Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: a police officer’s perspective

A former police officer writes in response to my post on the Dallas police shootings:

The short:

Good article and overall I agree with it.

The long:

In regards to the “Us Vs Them” mentality; unfortunately, it was ingrained in us from the beginning at the academy and if you do not guard against it you will find yourself moving in that direction after a short time working as a police officer.

Tribe was ingrained in us from comments such as “there are two kinds of people, those in jail and those that should be.”  “In God we trust all others we run through NCIC”.  NCIC is the national records database.

As you started working something happened to me that I was not prepared for one of those unintended consequences, everybody lied to you.  And I mean everybody, about everything.  It did not take long where you fell into “my tribe” mode.  When you make the call that you need help and all your tribe show up – that is a powerful feeling and reinforces, good or bad, my tribe.

Military affectation.  True.  When I joined, Desert Storm had just ended and the DOD was giving away the store.

As far as these current rash of shootings caught on camera – people do not want to see the bad side.  I believe that most people think that when a shooting goes down it is “Hollywood”.  Good vs Evil – clean – sanitized.  One thing people do not understand is how fast events can turn.  And I have been in situations where things went from mild or this aint’ so bad to someone did or was going to die in milliseconds.  People can not even begin to understand the violence that can happen in situations.  This is not an excuse I just offer and explanation into the mindset.

And if I can use NAPALT.  I only recall one instance of behavior that was wrong coming from a police officer.  I had a prisoner in cuffs and this officer came up to the prisoner and threatened to “kick his ass”.  If this officer would have laid a hand on my prisoner I would have protected my prisoner.  It did not get that far. Then again, I was being interviewed for the county sheriff’s department and was asked if I would take revenge on a person in cuffs if they had resisted arrest. I told her no, once cuffs are on and there is no resistance there is no reason. To this day I do not know if the look she gave me was one of disbelief or “this guy won’t fit in with us because that is how we roll”.

I agree with your statement “that being scared is insufficient justification for shooting a member of the public” and “start holding killer cops fully accountable for their actions”.  However, just because someone is unarmed does not mean they are not a danger.  In one situation I had a guy reach for a gun and as I was getting ready to shoot I saw he was reaching for a Maglite flashlight.  This guy’s intention was Suicide by Cop.  My intention was to save my life and my partner’s life. Unfortunately, my partner was shot and killed 6 months later.  He stopped an unarmed man, the man started fighting with him, took his gun, and killed him with it.

People see these videos and project their feelings, fears, biases into them.  Once the evidence starts to come out the story we end up with is usually different from what we began with.

As I mentioned in my response to him, my opinion is largely informed by my personal acquaintance with police officers in several countries. I get along quite well with cops, in fact, at a recent get-together I was the only male non-cop there. I’ve had cops for sparring partners and weightlifting partners and friends.

But that doesn’t make me blind to the institutional and structural problems with the police in America. Nor does it mean that the lessons of 4GW which Mr.  Lind and LtCol Thiele teach in 4GW Handbook don’t apply to them. Ironically, one of those lessons is that an occupying military should behave more like traditional street cops, while what we’re seeing is the traditional street cops being trained to behave more like an occupying military.

Policing is a serious and important societal role and it ought to be treated as such. Police officers should be valued and respected, but they, in turn, must always behave in a respectable manner. They should never be deemed above the law or unaccountable, to the contrary, they should be held more accountable for their actions than the average untrained individual.

And no free man should ever descend to licking a boot or a badge.

And if you want to know what a badge-licker looks like, this is it:

John Sanders ‏@Platniumblum
@voxday outed himself as a closeted SJW. Blacks have no agency, no responsibility. The cops had it coming. #Dallas #disavowBLM

So virtuous! I expect he’s preening in anticipation of all the likes and retweets from noble police officers ever so grateful for his support.

Mailvox: SJW convergence at Baen?

A new anthology would not appear to bode well for the future of right-wing authors at Baen Books who are not named “John” or “Larry”:

I finished the anthology SHATTERED SHIELDS. Supposedly a “military fantasy” anthology though there was precious little military anything about it. Two stories blatantly homosexual. Robin Wayne Bailey has a spunky warrior women sorceress who is also a lesbian.

James L. Sutter had a story of an “elite” legion of 100 pairs of homosexual lovers who fight as pairs in battles. Total bullshit on the fighting…. A Jennifer Brozek co-edited the anthology. An overweight red head from her picture. Edited a book called CHICKS DIG GAMING, a non-fiction book on how females love gaming. Ever hear of her before? She also wrote a Valdemar story for one of antholgies of stories set in Mercedes Lackey’s horse world.

