Monthly Archives: July 2013

Lightning Round – 2013/07/31

A note: The Omega’s Guide will now be running on Sunday mornings to provide those following along time to implement the suggestions.

A new blog inspired by yours truly: Rise of the Omega. I wish him well in his journey and look forward to seeing where it goes.

Looks like Dark Brightness went down, while 3MM is now protected. Update: Seems Chris’ site is back up.

Hawaiian Libertarian puts up his reading list.

“Your personal shortcomings and natural talents are not moral triumphs.”

A critique of the Christian manosphere.

Be a predator.

Metaphorical height.

Validation addiction and beautiful women.
Related: Why females should despair at the massive attention they receive.
Related: Two hours of a woman’s inbox.
Related: One hundred messages a day.

The importance of truth. Related.

Manosphere scandal: Mark Minter’s getting married.
Related: Mark Minter’s a phony.
Related: Who cares? Be positive.
Related: Kill your manosphere idols.
Related: A man of his word.
Related: A failure of principle.
Related: Freedom porn and the downfall of the manosphere.
Related: MGTOWP & MGTOWFAW.

Fearsome Pirate attacks a hamster.
Related: Aurini attacks the same hamster.

Strategic silence.
Related: Introverts are happier when acting as extroverts.

Danger, violence, and attraction.
Related: Hypergamy TO THE EXTREME.

The stabilizing influence of masculine dominance in women’s lives.

A dialogue on patriarchy.

An explanation for women why cuckoldry is such a big deal.
Related: On paternity testing.
Related: More on paternity testing.
Related: Beware fake paternity tests.

The hypocrisy of lying about your N.

Science on consumerism and mate-guarding.

Is the claim “men won’t commit” projection?
Surprise: Men less committed to live-in relationships.

Advice on a sexless marriage. A bit more.
Related: A counterpoint.

The real reason behind the domestic violence industry.

Leftists fear themselves more than they fear conservatives.
Related: Why to leftoids hate hatefacts?
Related: Victor Hanson begins an honest conversation about race.
Related: Shut up allies.

How to actually get rich.
Related; How to not be poor.

You can judge a book by its cover.

The script.

Girls crowding out boys.
Related: Female sport as parasite.

Do not have sex with feminists.
Related: Women past their prime are more interested in younger men than older men.

Wow… Why would someone marry this?

Feminism began in the 1820s.

Tweets from the barbarians over the new prince. What vile people.
Related: JB comments on some more savages’ views of the prince.
Remember: if you give in to the savages, they will only shriek more.

An interesting concept: bibliolatry. Don’t really buy it, though.
Related: Idolatry and God as a noun.

Why God doesn’t answer prayers. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Update: Part 4.

Good books on introducing your church. I was actually planning to ask this question concerning Catholicism sometime in the next few months, but Bonald beat me to it.

The Grand Ideal of Nonthought: “The groups that the modern nihilists adore and support have nothing in common with each other, aside from the fact that they are evil.”

The destruction of our education system and the mediocrity of teachers.

Roissy with some links.

Resartus.org, the antiversity, is now up.
Anarcho-monarchism in the Shire.
Oaks vs. sandboxes.

An introductions to Maine’s Popular Government.

The safety of federalism.

Seems CC’s positive opinion of the cops is getting worn away much as mine is.
Related: The blue rot.
Related: The FBI, spamming, and entrapment.
Related: Undercover cop taped planting crack in arrested owner’s store.

A story of church and organic community in action.

How to be civilized.

Obesity: Magical explanations and personal responsibility.

Innateness and the cultural arrangement of society.

Hong Kong vs. Detroit.

A high trust society in action.

The research on homosexual families.
Related: A story of two fathers.

A letter from a marine captain in Afghanistan.

Women: don’t cut your hair short.

JB analyzes the drone study.

Why certain people hate the Jews.

A review of “This Town”.

Why libertarianism has a women problem.

Humour: Why you can’t believe what you read online.
Related: You can trust the media.
Related: You can trust the press.

Child support outrage story of the week.

Anti-gun nut who buys a gun is a neurotic, paranoid lunatic, yet no one died.

IRS workers opposed to Obamacare for themselves.

Be careful of medical advice.

18 similarities between 2008 and 2013.
Related: The stock market is completely divorced from reality.

The Keynesian fallacy.

It’s been a while, but Krugman is still an ass.

Journalists lie, post picture of racist anti-Zimmerman protestor as Zimmerman supporter.

A miracle: Ygglesias gets it right, not just once, but twice in a single week.

First National Bank of Wellston, Ohio burglarizes woman’s house, refuses to compensate her.

“Fair housing” coming to a neighbourhood near you.

Feds demand users’ passwords.

DM in charge of creating a sex ed curriculum for young children is a child pornographer who opposed background checks for adults working with children.

Don’t fight Nazism by taking nazi-like actions.

Goods new: The honey bee is not going extinct.

(H/T: SDA, the Captain, Maggie’s Farm, Nick Steves, Vox, Foseti, Instapundit)

Guest Post from Europe

Below is a guest post from a reader that would like to remain anonymous. The post touches on a number of topics. As I’ve stated before, I am willing to put up guest posts as long as said post is of some value and is somewhat related to the blog’s general purposes.

