Tag: history

A Vibrant Christmas

Online shopping was a blow, but it was something the malls of America might have been able to survive if it were not for the dissemination of vibrancy throughout suburban America:

A shooting inside the Nordstrom department store at the Mall of America on Friday night left a 19-year-old man dead, according to Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges.

Hodges said during a late-night news conference that the shooting involved an altercation between two groups of young men and that the individuals involved fled the scene immediately after the shooting, which occurred about 7:50 p.m. on the eve of Christmas weekend.

A Bloomington officer who was nearby heard the shots and arrived to find the victim on the ground, Hodges said. “We had 16 officers working today in the mall. Sixteen cops,” Hodges said. “And they still decide to do this. I’m at a loss.”

I used to love going to Rosedale, Southdale, and occasionally, the Galleria, at Christmastime. From the time I was a little boy, they were vast and magical Winter Wonderlands, where children could roam freely and window-shop. I used to wander alone from one end of the mall to the other, with particular attention paid to B. Daltons and Games by James. I still remember being 11 years old and walking back through the parking lot at Rosedale to our Oldmobile station wagon with my father, who was carrying what seemed at the time to be a very large package.

When I asked him what it was, he said “the best Christmas present you’ll ever get”. I can’t say he was wrong, because it was a Mattel Intellivision, and with the possible exception of an Apple //e with two disk drives, it was the device that I loved most throughout the course of my life. From that year on, I’d happily be abandoned in Sears when my mother was shopping, playing Utopia or Sea Battle in the little electronics section.

When I started working at Dayton’s at the age of 15, I began seeing Christmas from the other side, from the retailer’s perspective, and it was every bit as magical. Dayton’s was one of the anchor department stores at all the Dales, and it was always exciting when the Christmas decorations would start going up the day after Thanksgiving. The sights, the lights, and the smells, taken in sum, were nothing but pure and unadulterated joy.

Christmastime in Minneapolis, 1963

This sense of communal magic and wonder is one of the many things that vibrancy has cost America. Perhaps it wasn’t important, perhaps it wasn’t a significant part of the Christmas season, but I loved it as a child and it grieves me to know that it is part of the world that we have lost.

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The Evil of this World

It is remarkable to see how the patterns of history play out again and again. Even though more than 1,600 years separate us from St. Augustine’s time, the same behaviors appear every time evil gains the ascendancy.

OF THE KIND OF HAPPINESS AND LIFE TRULY DELIGHTED IN BY THOSE WHO INVEIGH AGAINST THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise concerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious. Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish and abound in resources; let it be glorious by its victories, or still better, secure in peace; and what matters it to us? This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes. Let the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their protection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity; and let the rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their possessions and purveyors of their pleasures; not with a hearty reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take cognizance rather of the injury done to another man’s property, than of that done to one’s own person. If a man be a nuisance to his neighbour, or injure his property, family, or person, let him be actionable; but in his own affairs let everyone with impunity do what he will in company with his own family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor to keep one for their private use. Let there be erected houses of the largest and most ornate description: in these let there be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit, dissipate. Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers, the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre; let a succession of the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a perpetual excitement. If such happiness is distasteful to any, let him be branded as a public enemy; and if any attempt to modify or put an end to it let him be silenced, banished, put an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish; let them demand whatever games they please, from or with their own worshippers; only let them secure that such felicity be not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind.

St. Augustine, City of God, Book II, Chapter 20

A society that prioritizes economic growth, where hedonism is celebrated and consent is the highest morality. A society in which those who see the danger and instability inherent in the society are silenced, banished, and cancelled. A society in which those who provide pleasure are celebrated, and where the powerful may do as they like without fear of recourse or consequence. A corrupt society whose rulers hate Christianity.

Sounds familiar these days, doesn’t it.

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There Are No Bank Reserves

Just a reminder that Clown World’s economy is floating on nothing more than clown gas and demon dust:

The pattern really got going with the “bailout” in 2008. Buried in a monster bill that was waived the three day lockdown on votes was a provision that allowed Ben Bernanke to set bank reserves to zero. It was one line in a monstrosity that Hank Paulson insisted on being passed after his “one page” equivalent, which gave him sole authority on $700 billion dollars of public money, went down in defeat a day earlier. I caught it and reported on it but nobody in the Legislature said a single word about it at the time, likely because they didn’t actually read the whole thing and thus other than the snake who put it in there didn’t know it existed.

So, it’s doubtful that the USA’s ability to outspend Russia is going to work the way it did when Ronald Reagan pushed a financial arms race with the Soviet Union.