I have no idea who Bryan Thomas Schmidt is.

Take home point: convergence is taking place at Baen. SJWs are infiltrating there. Nowhere is safe with the big publishers. I notice women seem to like the anthology at Goodreads. Some of this stuff manages to make Joe Abercrombie look good in comparison.

I was wondering how long it would take SJWs to go after military science fiction once Kameron Hurley won the Hugo for her ahistorical and risibly stupid blog post “We Have Always Fought”. After all, there is nothing to stop them from turning Mil-SF into converged Romance the way they did to science fiction proper, especially in the era of She-Rangers and infantrymen in red heels. Now we know. At least the Sacred Band of Thebes really existed, although I find it moderately amusing that they now appear in practically every historical fantasy for either bathetic or virtue-signaling purposes.

Baen has always been uniquely at risk of SJW entryism for two reasons. One, it is 25-percent owned by Tor Books. Two, many of its authors are libertarians who are fairly sound on the economic and political fronts, but are more than a little prone to virtue-signaling on the cultural side. It’s one thing to have the occasional gay character – but when you have more gay characters than Catholics or Baptists appearing in your work, it’s readily apparent that you are, at best, virtue-signaling for the SJWs.

And when you make a point of bragging about how your protagonists are diverse in one way or another, well, it’s not exactly hard to predict which way you’re going to bend when the cultural winds blow. Or the road you’re going to walk in the future.

aliceination @frumiouslyalice
@saladinahmed just finished your book! excited for the next one but wondering – any chance of some more explicitly lgbt+ chars in future?

Saladin Ahmed ‏@saladinahmed
yes. A 100% chance.

Despite what many SJWs think, Baen is not actually on our side, rather, Baen is the No Man’s Land between the SJW and the Right. I suspect we’ll know Baen has fully converged when it abandons its garish trademark covers in favor of the washed-out faux literary style favored by Tor. Not that there is anything right about one or wrong about the other, but SJWs always have the need to let everyone know they have taken control, and that would be the most public way of making it clear to all and sundry.

Anyhow, should Baen eventually go the way of its big brother, Castalia will be here
to assist any of its authors who prefer to align with the Alt and Traditional Rights rather
than with the cultural Marxists.

The minor hubbub over Judith Merril and the long, sordid history of the Left’s baleful influence in science fiction makes it clear what a unique opportunity is being presented today by the confluence of technology and events. No wonder they call us Nazis. No wonder they are terrified.

They should be.

Mailvox: teaching 4GW

William S. Lind and LtCol Thiele are improving the state of American university education:

I teach undergraduate courses in Political Science and after reading Lind’s Four Generations of Modern War on your recommendation, I had to throw out two whole lectures on war and terrorism.  I’ve gone two semesters with new lectures and I’m looking to expand on this theme in my Intro course through some form of non-lecture activity.  After reading an article from Jeffro on wargaming in the classroom, I’m considering introducing a game which would demonstrate thematic concepts on 4GW, but I have little experience in wargaming beyond Risk and PC gaming. 

Could you recommend an appropriate game?  My classroom size is approximately 10-12, making 2 or 3 person teams possible, and I can probably devote two 1.5 hour sessions to this activity.  Andean Abyss and Cuba Libre have come up but I can’t afford to buy multiple games in a trial-and-error fashion.  Thank you.

Interesting question. Let’s throw this out to everyone and discuss the matter. My first thought was Junta, but that’s probably too focused on the traditional civil unrest. And it has made me think that perhaps it would be worthwhile to design a game around the core 4GW concepts. It wouldn’t be too hard, the first question would be deciding whether to make it totally theoretical or utilizing real and/or historical settings.

Another possibility would be Fallujah 2004: City Fighting in Iraq. This wouldn’t teach 4GW concepts per se, but would help illustrate some of the challenges involved. However, it’s a solitaire game, which could be seen as a positive or a negative, depending upon the professor’s perspective. Decision Iraq is a two-player game that deals directly with the insurgency, so I’d probably take a close look at that one. The rules can be found on the Decision Games site here in RTF format.

Mailvox: no refunds!

MC tries, and fails, to get a refund

Recently tried to get a refund for Star Citizen, and today they sent
back a boilerplate “nope!” with a bunch of “feel good crowdfunding
garbage.”

I’ve backed literally hundreds of Kickstarters, and less than one percent have failed as spectacularly as this train wreck.

Just one more data point, but I agree with your assessment that they’re circling the drain at this point.

Now, I’ve only backed a few Kickstarters, so I am no expert, but this sounds distinctly suboptimal to me.