1. I GENUINELY believe that the Abortion/Anti-Family/Birth Control/Divorce/Feminist/MarxistSocial PONZI Scheme Agenda will eventually cause TOTAL Economic & Social Collapse as some people have predicted. This will mean the END of the Cradle-to-Grave Western Social Welfare system. We will see states recognize ONE type and ONLY one type of Household, the MARRIED household. In the LONG-TERM Total Economic & Social Breakdown, which will make the Economic Mess TODAY look like a toddlers’ playschool tiff, will benefit Society, especially children. This will mean that a GOOD man of 40 – 45 years of age can marry a lady half his age and father 10 children. The young lady of 24 will have NO PROBLEM marrying a man of 40 years of age and having 9 children as HE will have a house & an income to make a family lifestyle practical. There is NO CASE known to History since people started living in caves of ANY Long-Term successful society that was NOT organized along Patriarchal lines or ‘Love, Honour & Obey YOUR Husband Ladies’ to the non-verbally-gifted in Society. On the other hand a woman older than 35 will have great difficulties becoming a mother. The State will have to make Marriage an ENFORCEABLE contract. So the spouse who wants out from a NON-Abusive spouse will be allowed or indeed forced to leave NO children, NO money & NO house, rendering the INNOCENT spouse a widow or a widower, almost. We will see a return of LARGE families of 8 – 12 children as CHILDREN become new Pensions. Sooner or later the Pensions’ Laws will be changed to link a person’s pension to the number of children that a person had. So the BIGGER the family, the BIGGER the pension you get.

2.01: Some time ago, I pointed out in a Family discussion that Society needs 3 children per couple to replace the people who die and 5 people of working age per pensioner to keep the pensions’ systems safe. I was accused of wanting to keep women PHYSICALLY chained to the kitchen sink, only being released to go to the Maternity Ward.

3. 01: As we speak “Same-Sex Marriage” is the new Liberal Agenda demand, being compared to Martin Luther King & Civil Rights, according to our Deputy Prime Minister recently. The Government has introduced Abortion into Ireland, while the same politicians who make their “Reproductive Health Care” speeches on Monday will make their “Looming Pensions Crisis” speeches on Tuesday, metaphorically speaking.

4.01: I listened to The Communist Manifesto on Youtube in which we hear:
4.02: The “Children’s Rights” and the “Bad Parents” speeches,
4.03: The “State Education” speeches,
4.04: The “End of the Family” especially the Marriage Family speeches,
4.05: The “Abolish Countries and Nations” speeches.
4.06: Some 75 years ago, Anatonio Gramsci a Marxist Philosopher concluded that the World Revolutions that Marx & Lenin had predicted were NOT going to happen. He said that Marxists should infiltrate Society’s CULTURAL Institutions and so undermine Society. We see his programme being enforced. How little things change!!!!

5.01: As you know, Augustus the first ACKNOWLEDGED Emperor of Rome, during his 41 Years as Emperor from 27 BC – 14 AD was NEVER tired urging the Roman élite to have children and to stop spending their time having fun with the Girlfriends & Boyfriends. Augustus even had his “Bachelor Tax” to encourage procreation. When Pliny the Younger in 100AD approximately, uses the word ‘burden’ to describe how the Roman élite viewed their 1 child “families” it is estimated that there were some 1,000 Christians from a population of some 60 million in the Roman Empire, both East & West. While the estimated population remained reasonably stable over the next 200 years, the Christians increased to 1 million approximately within 100 years and some 6 million people 10% of the population a century later. One of the reasons for this Christian advance was DEMOGRAPHICS, big families to the rest of us. A second reason, flowing from BIG Families, is an efficient Health Care system. If you come from a LARGE family, it means that you have plenty of relations to help pay for doctors and provide care to the sick people when there was NO Insurance or Government Heath Care System. The Romans, just like the West TODAY, were into their “Whatever-you-want-yourself-Joe/Do NOT Judge me” type of families. When the Plague would strike Roman cities a LOWER proportion of Christians than the GENERAL population died, due to the Communal Christian Health Care system. Additionally Christians searched the streets to find the sick people not unlike Mother Treasa of Calcutta’s nuns today. In addition, Christians taught that we are ALL equal before God. Also Christianity taught people about the After-Life whereas Romans NOT UNLIKE Europe today, believed that we live, we die — Period – Finished – Over.

6.01: I have no doubt that in 100 years time the historians will say that those Churches (Rome & some Reformed Churches) got things a TRILLION percent correct when those Churches said some 50 years ago now, that artificial contraception would lead to an absolute social disaster. Time will prove the statement from Cardinal Hume of Westminster ‘A Contraceptive Mentality inevitably leads to an Abortion Mentality’ to be correct. Time will prove the SUPER-NON-PC statement from a former Archbishop of Dublin, some years ago now, that Planned children are LESS loved than Unplanned Children. We will see artificial Contraception being BANNED and treated like Cocaine today. In 1900 the American Association of Atheists said that by 1950 Christianity would be dead in the USA. This prediction was based on the fact that 42% of College-educated Americans said in the previous Census that they did NOT believe in God. The USA is now the MOST religious Western country. Ah, yes, Time is a GREAT & GLORIOUS Storyteller. I am NOT making a religious point, merely saying that Time has proven the Men in Rome correct.

Omega’s Guide – My Road from Omega

Welcome to part two of the Omega’s Guide to Not Being a Loser, wherein I establish my credentials for taking on such a project.