The US Congress is about to send another $44 billion to Boeing, Raytheon, and the CIA “for the war in Ukraine”. That’s a total of $100 billion sent by the US in 10 months. The entire Russian military budget for the year is $65 billion.

  • Glenn Greenwald

This is the exact opposite of what Jerry Pournelle recommended back in 1986 after contemplating the problem facing the US military.

There is just no way that we’ll respond to the Soviets by building a peacetime military establishment similar to theirs. Unfortunately, although we have rejected matching the Soviet military establishment, we have not seized upon any viable alternative. Instead, we putter about, building some of this and some of that, hoping that our technological superiority will somehow do the trick even though we have no clear cut strategy of technology.

This has not always brought about good results. As Congressman Newt Gingrich, among others, has repeatedly pointed out, simply throwing money at the Pentagon is wasteful. Given money but no marching orders, the Pentagon almost always buys more M-1 tanks for the Army, more carriers for the Navy, wings of F-16’s for the Air Force. They buy “things people can ride on,” as one analyst recently put it.

Left to its own direction, the military is very conservative. Military establishments tend to keep the old, while flirting with the new and glamorous; to buy one or two armored cars, but keep horses for the cavalry. To put catapults and seaplanes on battleships, but reject aircraft carriers as not needed.

The result is a lack of direction… We end up with weapons that no one is trained to use, aircraft with no spare parts and few trained pilots, communications systems that don’t quite work, ships without trained sailors to man them, and missiles that work splendidly in test situations, but have profound problems on the battlefield.

Jerry Pournelle, The Stars At War, 1986

Although it’s even worse now. Instead of funding wasteful and ineffective weapons programs, now the money is being directed into unspeakable trafficking operations and propping up the collapsing Clown World economy.

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Free Speech is Anti-Christ

Free speech is a satanic concept that was developed by anti-christian atheists to attack Christian civilization during the Enlightenment. It is neither a Christian nor a conservative value. You don’t need to take my word for it, though. Read A HISTORY OF THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT by historian JB Bury, who was a strong proponent of free speech.

That is one of two books I would recommend to read if you would like to understand how we went from Christian civilization to Clown World. The other one is AN AUSTRIAN PERSPECTIVE ON THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS by Murray Rothbard. Whereas Bury describes the historical degradation of the anti-blasphemy laws, Rothbard describes the successful centuries-long assault on the anti-usury laws.

“The entire idea of free speech is a farce. It is a lie. It is not real.”

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Free Speech Was Always Fake

There is not, and there has never been, any such thing as a right to free speech or freedom of expression. And we’re seeing how false the pretense that there is again now that Elon Musk is kicking a few journalists off of Twitter.

Evil always plays by the principle of “rules for thee but not for me”. It will switch from “free speech absolutism” to “there is no place for hate speech” in a blink of an eye depending upon whom is being affected. This is why there was never any reason to permit the Enlightenment war against Christianity, and in particular, the “free speech” campaign against the Christian blasphemy laws, which was the entire purpose of that campaign from the very start.

If you don’t believe me, read A HISTORY OF THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT by historian JB Bury, who was not only a great historian and the editor of THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY SERIES, but a strong and effective champion of Enlightenment principles.

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When Jordan Took the Ticket

A Twitter user wonders why Jordan Peterson is so insistent on blaming the victims of sexual abuse and claiming that it is nothing more than a figment of their imaginations.

Jordan Peterson (for some reason) frantically explaining how “satanic pedophile rings” are simply the product of the minds of schizophrenic mothers and confused children. This video appears to have been completely scrubbed from the Internet. 🤔 Curious.

It’s not very well-known that one of Jordan Peterson’s early appearances in the media was an attempt to explain away a Canadian pedophile ring that went back to the 1960s. I didn’t address it in Jordanetics because there wasn’t really anything to say about it at the time other than the weirdness of Peterson inserting himself into the investigation. And yet, this sort of thing appears to surround him on a regular basis.

Toronto police have reportedly spoken with Jordan Peterson, the controversial Canadian academic and author, as part of an ongoing investigation in Northern Ireland into the “bizarre” disappearance and death of a 14-year-old boy.

It’s no wonder that Jordan Peterson hates himself and needs to drugs himself into oblivion just to get through the dark nights. He’s probably too sensitive to the evil that, if Maps of Meaning is any guide, has surrounded him since he was a child, and too aware of what appears to be his complicity in it.

TORONTO – It’s been more than 10 years since allegations that a pedophile ring operated in eastern Ontario first made national headlines.