Mailvox: forgetting 2008

Nathan thinks the general election is already over:

The game hasn’t changed one bit. When the Gen Election hits Clinton will
know exactly the states where she has to win and she’ll secure them
pretty easily. The game is called Electoral Collage Math. She starts
with NY, CA, IL, NJ, MA and who bunch of others. My bet is that Trump
will find a way to convince himself that he SHOULD win NY and will spend
time there. Meanwhile, Clinton will camp out in places like Michigan,
Ohio, Virginia, NC, AZ, NV and WA.

The poor guy doesn’t get it. He was overmatched the minute he secured the nomination.

Nathan appears to have forgotten that Hillary Clinton was the candidate who failed to understand the rules of the Democratic nomination in formulating her strategy and named a wannabe lawyer with a poli-sci degree from Middlebury and no absolutely experience in the real world her top economic adviser.

Perhaps she’s learned from her past failures, but until we see some evidence, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the competence of the Hillary campaign, much less her overmatching anyone. Especially when one considers how much trouble she is having putting away an ancient Vermont socialist who isn’t even a Democrat, despite having the DNC, the superdelegates, and the media in her pocket. She is an exceptionally bad candidate who has never beaten anyone who didn’t take a fall.

The state-by-state demographics are the sole reason for concern, but as others have pointed out, the conventional electoral math no longer applies once whites unite behind a political identity. Will that happen soon enough to elect Donald Trump?

Therein lies the question.

Mailvox: how to eject the Cult of Nice

JB asks how to go about restoring the worship of Jesus Christ to the nominally Christian church where the Cult of Nice has taken root:

My own church is not infested by SJWs, but it is solidly in the Church of Nice camp.  There have never been any horror story sermons such as those described by Dalrock on his blog, but the big ministry push is to send as many people to Mexico on “mission trips” as possible… and sometimes they bring natives back with them.  Also, the pastor expressly avoids “politics” in his teachings but routinely uses examples such as Jackie Robinson and Holocaustianity in his sermons.  I’ve never heard anything outrageous from the pulpit, but neither have I heard anything truly inspiring.  The best word I can think to describe my church and its leadership is “lukewarm.”

I used to think my congregation was fully Churchian, but in a weekly class on Christian Ethics I decided to stop being “Nice” myself.  We talked about standard political issues like economics, abortion, environmentalism, etc.  The leader was a well-meaning man but in his research prior to our discussion on immigration he apparently could find little Biblical support for immigration restrictionism.  At the beginning of the immigration class, he explained to everyone that he was originally anti-immigration but his research forced him to conclude that the Bible mandated open borders.  Fortunately, I reread Cuckservative the night before and (thanks in large part to you and John Red Eagle) systematically demolished his argument and built a Christian case in favor of immigration restrictionism.  My case was not “Nice” by any stretch.

However, rather than being excommunicated from the class because I dared say that Christians can morally support borders (a heresy in the Churchian mindset), I was invited to explain my position in more depth the next class and many people congratulated me and wished to learn more after the class was over.  Even the class leader seemed relieved to hear that a Christian case for immigration restrictionism was possible.  If there had been an SJW in the class, I would have been ejected.  Instead, I became a thought leader for the rest of the course and the class as a whole became less “Nice” and more “Christian” in the true sense.

This event led me to conclude that my congregation wants to be Christian but is Churchian out of ignorance and timidity.  This ignorance is shared at the top of our leadership.  No one appears to be fully SJW, but many do seem to believe that Churchianity is Christianity whether they like its repercussions or not.

I’ve been asked to help teach a discussion course next semester on why children raised in the church tend to leave it as they get older.  Of course, I believe the “Christian alt-right” explanation that modern Churchianity is poison and that a true Christian church would draw everyone back into the pews.  But I’m not sure using pure red meat such as Cuckservative immediately as a main text is as solid a strategy as using some softer stuff to build the students’ tolerance for alt-right theology.

How would you bring an ignorant, but apparently receptive, congregation back into the Christian fold from a surface-level Churchianity?

 Alt-right theology, now there is a simply terrifying term! Anyhow, I would start with a private meeting with the pastor first, and if he is supportive, with the elders next. It’s important to determine if you have an amenable authority or a hostile one before taking action, as that will significantly effect the way in which your campaign proceeds.

The next step would be to develop a program called “Back to the Biblical Basics” which the pastor could draw upon for his sermons and the Sunday School teachers and Bible Study leaders could utilize for their weekly activities. These subjects should be selected for undermining the various Churchian and Cult of Nice concepts that have gradually crept in over the years. Each topic should be based around a single Bible verse that contradicts or otherwise destroys the Churchian narrative, such as the way Matthew 15:25-28 destroys both the equalitarian and the immigrationist aspects of that narrative.