I want you to know you are not alone, to know I know how you feel, to know that I can help you, to know it is not hopeless, so I am going to tell you where I was at and where I am now, hopefully as an inspirational story, or possibly just so you can laugh.

As a child I was always the one bullied, I got beaten up regularly, and was always one of the most unpopular kids in the class. I had few friends at school, but usually made up for it with friends from church or my neighbourhood. I moved around a lot, so I would always lose my current friends, but I would usually find a friend or two. As a teenager in high school, I moved to a new city. In this new city, I spent a year with no friends; I was unable to make them. I was too afraid to talk to people to make them. I had no social activities outside of church and youth group. I was crushingly lonely during this period.

Eventually, I got myself involved with a small group of friends; there was a group of about five guys I would spend time with. Things were not bad.

Then came college and things became horrible. My group of friends all went different paths, and my friends were all busy. I would see them about once a month. I helped “lead” youth group once a week (by which I mean, I showed up, watched the group while others lead, and talked with the two or three of the more nerdy/introverted youth) and went to church on Sunday. Outside of this, I had no social activities, I had no hobbies. I went to university, went to my part-time job, then came home and played video games, read, and watched TV. I had no friends but that small group I rarely saw; I had other social activities. This was my life for three years.

From about 17 or so, there was a cute blonde girl a few years younger than me who went to my church and youth group. I had the strongest crush on her for four years. I would daydream about her incessently; I thought of her everyday. I wanted nothing more in life than to hold this girl and have her be mine. More accurately, I wanted nothing more than to have the illusionary girl I built her up to be in my head; in those four years, I can count the times I talked with her at all (even a simple hello) on one hand; I had a real conversation with her a grand total of once.  I did not know her well-enough to like her; I was madly “in love” with the idea of what I thought she was.

For four years, I would see this girl in a group once or twice a week, spend most of the time furtively glancing at her, trying not to stare, beat myself up afterwards for my cowardice in not talking to her, then mooning over her the rest of the week. I was pathetic.

To make matters worse, in retrospect, this girl might have have had some interest in me back, and I might have had a chance had I only had the base courage to talk to her. That one real conversation I did have was at a youth event at a corn maze. I followed her and her sister in, walked up beside her, and we started talking for most of the maze. During this time, she dropped a number if hints I was too socially obtuse to understand, hints like “I’m cold” to which I stupidly offered my jacket, which she rejected, and “we should ditch my sister and go off alone together” to which I retardedly answered “that doesn’t seem very nice.” (Yes, really, she honestly said that and I truly answered that).

I was that bad at reading social situations. As another example, there was another girl in my youth group who I was not attracted to. At one event, we talked; she started blathering on about how she broke up with her boyfriend because he wasn’t Christian and she needed to find a good Christian man, while I half-listened and nodded. When she was done, I went inside and did my usual, stand in the group circle and listen without saying anything. She came up beside me and started leaning against me; I thought she must have been tired. We then went for the Bible lesson; she followed me and sat beside me. She then leaned into me and rested her head on my shoulder, I thought it was kind of weird, but she must’ve been really tired, so I tolerated it. After the lesson, she asked if we could talk. I said, sure. She then told me she liked me; I was utterly surprised. She did everything short of kiss me or grab my genitals, and I was no even aware of it until she told me. I asked to think about it (I was wondering if I should just for the social practice) and planned to tell her no a few days later. In my shameful cowardice I just avoided her for two months, until I finally screwed up the courage to reject her. (I regret that, it was a jerk move).

Knowing that, you will probably believe me when I tell you I could literally not start a conversation with a woman. I could literally not talk to strangers, acquaintances, or anyone not among my small groups of friends except in the most transactional or superficial ways (“Hi, How are You, I am good?” and answering direct questions with three words answers was the extent of my social prowess), and even these limited conversations were awkward. I had no friends other than that group of 5 I rarely saw; I rarely called my friends up to do something because I was afraid to phone them and “knew” they had better things to do than hang out with me. I had no social activities outside church, where I stood in a corner by myself. I never had a date. I withdrew from my family, spending most of my time in my room by myself. Etc. I was scrawny and out of shape, at only 150 pounds at 6’2″. My life was pretty much video games, TV, and books.

I was pathetic, I was desperately lonely, I was always bored, I hated myself, and I was suicidal. I thought about suicide every day and I seriously considered it about once a month. Twice, I sat on my bed, with my pocket knife to my throat, crying, while I debated whether to push it in or not. I decided not to both times for two reasons: I didn’t want my mom to find my corpse and I was worried the Catholics might be right and suicide would damn me. Those are literally the only reasons I could come up with not to kill myself.

This went on for three years, until I turned 21. Then I decided to turn myself around. I took the Dale Carnegie course (my grandfather paid for it, as both he and my mother were worried about my social life). I started spending more time with my friends. I attended attending a Christian group on campus, where I made a larger circle of friends. I started going to social events regularly; I spent more Fridays doing things than staying home. Over time, I developed a few hobbies. I started talking to girls, I entered a relationship or two.

Now, I have a circle of close friends and few other circles of friends. I am busy most days with social activities or hobbies. I have no problem talking with strangers. I can readily and easily converse with girls. I can and do approach girls on occasion, and get the occasional date. I no longer hate myself, no longer think suicidally, am rarely bored, and while occasionally I get a little lonely, it is nowhere near the level of desperation I once had. I’m now in decent shape, having gained 30 lbs of mostly muscle (and some fat). I’ve improved my life in every way.

