Thursday, June 17, 2021

Defending the West Against the Barbarians

 

Sometimes readers will ask me: “Why did you write on that? What were you trying to say?” My response has always been that just about everything I attempt to convey, to write, is in some way connected to and comes under a broad heading of “the defense of Western Christian civilization and culture.” Thus, everything, from my staunch defense of Confederate monuments, to my long essay on the role of tradition in music, film and the arts, to my belief that the public schools have become toxic, to my continuing criticism of egalitarianism—all of these topics, I believe, are very important ones and should be examined.

I believe that the cultural artifacts of our civilization, including the arts and music that it has produced, are just as significant, if not more so, than the everyday debates over such topics as the budget or some “January 6 commission.” Those artifacts are part and parcel of what we call “the West,” our inheritance stretching back not only to Rome, but to classical Greece and Jerusalem. And they define it, convey its talent and its virtues, and give it expression.

More @ The Abbeville  Institute

We Won the Cold War, Right? Right? The state trudges on while the soul of the nation atrophies.

 Via Anthony


It is incumbent upon everyday Americans to understand the stakes of this fight and its international dimensions. This is the ideological and political universe in which Critical Race Theory (and, for that matter, Ethnic Studies, Postcolonial Theory, Gender Studies, etc.) is situated. It is not an exaggeration to say that leftwing K-12 curriculum modules and “white privilege” HR struggle sessions have as their ultimate goal the overthrow of the West and the despotic subjection of you and your fellow citizens—even if many of the pedagogues and consultants involved are mere useful idiots. We should, within the law, plan, act, and organize accordingly—before it’s too late.

What was a tolerably accurate description of German thought twenty-seven years ago would now appear to be true of Western thought in general. It would not be the first time that a nation, defeated on the battlefield and, as it were, annihilated as a political being, has deprived its conquerors of the most sublime fruit of victory, by imposing on him the yoke of its own thought. – Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History

Leo Strauss wrote those lines in 1949 referring to the depressing fact that though Germany had been defeated in war, its way of thinking about human nature, truth, and history had spread across the conquering nations of the West.

We need urgently and intelligently to consider the possibility that though the Soviet Union “collapsed” in 1991 and the U.S. “won” the Cold War, the Soviet Union nonetheless successfully imposed the “yoke of its own thought” on the West.

More @ American Mindset

The Real VMI: A Little Meritocracy, 1839-2021?


On June 1, 2021, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) – historic, meritocratic, renowned for rigor and its graduates’ service, and, for decades as color-blind as any institution may reasonably expect to be in a fallen world – may well have ceased to exist in a sense when the results of a Richmond-mandated investigation of so-called “structural racism” were released; and were received by the school’s leadership seemingly without objection. The report of the long-anticipated, (loud ahem), “independent” investigation – the culmination of 12 months of incessant attacks by several media outlets, including one writer at the Washington Post (with his own legacy regarding slavery to deal with), and a small number of alumni and cadets – rendered judgments against the school that were entirely predictable, and predicted, given the circumstances surrounding the investigation itself.

More @ The Abbeville Institute

Victoria’s Secret Seeks to Destroy Brand with Spokeswoman Megan Rapinoe

 Chip Somodevilla; Timothy A. Clary/ Getty Images

So Victoria’s Secret, a decades-old brand premised on sexy fun, is looking to deliberately destroy itself by appointing — lol — the humorless and brittle Megan Rapinoe as its new spokeswoman.

The humorless and brittle Rapinoe will not be alone in what can only be a Producers-style conspiracy to sabotage Victoria’s Secret from within. Among others, joining Rapinoe will be Valentina Sampaio, a male model who identifies as a woman, and plus-size model Paloma Elsesser.

Yeah, where do I sign up for that catalog…

More @ Breitbart

Man Tells School Board: "If You Force The Vaccine On Our Kids, It Will Be 1776 All Over Again!"