The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
 
But Jesus replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

“O woman,” Jesus answered, “your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

I would welcome similar suggestions in the comments; I expect 10-12 would be the minimum to provide a foundation for the “Back to the Biblical Basics” program.

And JB’s instincts are correct. Christians steeped in the Cult of Nice should not be encouraged to read SJWAL or Cuckservative, much less the relevant Alt-Right sites. They are not ready for it. Instead, they should be asked, relentlessly, if the narrative position they are upholding is one of which the world approves or not, and if worldly approval of its positions is the primary objective of a Christian Church. For every argument they make, from “we must be welcoming” to “everyone is equal”, have a verse to hand that demonstrates it to be the extra-Biblical, non-Christian nonsense that it is.

The third step is to embrace the consequences. Some church members will acknowledge Scriptural authority. Help them grow in understanding, conviction, and courage. Other members will reject Scriptural authority, cling to the Cult of Nice, and will probably threaten to leave the church. Don’t try to talk them out of it, but rather, help them go, as per the example of Gideon. If church members are more of the world than of the Church, then they belong in the former, and not the latter. The Church has no need of numbers; just 12 Apostles were all that was required to shake the world.

Mailvox: when is firing justified?

CC asks the wrong question:

Assume an employer discovers he has in his employ a vocal and known racist. Assume the presence of that racist in his employ is hurting his business due to people choosing to no longer do business with him. Is he justified firing the racist?

The answer is to this rhetorical query is, of course, yes? So, is a person who opposes racism justified in calling on people to not do business with an establishment that employs a known racist?

I don’t know why CC is even asking me this question. I believe in, and advocate, free association. That means that an employer can fire any employee for any reason he chooses.

So, I’m absolutely fine with an employer firing a racist simply for being a racist. What I would ask CC is this: is he likewise fine with an employer firing a black for being a black, a Jew for being a Jew, a woman for being a woman, a pregnant woman for being pregnant, a feminist for being a feminist, or a Communist for being a Communist? Because I support all of those hypothetical firings as well, on both logical grounds and on the basis of being protected by the Constitutional right of free association.

What is not fine, however, is those who are not involved attempting to put pressure on the employer to fire the racist, the black, the Jew, the woman, the Communist, etc. because they do not approve of the employee. Remember, Ben Shapiro did not say that he would refuse to hire anyone who is a socialist, he did not say he would not do business with anyone who employs Jews, he said that racists should be hunted down.

That is not free association.  That is not eucivic behavior that is compatible with either civilized society or peaceful coexistence. Society can survive many things, but it cannot survive this aggressive ideological totalitarianism aimed at extinguishing the acknowledgement of observable reality. SJWism is both dyscivic and dyscivilizational.

What SJWs want is thought policing and enforcement. They want certain thoughts protected from criticism and certain other thoughts eliminated. A person who opposes racism can only be justified in calling on people to not do business with an establishment that employs a known racist insofar as anyone else is equally able to call on people not to do business with other establishments for any other reason.

If that’s the war the SJWs want, that’s precisely the war they’ll get. But judging by their frightened response to something as minor as The Complete List of SJW, it seems unlikely that they are genuinely up for it. Because they know, as well as we do, that it is a war they will lose. Badly.

Mailvox: “one of the most substantive debates I’ve heard”

MC rather enjoyed the free trade debate:

This was fantastic.  Clearly one of the most substantive debates I’ve heard.  Both of you made your points well and it really gave the audience the ability to truly focus on the subject matter and the pertinent points of each argument.  I was impressed with Dr. Miller as he did not seem like your typical Academic, but really a guy that is interested in honest discussion (although naive).  Would love to hear more of these.

I am of the opinion that Free trade works well in theory, in a perfect world with honest players, but such a world does not exist this side of heaven.  I believe due to the fallen nature of man, protecting the nation-state is much more important than the benefits of open free trade, because of the eventual destruction of the culture and national identity.  I think the founders understood this much better than us, which is why they advocated tariffs and an American First mindset.

Great debate, I was very impressed, this is really good stuff.  More Please!

I’m glad everyone enjoyed it so much. I intend to keep doing this sort of thing and more at Brainstorm, and the more people that support Brainstorm by joining or simply showing up for the free events, the more high-quality guests like Dr. Miller and Dr. Hallpike will be interested in participating.

Speaking of the debate, some of you will recall that I felt the purely logical aspect of my critique of free trade could be improved and further refined. In that regard, a syllogism occurred to me that I believe  succeeds in succinctly and conclusively refuting Dr. Miller’s corruption argument for free trade.