And long after the dust has settled from the tome that is the Cornwall inquiry report some will continue to believe in a conspiracy to cover-up the truth, experts and observers say.

Commissioner G. Normand Glaude concluded Tuesday that children were sexually abused by people in positions of authority and that public institutions failed victims by mishandling complaints dating back to the 1960s.

But many were looking to him to lay to rest a more sinister explanation for those events, that it was the work of a pedophile ring and a cover-up that reached all the way to the Attorney General’s office was at play.

He did not, saying in his 1600-page report that he would not make an unequivocal statement about the theory either way.

For some, it may not have mattered.

An explanation that to some appears to debunk a conspiracy theory just further confirms others’ suspicions, said University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan B. Peterson.

“It’s very difficult to disprove a conspiracy theory, because every bit of disproving evidence can be just written off as additional evidence that these conspirators are particularly intelligent and sneaky,” he said.

Conspiracy theories are usually started by people who are very untrusting and it gathers steam among others who are somewhat untrusting, Peterson said.

They’re psychologically compelling because they neatly tie together troubling facts or assertions, he said. When things go badly there are often many explanations, and an orchestrated conspiracy “should be pretty low on your list of plausible hypotheses,” Peterson said.

“A good rule of thumb is: Don’t presume malevolence where stupidity is sufficient explanation,” he said. “Organizations can act badly and things can fall apart without any group of people driving that.”

Pedophile Ring Theory in Cornwall, Ont., Will Likely Continue to Swirl, Allison Jones, Winnipeg Free Press , December 17, 2009

That reads so much differently in the post-Epstein and Saville era than it did before we had conclusive evidence that there are persistent pedophile rings operating among the government and bureaucratic elites across the West, doesn’t it?

And here is a much more reliable rule of thumb: anyone who tries to blame obviously wicked actions on stupidity and incompetence instead of evil is probably complicit in that evil and is attempting to cover for it. Because there is no inherent contradiction between evil and stupidity.

UPDATE: It could get worse. A lot worse.

Before Tammy Peterson devoted her time to supporting her husband as an advisor, she worked professionally as a massage therapist. Tammy has also been an avid foster parent since she was 30, housing many children from orphanages in and around Canada.

She just loves kids, apparently. Such an amazing devotion to children.

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Why Russia Will Defeat Clown World

Much can be usefully learned from this excerpt from a book published in 1989 concerning a brief conversation that took place forty years prior between a German Army officer and a Soviet political officer.

Much to my surprise, the NKVD officer expressed a wish to speak to me alone in the presence of the interpreter.

“Polkovnik,” he said, “a question: how many convinced Communists do you think there are in this and the other German POW camps?” Was it a catch question? It was hard to answer, and it also seemed to me dangerous to give my own views. So I said, “About ten percent, I should think.”

“Oh, no; at most six to seven percent,” he replied. “And Polkovnik, how many do you think there are in East Germany?”

“Since you have been in East Germany now for nearly five years, it might be some eight to ten percent.”

“At most three to four percent. And what about West Germany?” Surprised by his figures, I suggested, “Less, about two to three percent.” To which he gave an even more astonishing reply, “Nil. You see, we are realists in Moscow. And because we are, we see no chance of being able to convince the German people of communism.” His conclusion, “Neither the Italian nor the French Communists can be numbered among us. They are first and foremost Italians and Frenchmen. Britain is on the other side of the Channel, the Americans are far away. But we do have to reckon with you.”

And then his words held doubt and fear again, “One day you will want to have an army again, with which you will invade us again. There lies our whole interest in keeping Germany ‘neutral.“ With a neutral Germany danger for us is banished. We can convince Europe of our desire, but also of our intention, never again to allow a war on our territory. That’s how things look, Polkovnik.”

This was one of the most interesting and instructive conversations I had as a prisoner of war. The view was in keeping with that of ordinary soldiers, Russian convicts, and civilians, who had already said to me previously, “Although it will be hard for us, we shall one day forget what has happened. But you will go back to your country. Then you will build up a new army and march into Russia, destroy our villages and kill or carry off our people.” How can this fear ever be removed from the people or from the “realists” in Moscow? All the noisy reactions to the rebuilding of the Bundeswehr, the federal army, and to the alliance with the American superpower are to be seen against this background.

PANZER COMMANDER by Col Hans von Luck

The Russians trusted, briefly, in the promises made to them in the early days of the post-Soviet era. After seeing their economy raped and their boundaries methodically encroached upon by the very Satanic clowns who previously ruled over them, they will never again give the benefit of any doubt to Clown World’s servants in Germany, the UK, or the USA.

