supporting them in the hopes that they will revive
American liberties is akin to hoping that shock paddles will suffice to
revive a month-old corpse. American freedom is not only dead, it has
been rotting for some time.

Diversity in action

I wonder what Apple and Walmart and Amazon will ban in response to this murderous attack:

A man has been decapitated and dozens more injured at a gas product factory in France by terrorists carrying Islamist banners.

The attack took place at the headquarters of the American owned Air Products, in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, near the city of Lyon, in the south east of the country.

The murder is believed to have been accompanied by several explosions on the site cause by a terrorist igniting small ‘gas bombs’ that injured dozens of factory workers. It is believed the explosions may have intended to blow up the entire factory site but failed.

The murdered man’s head is understood to have been found 30 feet away from his body, hanging on the factory’s fence. The dead man’s head was covered in Arabic ‘inscriptions’ before being placed on the fence, according to local journalists at the scene.

Maybe if the French were nicer to them, they would stop beheading people. And remember, although all white people are responsible for Dylann Roof’s actions, no one should mistakenly blame anyone else besides the actual beheader at Saint-Quentin-Fallavier.

Remember, the positive effects of diversity in communities are well-documented. If
France is to continue to grow and prosper, the French must make it a
more inclusive place.

UPDATE: 27 tourists killed in Tunisia hotel attacks:

Gunmen have killed at least 27 people in an attack on two tourist hotels in a Tunisian town popular with British holidaymakers. Tourists fled from the beach in Sousse to take refuge in hotel rooms after guns were fired on the beach. One man said his son saw someone get shot as he raced back to the hotel from the sea. Photographs seen by Sky News show one man in his 60s or 70s lying in a pool of blood in his swimming shorts.

Obviously Tunisia lacked diversity. If only they had been more inclusive, none of this would have happened.

We’d like you better if you were losing

The commenters at File 770 have some advice for the Puppies:

Shambles: “I think a good thing for the puppies would be new leadership; an even better thing would be to walk away from Beale; and the best thing would be to realize each member is welcome as an individual and it’s not necessary to create voting blocks for individually nominated and voted upon awards.” 

Bruce Baugh: All of this. Having a collaborative effort to assess and improve conservative fans’ and creators’ image within fandom seems well worthwhile, but it needs to come from someone who hasn’t glorified hate-mongering and vandalism and who actually does respect other fans and the volunteers who make this all happen.

Ah, if only we were more like them and had new leadership who respected them and was more interested in improving our image in their eyes than in drinking wine from their silvered skulls. Although to be honest, the more I read what they write, the more I fear they won’t make for much more than shot glasses.

What do you say, Rabids? In the place of a Dark Lord shall there be a Bright and Obsequious Queen, who shall make it her top priority to seek favor in the eyes of science fiction’s SJWs?

Or shall we make ourselves thrones of their bones once the VFM are done chewing on them?