  1. Dr. Mill argues that free trade is beneficial because it reduces corruption by removing power from the hands of elected politicians and transferring it to the board members and executives of multinational corporations, who are presumed to be less corruptible than politicians by virtue of being answerable to the Invisible Hand of the free market.
  2. But it is the board members and executives of multinational corporations who are the primary actors responsible for corrupting the politicians.
  3. And the causal factor of the process of corruption is, obviously, more intrinsically corrupt than the various parties being corrupted by it.
  4. Therefore, Dr. Miller is incorrect, the hypothetical ability of the Invisible Hand to rein in the corruption of the corporate interests is insufficient, and free trade will tend to increase corruption by transferring power from state politicians to multinational corporate interests.
  5. Therefore, free trade is not beneficial.

Mailvox: atheism and the motte-and-bailey analogy

BJ, an atheist, didn’t feel the topic that was debated in On the Existence of Gods was entirely fair.

As an atheist, I agree that Vox won the debate. His arguments were more
persuasive and coherent. Dominic was a good sport, but he was attacking a
castle with no cannons, no towers, no ram, not even a ladder. I don’t think it is a fair debate topic, though that is not Vox’s fault.
It’s what Myers originally claimed and what Dominic agreed to. But it’s
not a fair view on the subject.

This is the standard motte and
bailey for defending theism. You replace ‘proof of god’ with ‘doubt of
science’ and hope no one calls you on it (Dominic didn’t). Then you push
the atheist into admitting they can’t rule out the possibility of the
existence of something which may resemble a god or gods. Most people
consider that a win.

The problem I have with that is no priest
suggests the possibility of a god or gods, they talk about very specific
gods with very specific rules, demand very specific obedience, and ask
for very real money. None of them can prove their god is real but that
is the bailey position; when they are under attack they retreat to the
motte position, which is just “you can’t prove god(s) DON’T exist.”
Kinda weak basis for tithing 10% of my income.

On the one hand, this is an entirely reasonable point with which I agree entirely. In fact, I repeatedly point out, in both On the Existence of Gods and in The Irrational Atheist, that the argument for the existence of the supernatural, the arguement for the existence of Gods, and the argument for the existence of the Creator God as described in the Bible are three entirely different arguments.

One could further observe, with equal justice, that none of these three arguments suffice to establish the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ of Nazareth or the existence of the Holy Trinity as described in the Constantinian revision of the original Nicene Creed.

The problem, however, is that BJ reverses the motte-and-bailey analogy as it is actually observed in the ongoing atheism-Christianity debate. For example, even in the debate he criticizes, Dominic’s sallies were initially directed at all forms of supernaturalism before being knocked back by my response which observed that the supernatural is a set of which gods are merely a subset.

More importantly, there was never any retreat to the Christian bailey. It simply wasn’t the subject at hand; the purpose of the debate was to challenge the atheist claim to the motte claimed by PZ Myers. And as for Dominic supposedly failing to call me on the very rational and substantive grounds to doubt the legitimacy of science, particularly as it relates to science’s ability to address the subject of gods, that was an intelligent tactical move on his part, because I would have easily demolished any attempt to rely upon science in that manner.

As readers of this blog know, I don’t regard science as being even remotely reliable in its own right, I consider its domain to be limited, and there is considerable documentary, logical, and even scientific evidence to support that position. It is certainly an effective tool, when utilized properly, but it is not a plausible arbiter of reality.

In any event, those interested in the subject appear to find On the Existence of Gods to be a worthy addition to the historical discussion, as it is currently #2 in the Atheism category, sandwiched between a pair of books by Richard Dawkins. If you haven’t posted a review yet, I would encourage you to do so.

Mailvox: an epiphany

A reader has a realization:

A long time ago, there was a comfortable Establishment, which ran the roost via handshakes and insider back-scratching. The Right People got the right rewards, and all was good for the  Establishment

Then a bold, brash newbie shows up, and, despite pissing off the establishment by being exceptionally politically incorrect, becomes more and more successful until the Establishment decides that Steps Must Be Taken, and the Newbie must be destroyed. They’re destroying the accepted procedure, and they don’t care. . .

The question: Who am I talking about: The Puppies. . . .or Donald Trump ??

I’ve realized it’s the SAME STORY, and the ‪#‎NoTrumpers are just the PuppyKickers in a different venue.  How is gaming the convention rules any different from E Pluribus Hugo?

This is why the Puppinette referred to me as “the Donald Trump of science fiction”, which is, of course, a grand compliment indeed. But in both cases, we are the change that the establishment does not want to see.