LEGAL St Louis couple who defended property pays fines and agree to give up their weapons

 

A St. Louis couple who gained notoriety for pointing guns at a mob of anti-police rioters who broke into their neighborhood last year, pleaded guilty Thursday to misdemeanor charges and agreed to give up the weapons they used during the confrontation.

Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was fined $2,000. Her husband, Mark McCloskey, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was fined $750.

When several hundred demonstrators marched past their home in June of 2020, the couple waved weapons at them. They claimed the protesters were trespassing and that they feared for their safety.

More @ ONN

The Navy Has Abandoned Readiness of the Nation to Racist Indoctrination; Someone Must Be Held Responsible

Via Billy 

 

 

Getting beyond the poisonous poppycock spread by Kendi for fun and profit, there is a real cost to readiness that will potentially be paid in lives. The Navy and its sister services are at a point where our first encounters of the upcoming war with China will make Kasserine Pass and Savo Island and Task Force Smith look like the epitome of military efficiency. Though sown over the past decade, these seeds of these future defeats are reaching full bloom under guys like Gildray, who are much more political commissars than they are military leaders. One hopes that when it comes time for the bill to be paid, they are hauled before a vengeful tribunal to account for their promotion of a corrupt ideology over the welfare of their troops. And if they are dead, I hope a mob treats them how Charles II dealt with Oliver Cromwell.

Yesterday, the House Armed Services Committee hearing featuring Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday involved some fireworks. The subject was Critical Race Theory, and Gilday’s insertion of a blatantly anti-intellectual and racist book, “How to Be an Anti-Racist” by sometime activist and full-time grifter Ibram X. Kendi, onto his official “reading list” for the US Navy.

The basic thesis in Kendi’s book is that you can’t be “not racist;” you are either racist or “anti-racist.” To be “anti-racist,” you have to follow Kendi’s sacraments; otherwise, you are a racist. Why the head of any of the military services would endorse any hare-brained theory that required the service to divide itself into privileged and shunned groups, based on nothing more than skin color, is beyond me. Indiana Republican Jim Banks had some hard and pointed questions for Gilday. My colleague Jeff Charles has the rundown on the fireworks.

More @ Red State

Chilling: 'Lab Leak' Letter Signer Reveals Why Scientists Didn't Speak Out Earlier

 Via Billy

 

Chan said there had been trepidation among some scientists about publicly discussing the lab leak hypothesis for fear that their words could be misconstrued or used to bolster racist rhetoric about how the coronavirus emerged. Trump fueled accusations that the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research lab in the same city where the first Covid-19 cases were reported, was connected to the outbreak, and on numerous occasions called the pathogen the “Wuhan virus” or “kung flu.” “At the time, it was scarier to be associated with Trump and to become a tool for racists, so people didn’t want to publicly call for an investigation into lab origins,” she said.

Why has it taken so long for the Wuhan lab leak theory to break through into getting some real consideration by the liberal media?

We’ve been doing a lot of good reporting on a lot of the evidence that has come out. But there was also evidence last year indicating it should be taken seriously. Yet the liberal media dismissed it as a conspiracy theory.

More @ Red State

Charles Barkley Announces Departure From NBA Show, Blasts ‘Jacka**es Trying To Get You Canceled’ On The Way Out

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA - JUNE 24: Charles Barkley attends the 2019 NBA Awards presented by Kia on TNT at Barker Hangar on June 24, 2019 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Turner Sports)

You can say goodbye to the greatest NBA studio show of all time, and make sure to thank cancel culture for it. 

“Inside the NBA” star Charles Barkley — the face of the show for the past 21 years — announced on Washington sports radio station 106.7 The Fan he will be leaving the show when he turns 60, calling his bosses “cowards” for bowing down to the woke culture. 

“It’s gotten so out of hand right now, I couldn’t imagine having to watch myself. You can’t even have fun nowadays without these jackasses trying to get you canceled and things like that.”

More @ The Daily Wire