****

As you can see, if you are stuck in a rut of friendlessness, hopelessness, desperation, loneliness, and boredom, there is hope. I was there, I know how hopeless it can seem. I know how frightening social interaction is. I now how comfortable a rut, however miserable and painful, can be and how hard it is to escape. I know how you feel, because I was you, and I want to help. I improved my life, you can to.

Introduction to the Omega’s Guide

If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ve noticed my contributions have generally been theoretical rather than practical. The reason being I am still a beta slowly working on self-improvement (with as much failure as success), rather than the patriarch I plan to be, and am thus not in a position to provide much practical advice on becoming alpha with any authority.

On the other hand, I think there is one area where I can offer some solid advice that is lacking. I have found that most of the advice in the manosphere is geared towards the beta, the average man of moderate social abilities with a circle of friends and the occasional success with woman. Very rarely is advice given that is addressed to the omega, the man with no social abilities, few, if any friends, and no success with women. I have mentioned I used to be an omega, in both the conventional and Voxian sense, who through years of effort, hard-work, and self-improvement became a better version of myself,  so I think I can help fill this gap.

Thus begins part one of the Omega’s Guide to Not Being a Loser (maybe someone can help me think of a better title).

First, some information on what this guide is and is not. This is not a guide for becoming an alpha male admired by all; it is a guide for becoming a socially functional member of society. This guide will not help you score dozens of chicks, but it will help you talk to girls and get the occasional relationship. This guide will not make you a leader of men, but it will help you acquire a circle of friends. This guide will not help you rule the club each weekend, but it will help it so that you have social activities to attend most weekends. This guide is not about changing who you are, but rather making you a better, happier, more fulfilled version of yourself; I am not trying to make an introvert into an extrovert, but even the most introverted need some social interaction.

This guide is for the omega, the loser, the socially maladjusted who wants to better himself and get more out of life.

How to tell if this guide is for you:

  • You spend most of your Friday and Saturday evenings at home playing video games or surfing 4chan rather than spending time with friends.
  • You have few friends, wish you had more, but don’t know how to make some.
  • You have few social activities that aren’t church, work, or school related; ie. places where people are more or less forced to accept you.
  • You spend 30-40 or more hours a week on the internet or video games.
  • You are unable to carry on a decent conversation with strangers, ie; Anything beyond “Hi.” “How are you?” “I’m doing well.” is awkward, if it happens at all.
  • You have unable to carry on a conversation with a girl.
  • You are unable to initiate a conversation with a girl.
  • You have liked a girl for months (years) and have never talked with her beyond the occasional hello or perfunctory, “How are you?”
  • You are miserable and lonely, but have no idea how to fix it.
  • You feel incapable of reading other people’s emotional states and the actions and emotions of other people confuse you.
  • You often bored with life in general.

Do a fair amount of these honestly apply to you? If they do, you are likely an omega and you are who this guide is aimed to.

Now, be honest with yourself. It may suck to acknowledge that you are on the bottom of the social hierarchy, but you can’t improve your life until you realize you have improving to do. You don’t have to tell me, but you do have to tell yourself.

So, this is the first step to no longer being a loser:

Acknowledge to yourself that you need to improve yourself.

It is not normal and not healthy to have no friends, to be lonely, to spend all your free times in your room alone on your electronic devices, and to be unable to talk to girls or strangers.

Don’t split hairs (I browse Reddit, not 4chan and three weeks ago I spent Saturday at Games Workshop). Don’t rationalize (I’m an introvert, I don’t need friends; I’m happy being alone). Don’t feel hopeless (why would anybody want to spend time with me?). You know perfectly well you are lonely and miserable and wish you could be different. So, let me help you help yourself.

****

I have a loose plan for this project, but if you want something specific covered, feel free to ask.

With this series I am going to develop a plan to help Omegas and losers develop themselves into socially capable people with lives they can enjoy. Omegas (and Voxian gammas) are the target audience. If you are not an omega, I still feel free to read along, you might still get something out of it. As well, feel free to comment and provide any information you think may be relevant.

Once I’m done, I might compile the series into a pamphlet or short book if I think there is enough demand for it, and if I do so, I will use suggestions given to improve it.

Lightning Round – 2013/07/24

The Need and the Void.
Related: Relationships and oneitis.
Related: What game really is.

Why should a man marry?
Related: Marry for money.

Advice for gammas and omegas.

Love is dying.
Related: News you already knew: Marriage is declining.

I missed this: Sis apologizes for her controversial Reddit comment. I wasn’t the one wronged, but insofar as it concerns me, I forgive her and hold no ill will and encourage the same from others. She is still welcome here.

Karl hangs up his hat.
Actually, he doesn’t. (Yay!) He seems to be channeling Elric: “Blood and souls for Arioch.”
But he is begging for money.
Radish on Starship Troopers, my favourite novel.

New blog: The Puerarchy.

The efficiency of being a dick.

Never give an inch; the barbarians will devour you either way.

Be bold.
Related: Your time will come.
Related: Perception isn’t reality.

How to live well.
Be a go-getter.

Hail Caesar.

Maverick Traveller with a good post on desire.
Related: You can’t convince a girl to like you.

