Archive for January, 2013

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What Difference Does It Make?

Posted January 31, 2013 By John C Wright

My Jesuit Confessor, Father de Casuist, tells me that if I am allowed to post links before Friday, I can post videos. This is the best one I have seen all year. I am puzzled that no GOP politician talks this way. Here is Bill Whittle:

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Economics from Albion

Posted January 31, 2013 By John C Wright

It seems someone in England has read Adam Smith, and can explain with passion, logic, and conviction the basic truths of how the world works to those unacquainted to the world, to truth, or to logic. It is an astonishing and heartening performance. To hear common sense these days is as rare as hearing a Shakespearean sonnet.

The gentleman’s name is Daniel Hannan.
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Wright’s Writing Corner: De Angelus

Posted January 30, 2013 By John C Wright

Today’s article on writing about Angels.

Excerpt:

The first Great Idea listed by Mortimer Adler happens to be Angels. So, today, I thought I would write about writing about angels.Some things are intrinsically hard to write about. Angels may be one of those things. I have almost never seen them done well in fiction. I have, however, read really stirring accounts of people who believe that they have seen real angels. While I have no way to judge the veracity of their stories, I can feel the power of the narrative. It come with a sense of awe and wonder.

Somehow, that sense almost never appears in depictions of angels in fantasy and science fiction. Depictions of angels in genre literature and media is almost universally negative. They are the real bad guys, while demons are misunderstood, emo, moody hunks. Or they are weak. Angels are rigid. Angels are hand-wringers. Angels are boring.

Only the ones who fall in love.emphasis there on the word fall.are even the slightest bit interesting. When they fall, then they get to be the cute scruffy hunks.

A perfect example of the way angels are often handled is Neil Gaiman’s Angel Islington from Neverwhere. I love Neverwhere, but Islington is just a villain, and not even a particularly inspiring one. Still, Islington does stand out in my mind as the archetypical example of that kind of wimpy evil angel that seems so popular now. One sees these angels in books and TV shows. They are also popular in a certain kind of movie.

Why?

Well….a number of reasons….

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/275631.html

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Boy Scouts to Follow the Girl Scouts into the Abyss

Posted January 30, 2013 By John C Wright

Only posting a link, and hoping you will call your local scoutmaster. Get involved. Protest. Make some noise.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16739587-boy-scouts-close-to-ending-ban-on-gay-members-leaders?

If the Boy Scouts go, that will be the last institution left in America, outside the Church, which seeks to build young men of good character, rather than brainwash men into being narcissistic, selfish, self-indulgent whining boy-men.

Here is a quote from one who puts it well:

As the father of a soon-to-be Eagle Scout, I’ve taken part in summer camps, a canoeing trip in remote northern Ontario and several other overnight outings. I can attest that privacy is often at a minimum. Injecting the aura of possible sexual attraction would degrade the experience.

Boy Scouts range in age from 10 up to 18, and Cub Scouts are as young as 7. Boys become scouts in order to hike, camp, shoot guns and arrows and learn other outdoor skills.

And many parents choose the Boy Scouts to provide the environment for these activities precisely because, in an age awash in the wreckage of moral relativism, the Scouts have stood strong. Those parents who wish a different environment for their sons should join other groups or build their own.

The Boy Scouts are — or at least have been — a great organization that has done so much to help transform young boys into fine men and to serve America’s communities. Unfortunately, in the warped progressive understanding of diversity, all organizations must be the same. The Boy Scouts are a target of the Left precisely because they have, until now, upheld traditional moral standards.

Among the virtues set forth in the Scout Law, a scout is trustworthy and brave. The leaders of the Boy Scouts will betray those virtues if they cave to pressure and abandon their national policy. The Boy Scouts deserve better.

Edward Whelan is president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC.

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When Can We Start Shooting the Bastards?

Posted January 29, 2013 By John C Wright

Part of an ongoing conversation. A reader (here) has written to ask on what grounds I am not outraged over Mr Shea outlawing talk of secession and treason by outraged pro-gunners at his blog.

I began with a respectful disagreement with Mr Shea, but, as time goes on, my respect grows and my disagreement shrinks. Naturally, I would prefer my friends to come into an accommodation with each other, and hope these words soothe rather than inflame any ill-will. 

Let me deal with your points in order.

First, you say that Mark Shea’ objection to the HHS mandate is insincere or illogical on the grounds that he is objecting to that tyranny because it is uncatholic, not because it is tyrannous. Whereas his lack of support for NRA pro-gun types is because “Catholics are not complaining about the rules of the game, they’re complaining that they’re not winning. That tyranny is ok, as long as it’s Catholic tyranny.”

That is not what Mark Shea said, and not related to what he said. You should not be leveling such a serious (and scurrilous) accusation without firm and clear support for the proposition.

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March for Life

Posted January 27, 2013 By John C Wright

I had two guests from the March for Life come by my humble home this Friday. If I understood the figures correctly (and I am notoriously bad at simple math, so bear with me if I got them wrong) the number of people who showed up for the March for Life outnumbered the number who showed up for the Inauguration of Mr ‘The One’ Obama’s second term. (Picture a crowd of 500,000. That is only nine-tenths of one percent of the number of human beings that have been aborted since Roe v. Wade.)