And they have very good reason to place absolutely no trust in them.

British general admits UK deployed troops to Ukraine

British Royal Marines conducted high-risk operations in Ukraine in April, Lieutenant General Robert Magowan has admitted, according to a report in The Times on Tuesday. Russia has consistently warned that NATO troops have been active in the conflict, but these statements have been dismissed by Western analysts and media.

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Subversion and Perversion

The Cambridge Dictionary revises the definitions of “man” and “woman”:

In yet another example of the insanity of modern progressive activism, the Cambridge Dictionary has redefined “man” and “woman.” Under previous definitions, which were reflective of reality, it said that “woman” meant an “adult female human being.” Now, woman is any adult who “lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.” It made the same anti-biology change for “man,” saying it’s “an adult who lives and identifies as a male though they may have had a different sex at birth.”

We’ve had several people ask Castalia Library to reproduce an old dictionary ever since we first launched it, but it was never something I’d seriously considered. Now, however, the need for one is becoming clear. The problem is that it would take a prohibitively long time to do a proper layout from scratch, so the only viable option would be doing a high-resolution scanned reproduction of a pre-1927 dictionary.

If a traditional dictionary is of any interest to you, let me know in the comments, and recommend the public domain dictionary of your choice. I’m not saying that we intend to do one, I’m merely observing that there is a growing need for one given the intentional subversion and perversion of the English language.

On the topic of Castalia Library, a few notes regarding shipping and availability.

  • The Library editions of A THRONE OF BONES Vols. 1 and 2 are on schedule to begin shipping on Friday.
  • The Libraria editions of A THRONE OF BONES Vols. 1 and 2 are delayed. There was a quality issue with the gold foil provided by the supplier and we approved the bindery’s recommendation to delay the stamping until the foil is replaced.
  • The Leather editions of the Junior Classics are scheduled to begin shipping between Christmas and New Years.
  • The cover designs for all four INCERTO editions by Nassim Nicholas Taleb have been completed, and all four books can now be ordered. The customary discount codes apply to all four books for active subscribers. The Library editions are dark brown Italian cowhide, the Libraria editions are black Italian goatskin. Please note that THE BLACK SWAN and FOOLED BY RANDOMNESS are not, and will not be, part of the subscription.
The INCERTO collection in leather

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Triggering the Hitlerians

For some reason, posting a meme comparing one foreigner who led another nation into ruin by provoking an unnecessary war with Russia triggered the Alt-Retards on Gab. I responded to them with my customary grace and kindness.

Dear Hitler cheerleaders,

You are collectively retarded. The salient fact about Adolf Hitler is not that he “stood up to the Jews”. The salient fact is that he was a foreign ruler of a people that he led into an utterly disastrous and unnecessary war.

After his early military success made him overconfident, he went way too far way too soon, and then tried to blame his predictable failures on the German people, who paid a terrible price for his stupid and short-sighted leadership.

He was as bad for Germany as Zelensky is proving to be for Ukraine.

If he’d been one-quarter the leader you believe him to be, Germany would still be peacefully dominating the continent.

Love,
Vox

As you can imagine, this went over well with the Alt-Retards. It was particularly amusing to hear that I am a) afraid to debate the matter and b) have Jewish handlers when I have already debated both Greg Johnson and Andrew Anglin on the subject and have been featured on one of the ADL’s many public hit lists since 2017.

But this underlines the reason I no longer debate anyone. Debates are ephemeral exercises for lightweights with short attention spans. They are of no lasting interest to anyone, apparently not even to those who are monomaniacally interested in the subject being debated.

And those whose minds are not impervious to historical facts may wish to take into account the fact that my perspective is not based on hindsight, but to the contrary, was shared by some of the Wehrmacht’s more illustrious figures at the time. In fact, my comments concerning the similarities of Hitler and Zelensky were largely the result of making the following observations when reading Col. Hans von Luck’s memoir, Panzer Commander.