Roosh with a good post on ego and sex.

Eye contact.

Advice for women.
Related: Love him like his dog does.
Related: How to be a lady.
Related: Men want Cinderella, not the ugly step-sisters.
Related: The parable of the cordwainers.
Related: The beauty exception.

The tragedy of the hook-up culture.
Related: Women will submit, but to whom?
Related: JB on feminism, hook-up culture, and race.
Related: WK on the hook-up culture.

“It’s amazing that women can easily rebel against God, biology, society, their husbands, but they’ll drop on their knees for a cad. It’s no wonder PUAs are so full of themselves.”

On weakness and women, from the Bible.

The wolf in sheep’s clothing; unChristian advice from a Christian magazine.

Resegregate the sexes.

Dominance and virtue.
Related: Virtue game.

Control defines a man.
Science: Dominance, not looks, matters.

GBFM with many a truth-bomb.
Related: Read da great bookz for men.

Beers, boobs, and defining masculinity.

Forfeiting the patriarchal dividend. Related.

What’s great about Facebook.

The decline of sperm production.

Who’s having babies?

Craftsmanship. Do it right.

Working in the trades.

PUA roundtable in NYMag. No Roissy, Roosh, Mystery, or Strauss? Also, why is half the roundtable on PUAs female?
Related: Slate understands neither thin-slicing nor probability.

Don’t subsidize the feminists in the SMP.

More feminist narcissism.

You know you’re desperate when

Sometimes a woman’s evil intent is obvious.

Promiscuity is a form of self-mutilation for daddyless daughters.

What’s wrong with equal custody?

White privilege as substitute religion.
Related: White privilege is an inexpungible original sin.

Steyn on the downfall of Detroit.
Bankruptcy: Coming soon to a city near you.

The cause of social decay.
Related: Socialism destroys trust and social capital.

An economic survival plan.

The death spiral tightens.

The collapse of Portugal.

Revolt of the Masses: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.

Religion and reaction.
Related: If it helps, I am religious and a reactionary.

Problems with the church.
Related: Evangelicals continue their leftward drift.
Related: The religious left are the biggest suckers of all.

Networks of influence; profiles of the Cathedral clerics. Part 2.

Theology and clear-thinking.

Theodicy.

Women now have more power to control men without criminal charges or a trial.

Girls day is for girls, boys day is for all.

Thank goodness we integrated the military. Thank goodness.

NSA can search your e-mail, but not its own.

The power of the shield.

About an honest conversation on race.
Related: WS gets honest.
Related: Trayvon doesn’t matter.
Related: The no-fact zone.
Related: Zimmerman pulls man from truck.
Related: The most important message of the trial was that Jeantel can’t read.
Related: Zimmerman’s chief crime was acting ‘uppity’.
Related: The Croatia effect.
Related: Welcome to the USSA.
Related: Racist liberal cannot imagine a black guy not punching a stranger.
Related: Some liberals are actually capable of investigation.
Related: Zimmerman was a Democrat and tutored black children.

Black man with pistol kills white teen, is acquitted. Where’s the reaction?

The fun begins.

Black privilege.

Some people are too idiotic to suffer to live.

Why do liberals believe minorities are too stupid and/or irresponsible to obtain ID?

A little more proof of the nature hypothesis.

The ministry of truth in real time.

Watch Ender’s Game opening weekend.

China works to lower divorce rates.

Politics is a waste of time.
Related: Some political one-liners.

Politically ignorant congress.

For the Moldbuggians in the audience: Stuart Anglicanism.

The new prince has been born. Not sure what to think; as a monarchist I support the increased profile the monarchy has, but as a Jacobite, I support the ascension of the Stuart line to the throne.

Immigration and human rights violations.

A homeschool curriculum discussion.
Related: The best students are home-schooled.

Vaunted Scandinavian education system not so good.

Does some behind the scenes changes in the Marines’ leadership signify something greater.

UK’s war on porn.

Less research is needed.

The joys of banking regulation.

More positive reviews of Modafinil.

Abortion “logic”.

How many times will you see your parents before they die?

Surprise Results: Woman are less informed about the news.

Tim Hortons moves back to Canada.

(H/T: SDA, the Captain, MF, Foseti, Ian, Vulture, BB)

The Real Meaning of Zimmerman

There is a subtext to the Zimmerman controversy that I have yet to see fully explored, but is probably the most important aspect of the trial.

Steve Roney (h/t: SDA) almost touches upon it, but it gets lost in his larger argument that Zimmerman was a working-class man acting uppity:

Of course, this is more or less what the police would do; and it is obviously not a hanging offence when they do it. The problem is that Zimmerman, though in fact legally entitled to do this, was not formally qualified. He was acting above his station, in the minds of the professional elite, including “professional” journalists.

One can see how this would ring all kinds of bells, if subconsciously, in the typical newsroom. What professional group is more threatened by citizen volunteerism these days than the media? Zimmerman and those like him are to them an existential threat. It was in their vital interests to take him down by whatever means necessary.

While Rebel University touches upon the fringes of the issue:

By suing the HOA and winning this settlement, Martin’s parents have helped ensure that the crime rates go up in their own community, since other HOAs will learn from this and determine that having a neighborhood watch is an unaffordable risk. Having a neighborhood watch guarantees that there will be confrontation between the watchers and the “suspicious people”.  That creates the possibility that the watchers will be attacked by the “suspicious people” and that creates the possibility that some of the watchers will defend themselves with lethal force.  It is unavoidable.  The HOA lawyers will determine that having any sort of neighborhood watch is unaffordable.

