Category: On-Line Article Reviews

Reviews of blog posts and other articles

A Different Kind of Red Shift

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A couple of day ago I linked to a post on American Greatness by Angelo Codevilla https://amgreatness.com/2018/04/13/living-with-politics-as-war/ .  I’d like to elaborate a little what I think is interesting about this article.  Vox Day has often said (and I paraphrase)  that the Alt-Right (or Dissident Right or whatever else you call it) will have arrived when the normies have shifted so far to the right that their views can only be distinguished from the Alt-Right by tactics and not by what they believe are the facts on the ground.

Well, I think I’m seeing that happen in real time.  Codevilla is a mainstream academic figure and not an Alt-Right provocateur.  Reading his description of where the country now is and what to do about it is to realize that the idea of going back to a consensus society is effectively dead.  The only question between the normal traditionalists and the Alt-Right is whether we just set up separate shops under the nominally United States or fight a civil war to establish borders between enemy states.  That is remarkable.  It should be disquieting for me but it isn’t.  I still think it will be a bloodless divorce but either way I think we should get on with it.

Codevilla goes through the various arenas where Leftist coercion is the most egregious (schools and colleges, corporate blackmail and de-platforming) and suggests that federal coercion will be less effective than it was formerly and that state legislatures may ignore federal precepts and just go their own way as they have lately on drug enforcement.  Whether he is correct about the federal government giving up on some of its control of local behavior isn’t clear to me but I do think that push back from the right is likely to increase in strength in the future.

So Vox is fond of saying, and I quote, “The Alt-Right is inevitable.”  Depending on how you want to define the Alt-Right we may be seeing proof of his statement.  And if that means the vast majority of non-leftists waking up to the necessity of casting off the oppression of the Left then I am 100% on-board.  Long live the Revolution.  Off with their heads (or at least throw the bums out).

 

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Interacting in the Brave New World – Part 4

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For the fourth part of this essay I wanted to talk about talking to young people.  My kids are grown and I realize after the fact that I didn’t know that I needed to protect them from school.  But I do now.  Grammar school, high school and college have become gulags where our children are propagandized and bullied by terrible people.  But how do you help them?  I guess you have to tell them the truth.  That school is a soviet style re-education camp.  And unless you can home school your kids, you are essentially sending them into the belly of the beast.  So, I guess you have to tell them to hide their true beliefs and pretend.  But you have to make sure they don’t become beaten down by the system.

Interestingly, I just started advertising on Captain Capitalism and I was looking at one of his videos advice-cappy-wouldve-given-himself-in high school and discovered that it’s pretty much what you should tell a high school freshman.  Now, some of the emphasis is debatable.  Skipping high school, getting a GED and going direct to college or a trade school is unorthodox but listening to how he describes the waste of time high school is, makes it pretty compelling.  Plus, he provides advice if you do go to high school but want to get a better experience out of it.  And afterward he stresses, very amusingly, the stupidity of getting a liberal arts degree.  I found myself agreeing with almost every idea he presents.  His discussion about how boys can best spend their time to prepare them for finding a girlfriend is sensible.  And his advice for women is equally sane.  I highly recommend viewing this video.  Even if you want to modify the delivery for your own family ethos there are a number of very useful ideas and concepts that will help you talk to young people about thriving in a confusing and hostile world.

So, I’m cheating here.  I just recommend you watch the video and then think of how you relate it to your family and friends.  Thank you, Captain Capitalism.

More Kevin Williamson!

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Boy, this guy really must need a job.  He’s still getting his friends (and enemies) to talk about him.  Jonah Goldberg expends enormous eloquence and even some unexpected candor quoting Michael Anton’s verdict that the Right must adopt the same rules as the Left or suffer defeat.  But he still refuses to acknowledge its necessity.

The Z-Man will have none of it and his analogy of the Marquis of Queensbury boxer getting in the ring with the Lord Humongous wielding a nail studded club is extremely vivid and persuasive.

I wonder if anyone (including myself) would be this interested if I got fired.  What a big baby.

 

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Do I Have to Have an Opinion on Kevin Williamson?

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The Right-Wing is awash in Kevin Williamson opinion.

 

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-negative-asset.html

 

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/04/what-he-said.html

 

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=13425

 

“Schaedenfreude,” “Christian condolence,” “there but for the grace of God,” “I told you so,” “a cautionary tale.” I guess I’m not sure what I think.  Probably a little of each.  But it really doesn’t matter what I think about Kevin and his troubles.  But what I think would be interesting would be an interview by someone farther out on the right side of the spectrum who could explore how he thinks this fits in with his ideas about the just desserts for the dirt people.  I wonder if some intrepid blogger might call him up and find out if his recent experience may have impacted his feeling about the great unwashed.  That would interest me.

 

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American Greatness -Post of the Day – Victor Davis Hanson’s – Trump is Cutting Old Gordian Knots

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I know I’m a sucker for classical allusion but this is a nice summary of the situations that President Trump’s lack of finesse handled beautifully.

 

Trump is Cutting Old Gordian Knots

 

 

The ZMan Chronicles the Left’s Descent into Incivility and Madness

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The ZMan walks us through his memory of how we got from a country with a civil Left/Right dialog to the 24/7/365 drive-by guerilla warfare that is “dialog” in today’s America.  Well it brings to mind for me Thucydides’ description of the Corcyrean Civil /war and its bloody aftermath.  But honestly, I think the only reason that the left was ever civil was that they were out of power.  Once the Clintons got their claws on power it was game over for civility.

 

Prince Rupert’s Revenge

29MAR2018 – American Greatness – Article of the Day – Victor Davis Hanson’s The Distortions of Our Unelected Officials

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VDH lists the various members of the Deep State who not only lie under oath but then project their own mendacity onto the Trump Administration. It makes me shake my head and wonder why no action has been taken.

 

The Distortions of Our Unelected Officials

The ZMan Counsels the Zombies of the Right

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The ZMan has a very interesting post, “Day Walkers.” He makes an analogy between the Alt-Right and the zombie-vampires in I Am Legion.  He equates right wing speakers going on campus to vampires attacking humans in the daylight, basically a vampire suicide scenario.  I haven’t had a chance to think this whole analogy out completely but I definitely see what he is talking about and it is worth thinking about.

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=13324