  • At the beginning of June, suddenly and without warning, our division was entrained in Bonn and, after a journey of two or three days, detrained in Insterburg in East Prussia. The battalion was billeted in the surrounding villages. I used the opportunity to visit some friends on an estate nearby, where some years before, gay and light of heart, I had celebrated the wedding of one of my comrades. The old woman, who after the death of her husband, now managed the estate alone, greeted me sadly. “How depressing to see you again in these circumstances. How contented we were then and now we are threatened with a long and difficult encounter with Russia. Do you understand it all? What more does Hitler want? The Lebensraum so often talked of by him and Rosenberg?“ We walked through the clean stables. It was like saying good-bye to the old Germany.
  • Our entry into Russia had been delayed by nearly two months, because Hitler had had to help the Italians in Greece and subsequently deal with growing partisan activity in the Balkans. The Russian winter was at the door and the Wehrmacht was not prepared for it, let alone equipped. Hitler and the High Command seemed to have made no provision at all for a delay until winter.
  • The General looked at me over his glasses. “Luck, this was to be expected. Hitler has overreached himself. Now we’ve all got to pay for it, especially the poor infantry and the grenadiers. Give your men all the support you can. Many of them will get into a panic and try to save themselves at all costs. Don’t talk of retreat – the disengagement must and will succeed if we all keep our heads. We will lose a lot of materiel, but the main thing is to get the men back. In the hands of God, Luck.” Although catastrophe was looming, I couldn’t grasp it. For the first time since the successful blitzkriegs we were going back on disappointing terms. Snow, frost, icy winds, and an opponent who knew this climate and did not give up, had defeated us. The comparison with Napoleon was inescapable. I could see the pictures in my history books, of how the sad remnants of a proud army turned back and crossed the Beresina.
  • I could see the profound disappointment in Rommel’s face. “Through Hitler’s crazy order to hold out, we lost a vital day, which cost us losses that cannot be made good. I can’t hold Cyrenaica, so with the remains of the Afrika Korps, under General Bayerlein, I shall cross southern Cyrenaica, despite the rains and the sandstorms, in order to set up a first line of defense at Mersa el Brega.”

Some failures are noble. But Hitler’s failures were not. They were, even at the time, regarded as hubristic, crazy, and inexplicable by better and more intelligent individuals.

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Ukraine’s War on Christianity

Clown World’s puppet in Ukraine has proposed a law to ban the Christian church in Ukraine.

President Zelensky of Ukraine announced Draft Law 8821, which will make the Ukrainian Orthodox Church illegal throughout the country. The law, if passed, will also allow the Ukrainian government the ability to confiscate all church property and outlaw both public and private practice of the religion.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has long been the largest religion of Ukraine, tracing its origins over a thousand years back to 988 with the baptism of Vladimir the Great of the Kievan Rus’ and conversion of the eastern slavs, of which both Russians and Ukrainians share a united heritage.

President Zelensky announced the reasoning behind the law as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church being in communion with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. Of course, all of the main Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches are in communion with each other through a shared faith and deep history back to its Great Schism with the Holy See in 1054 AD. Zelensky has stated he hopes that this will weaken ties with Russia and demoralize any pro-peace sentiments Ukrainian Christians have with their brothers that they have been so tragically spilling blood with since February.

To put this into perspective, this would essentially be the same as if FDR had outlawed Catholicism during World War II due to the United States being at war with Italy… Zelensky, who is not a Christian, nor has he ever claimed to be, is willing to use his military to raid and persecute Christians to the same extent as his communist predecessors.

His action notwithstanding, Zelensky’s obvious intent is more akin to FDR outlawing every Protestant denomination in America, from the Assemblies of God to the United Methodist Church after outlawing the Roman Catholic Church. It’s akin to Winston Churchill banning the Anglican Church. Vladimir Putin’s decision to risk war with NATO in order to free the Russian people of the Donbass from the wicked color revolutionists in Kiev should be making a lot more sense to everyone now, even to those who foolishly opposed the special military operation and “stood with Ukraine”.

If you stand with Ukraine, you are literally standing with people who are satanists, sex traffickers, and pedophiles. It doesn’t matter if they call themselves “Bolsheviks” or “communists” or “neoconservatives” or “neo-Nazis” or “judeo-christians” or “secularists” or even, laughably, “Ukraine nationalists”, the only thing you need to know about them is that the citizens of Clown World are ferociously dedicated to the Holocaust and are violently opposed to Christians, Christianity, and Jesus Christ.

They are the enemy with one thousand names.

Ignore their purported ideologies. The ideological conflicts are nothing but smokescreens for the real war, which is spiritual rather than ideological, material, or economic.

And that is why everyone, of every nation and faith, should pray for Russia’s victory over Clown World.

UPDATE: The writer is correct. Zelensky’s current action is statistically akin to FDR banning the Roman Catholic Church in 1940. However, his obvious intent is to ban the larger Ukrainian Orthodox Church as well; until 2018 they were one and the same. So, if you think this proposed new law is inspired by the NATO-Russian war and the smaller church’s connection to the Moscow Patriarchate, you are foolish, short-sighted, and will be proven wrong.

Plus ça change… It’s been 84 years, and TIME is still celebrating the spirit of antichrist.

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