If you’ve been following the Zimmerman trial even slightly, you’ve probably seen the accusation that he was acting like a ‘wannabe rent-a-cop’ or something similar a number of times, due to his involvement in his local neighbourhood watch. As The Crimson Reach stated, the entire premise of the moral outrage against Zimmerman was due to the fact that “Zimmerman found Martin suspicious, followed him in his car, called it in, got out of his car.”

This is what the left finds offensive. This is what the Cathedral finds offensive. This kind of behaviour is what the Cathedral is trying to eliminate through Zimmerman’s show trial.

They do not want you to get out of the car.

Zimmerman did.

****

If we look at the history of Zimmerman, he was a model citizen with a minor black mark or two from his youth:

At the time of the shooting, Zimmerman was employed as an insurance underwriter and was in his final semester at Seminole State College for an associate degree in Criminal Justice. In one of his interviews with police he stated his goal was to become a judge.

In early 2011, Zimmerman participated in a citizen forum at the Sanford City Hall, to protest the beating of a black homeless man by the son of a white Sanford police officer. During the meeting, Zimmerman called the behavior of officers on duty “disgusting” and detailed officers napping while on duty and refusing to take on difficult assignments.

From January 1, 2011 through February 26, 2012, police were called to The Retreat at Twin Lakes 402 times. During the 18 months preceding the February 26 shooting, Zimmerman called the non-emergency police line seven times. On five of those calls, Zimmerman reported suspicious looking men in the area, but never offered the men’s race without first being asked by the dispatcher. Crimes committed at The Retreat in the year prior to Martin’s death included eight burglaries, nine thefts, and one shooting. Twin Lakes residents said there were dozens of reports of attempted break-ins, which had created an atmosphere of fear in their neighborhood.

In September 2011, the Twin Lakes residents held an organizational meeting to create a neighborhood watch program. Zimmerman was selected by neighbors as the program’s coordinator, according to Wendy Dorival, Neighborhood Watch organizer for the Sanford Police Department.

Zimmerman was a normal person who cared about his community and acted to protect it. He voluntarily took on the mantle to watch his neighbourhood for suspicious activity and to stand up against police corruption.

George Zimmerman worked to build organic community. Any normal person would be thrilled to have a neighbour like Zimmerman keeping an eye out on things.

That is why he was made an example of.

****

In this particular case, he saw this suspicious-looking individual in his neighbourhood after a period of break-ins and other crimes. Like a concerned citizen who cared about his community, he reported the incident to police, then followed to keep a look out on the suspicious individual.

That was his crime. He cared about his community enough to try to keep it safe. He got out of the car.

And that is the whole point of this fiasco. It is the whole reason they rage against “stand your ground”. It’s the whole reason they fight gun freedom.

The Cathedral does not want you to get out of the car. The Cathedral does not want you to protect yourself or your community. The Cathedral does not want you to be able to trust your neighbours.

If you see Kitty Genovese, the Cathedral wants you to walk past. If you see a crime being committed against someone else, the Cathedral wants you to ignore it. If you see a suspicious person in your neighbourhood, the Cathedral wants you to ignore him.

Why?

So your neigbourhood loses social capital. So you can not trust your neighbours to watch out for you and your home. So you are forced to rely on the police and the state for safety rather than your neighbours.

They want you to destroy your trust in your neighbours and your local community so you become dependent on the state for security.

The Cathedral can not simply outlaw organic community-building and looking-out for your neighbours because that would enrage too many and would show their hand, which depends, in a large way, on being subtle. But someone died in this case in a possibly questionable manner, so the Cathedral had an opportunity to make an example. Zimmerman was the example.

Zimmerman was persecuted by the state for the purpose of making you think twice about helping your neighbour.

If I see someone suspicious in my neighbourhood and think of keeping an eye out on him? I remember Zimmerman: maybe I shouldn’t, it could escalate and I could become the next 2-minute hate target.

I hear what might be a cry for distress? Not my problem, it’s probably nothing and even if I intervene I could become the next Zimmerman.

I see someone rooting around in my neighbour’s backyard? If I intervene I could be the next Zimmerman.

Then, once everyone’s to afraid to intervene, out come the Kitty Genovese stories. I cried for help, why did nobody came to my aid? Someone robbed my house in broad daylight, why did no one intervene? A dozen people saw me being mugged, why did no one help me? Crime and drugs are rampant in my neighbourhood, why is nothing being done? This is the tenth time my garage has been tagged and my garbage overturned, why are my neighbours doing this to me?

The inevitable conclusion, I can’t trust my neighbours. I’m not safe in my neighbourhood.

Whatever the useful idiots might parrot, that is the whole purpose of this farce.

They want you to question yourself when you hear someone in trouble. Eventually, when enough people question themselves and do not intervene because they do not want to go risk a year-long trial, death threats, and public opprobrium, community trust collapses, because nobody is intervening to keep neighbourhoods safe.

Eventually, organic community dies, and the police and the state can step in.

The long march progresses.

You can’t trust your neighbours, but you can trust us. We’re from the government and we’re here to help you.”

Cable: The Cold, Dead Fire

This week I was reminded why I don’t have cable. I went on a two-evening business trip and was planning to do some reading in the evenings; I wanted to finish Economics in One Lesson and possibly Boston’s Gun Bible. I ended only getting most of the way through the former.

Why?

Both evenings, when I got back to the hotel room, I turned on the TV for what I planned to be a little relaxation before starting reading. The planned half hour, turned into an entire night. (I should have learned the first night, but didn’t).

Some of it I enjoyed, Duck Dynasty was very entertaining and filled with solid moral lessons; I do not regret watching a few episodes and wanting to watch a couple more was the reason I turned the TV on the second night. But in addition to Duck Dynasty, I ended up watching, among other shows, a multi-hour marathon of those storage auction shows, the movie Hook (which had a certain nostalgia value, but little else), and a few episodes of some retarded Nickelodeon comedy for teenagers, none of which I can say I actually enjoyed watching.

I’m fairly sure my books would have been not only more edifying, but also more entertaining, definitely moreso than the Nickoledean comedy. Yet, I watched these shows anyway.

I had this same problem back when I did have cable. It was so easy to sit down, then continue wasting away time even when I wasn’t enjoying myself or what I was watching. I would spend 15 minutes flipping through the channels, thinking to myself there’s nothing on. Then, thinking if I wait only 15 more minutes, new shows I like will be on. I could occasionally spend hours in this cycle of non-enjoyment

TV is manufactured to pulls at your senses and suck you in. After it sucks you in, it drains your energy and will to do anything else. The passivity of TV makes it unlike any other medium. Print require active reading, video games require active involvement, but TV requires nothing other than to lie down a shut up. It is so very easy to waste large amounts of time not enjoying yourself watching TV.

Cable makes it worse. With so much variety, it is always easy to find a show that is, if not entertaining, is barely watchable. It’s such a low threshold to reach, but the primal pull of the colours, the movement, the sound, the manufactured ‘relationships’, the ‘overheard’ conversation makes it difficult to resist the lure of the barely watchable. You are being manipulated on levels you are barely aware of; I was.

Cable TV is a soul-sucking distraction.

We could even say, it leaves you desouled, butthexed, and bernankified. lolzlollzozlolz

****

This excerpt from Chapter 12 of the Screwtape Letters proves apt:

As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations. As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo (for that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure) you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods. You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room. All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”.

Is there any better expression of the compulsion to watch TV than that: “I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.”

Can you think of anything worse to think to yourself at the end of your life? I can’t.

****

Now, this is not a blanket condemnation of TV; man should have some leisure and relaxation and some shows are genuinely worth watching even absent the entertainment value (I put Yes, Minister on the DE Reading List for a reason). But you should only watch, in moderation, what you actually enjoy or what may inform you or make you a better person.

Spending hours watching commercial-filled crap which meets the minimal requirement of not completely unwatchable simply because it pulls at at your laziness and other primal compulsions you don’t quite understand is a waste.

My advice, if you have cable or satellite TV get rid of it. If there’s a specific show you want to watch, stream it on Netflix or get the DVD’s, but having cable makes it far to easy to get sucked into a time-wasting vortex where you are neither entertained nor doing anything productive.

I’m almost glad I had that experience at the hotel, it reminded me of the cold dead fire. It reminded me of the dangers of cable and why I decided against it in the first place. It’s a lifeless, joyless way to waste your life.

Get rid of cable, buy a book, some ammo, or even some Simpsons DVD’s instead. You’ll get a lot more out of it.

Lightning Round – 2013/07/17

I’m busy this week, so this will be a bit shorter than normal, but that only means there should be more next week.

Be who you are is good advice, if you know who you are.

Date ideas.
Related: Beating shit tests.

Child support is a replacement for marriage.

Killing in self-defence. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

The morality of game.
Related: Self-improvement is the goal.

A view of privilege from the working class.

Being a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Men are bitter and angry and that’s awesome.

The master and the slave.
Related: Accepting victimhood.

Hen-pecking and empathy.

The harm of high expectations.

The incipient pelagianism of the orthosphere.

The 12 points of neoreaction.
Related: A criticism of formalism.

Liberalism leads to declaring pregnancy unjust and barbaric.

Keystone death squads.

Jesus invented individual liberty. Related.

Making sense.

Do men have an obligation to protect women?

Zimmerman acquitted. Excellent.
Related: DoJ materially supported anti-Zimmerman protests. No conflict of interest there.

In defence of big weddings. It’s not the size, it’s the intent.

President stasi. On the other hand, this may be a good thing.

The purposeful destruction of the American Catholic community. In the comments, EA makes a plan to retake Christian community.

Libertarian suicide.

Why feminized societies will fail.

Progressives are getting increasingly batshit insane. How hard is this, really? If someone has a Y chromosome, they’re male, else they are female.

Distrust science.

War and victory.

Adam Kokesh, liberty activist, raided and charged.

Some talk on false rape accusation statistics. Another.
Related: If you have sex, record it.

I partially agree with a pro-abortionist. Pro-abortionists should tell their stories about how they callously killed their own child for mere convenience; it will be far more effective in showing the true nature of the issue.

Hypergamy in the WSJ.

New alternative to the Boy Scouts in the works.

Live-in nannies are stupid.

Family farm fined $700k by Michigan government for raising pigs in a pasture.

Republicans more knowledgeable than Democrats.


(The rage of the beta male).

(H/T: Nick, Foseti)

Defense of Perennial Philosophy

I found this excerpt from the Trivium interesting (p. 224):

The logic of perennial philosophy presented in this book is scorned in many universities today as outmoded, inadequate, and unfit for a scientific age. Logical positivism admits as knowable only sense experience of matter and the relations of coexistence and succession in natural phenomena; it denies spirit, intellect, and the capacity to know essence. Modern semantic regards as arbitrary and shifting not only words but ideas; it denies that words are signs of ideas that truly represent things. The new symbolic or mathematical logic, which aims to free logic from the restrictions of words and thing, becomes a mere manipulation of symbols capable of being tested for their internal consistency but having no correspondence to ideas or things (and therefore no stability or truth).

Perennial philosophy holds that symbols such as those of the syllogism, opposition, obversion, conversion represent a higher degree of abstraction and more clear relationships than words do, and therefore a more advanced knowledge; they are sound precisely because they represent words that do correspond to the ideas and things. These symbols point the way to a more complete symbolic logic which preserves the basic truths of perennial philosophy, in particular its healthy respect for intellectual knowledge derived from sense knowledge by abstraction.

(By perennial philosophy she’s referring to Thomas’ Aristotalean method of thinking rather than to the universalist form of perennial philosophy).

We can see this today in academe and throughout society; words have become unmoored from their purpose of referring to a concrete idea or object, rather they are meaningless utterances of vague emotions that do not approach the level of rational thought.

The word democracy is an excellent example of this. The word democracy, originally referring to rule of the people, has simply become cant; calling something undemocratic holds no more meaning than ungood.

We can see the bizarre meaningless from this, the first link on a google search of ‘it’s undemocratic’. According to the article, yhe person who ruled due to being elected by the majority of Egyptians is somehow ruling undemocratically. Read this quote from “State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki”:

What I mean is what we’ve been referencing about the 22 million people who have been out there voicing their views and making clear that democracy is not just about simply winning the vote at the ballot box.

It’s pure, unadulterated nonsense, but nobody bats an eye. The label undemocratic is thrown at everything that is deemed ungood, while the label democratic is thrown at everything considered good. Take this quote from Barack Obama:

President Barack Obama on Thursday praised the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage as a “victory for American democracy”…

Think on that for a second: the overturning of the laws created due to a referendum of the people in California by an unelected body is a ‘triumph of democracy’. There is no rational way the word democracy can possibly be used to refer to an unelected body overturning the majority will of the people expressed through a referendum, yet, nobody but John Lott even notices.

The word democracy does not refer to anything; it is has no more, and possibly less, meaning or rational thinking behind it than an illiterate barbarian’s simple grunt of approval.

Of course ‘democracy’ is not alone in this. We all remember Moldbug’s classic example of goodthink:

Improper political influence over government decision-making.

But I’m digressing. We have scorned the reason of perennial philosophy for the irrational thinking of arbitrary definitions. Words are used as weapons or as meaningless emotional outbursts, with no rational thinking behind them.

Not only are definitions arbitrary, and hence meaningless, composition is not unaffected. We can see this in this review of the Trivium. It basically argues for the Trivium, but not because the rules of logic and grammar are good for someone writing in English to know. Rather the restrictions of actually adhering to the rules of reason and the English language are quaint enough and outdated enough that it provides a foreign perspective in composition classrooms. In the authors own words:

For instance, a teacher can use The Trivium alongside [other]… textbooks that use contemporary examples and celebrate more rhetorical and logical flexibilities. This deliberate undercutting pushes students to understand the multiplicity of perspectives; while it simultaneously pushes teachers to embrace multiplicity and flexibility.

“Logical flexibility”, I like it. It’s such as fascinating term. How insane is it that the rules of logic and grammar are so foreign to modern English education that people advocate for teaching it simply to get a plurality of viewpoints.

Welcome to a world where there exists a plurality of viewpoints on the use of logic.

Anyway, I will end with a Chesterton quote:

Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody’s system of philosophy has really corresponded to everybody’s sense of reality; to what, if left to themselves, common men would call common sense. Each started with a paradox; a peculiar point of view demanding the sacrifice of what they would call a sane point of view. That is the one thing common to Hobbes and Hegel, to Kant and Bergson, to Berkeley and William James. A man had to believe something that no normal man would believe, if it were suddenly propounded to his simplicity; as that law is above right, or right is outside reason, or things are only as we think them, or everything is relative to a reality that is not there. The modern philosopher claims, like a sort of confidence man, that if we will grant him this, the rest will be easy; he will straighten out the world, if he is allowed to give this one twist to the mind…

Against all this the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs. The Hegelian may say that an egg is really a hen, because it is a part of an endless process of Becoming; the Berkelian may hold that poached eggs only exist as a dream exists, since it is quite as easy to call the dream the cause of the eggs as the eggs the cause of the dream; the Pragmatist may believe that we get the best out of scrambled eggs by forgetting that they ever were eggs, and only remembering the scramble. But no pupil of St. Thomas needs to addle his brains in order adequately to addle his eggs; to put his head at any peculiar angle in looking at eggs, or squinting at eggs, or winking the other eye in order to see a new simplification of eggs. The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God.