If so, it is a hopeful sign. With ultrasound, with images like “Silent Scream” (not for the squeamish; not for kids) and with the Darwinian process of abortionists eliminating their next generation from the gene pool, it seems that the false-to-facts emotional association used by the Left to associate babies in the womb with nonhuman tissue is failing to carry its old black magic.

Abortion will be abolished first in the civilized West, and later in the barbaric places of the world, but only if we are devout and diligent. Every pro-aborticide politician must be shamed and defeated soundly, every pro-abort publication must be shunned and pressured and shut down, every pro-abort judge must be impeached, and every pro-abort piece of legislation must be repealed. If it can be done nonviolently, let is be done so; but if blood must be shed, as it was during the civil war for the abominable sin of slavery, a far lesser sin, we must endure the punishment as merciful heaven directs.

A day will come when mothers will no longer kill their children. Work for that day.

(You will, of course, see no honest mention of the march or its numbers in the mainstream media. The media are the enemy. Media Delenda Est.)
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Battles are Ugly When Women Fight

Posted January 25, 2013 By John C Wright

The administration, concerned that not enough women serving in the military have had the opportunity to be captured and raped by the enemy, now wish to assign women to combat roles.

Good thing this happened while the looming debt crisis is about to bankrupt us, and while unconstitutional executive orders are being issued to infringe on our gun rights, and while an antisemite is being appointed to the cabinet, and while the scandal of a slain ambassador in Libya and the surrounding cover-up and scapegoating of a Coptic guy who posted a YouTube video continues to be stonewalled, and while the Catholic Church is still being required by law to violate our most deeply held beliefs and to lose our First Amendment right to practice our faith, and while the trainwreck of fiscal madness and socialized medicine continue to topple over onto us with the slowmotion grandeur of a great natural disaster, because, otherwise, we might be able to generate some coordinated opposition to this. But when the immune system of a social body is gone, every random germ floating by causes another disease and another set of symptoms flares up.

The administration has uttered the assurance that physical standards will not be dropped or downgraded as they have been in all previous cases of putting women in men’s roles in the military and fire brigades. This assurance is a ritual phrase, not believed and not meant to be believed. It is similar to when a Catholic at High Mass does not understand Latin, but mutters the proper response anyway upon cue. “Carry a Lay a-song. Christy a Lay a-song.” like that.

Naturally, I am opposed to national suicide, to preemptive disarmament, and to demeaning women, and to cowardice in men, and to eliminating the future mothers of the Republicans (because you know the Dems are not sending their daughters into harm’s way: Dems will be protesting the wars and shielding the tyrants, not fighting them). My theory is that if American women are such helpless ninnies that they cannot save enough pin money to buy their cheapass lovers condoms at the drugstore without my Archbishop having to take money out of the church poor box to foot the bill, then the girls are not man enough to storm Normandy Beach.

I have been convinced as an abstract and rational matter that imposing women in combat is counterproductive both to the unit and to the society the army defends for quite some time.

However, it became a passionate and emotional issue for me, something I felt in my roaring and volcanic heart, rather than something I merely deduced in the icy heights of my dispassionate logic, when I saw the movie STARSHIP TROOPERS by Paul Verhoeven.
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Be Fruitless and Dwindle, and be Subdued, and Die

Posted January 23, 2013 By John C Wright

Words of wisdom from a woman who knows.
http://thewomanandthedragon.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/artificial-birth-control-satans-little-helper/

It is not Friday, but I am allowed to post links. I commend the insight into feminism, which, to be honest, had never occurred to me before.

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Wright’s Writing Corner on Great Books

Posted January 23, 2013 By John C Wright

Read it while it is hot!

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/274528.html

Excerpt:

A great book is a book you love. Perhaps, it is a book that changed your life. Perhaps, it is one you want to read again and again. Perhaps, it is one that rocked your world, or uplifted you in a time of darkness. Perhaps, it stirred your heart, ignited your passion, or brought you comfort. It is a book that touched you.
A Great Book is a book that did to a whole lot of people what a great book did to you. It is the same thing on a society level: a book that rocked many people’s world; or that introduced new ideas into society; or that led millions of readers to “burn with the bliss and suffer the sorrow of all mankind.” * It is a book that so many people found great that it outlasted the sandblast of Time, which otherwise clears away all things.

So what makes a book great?

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In Defense of Aplomb

Posted January 22, 2013 By John C Wright

A loyal reader and daily pen-pal of mine has burned his Mark Shea fan club card. During crunch time with deadlines looming, I ought not post on meat-days (that is, non-Fridays) but in this case I make an exception, because I hope to reconcile two friends of mine with each other.

Mr Winchester speaks of the flair and aplomb with which Mr Shea decries the excesses of the gun culture…

Which wouldn’t be so bad if Mark wasn’t going off complaining about others’ flair and aplomb so much lately.

However, his recent comparison of 2nd amendment supporters to abortionists and people discussing secession as “fantasizing about getting the chance to indulge in violence, torture and war” were just beyond the pale. I used to consider myself a member of ya’ll’s appreciation society but after those posts of his I couldn’t burn my card fast enough. (still totally your fan, John)

My comment: Please be charitable to poor Mr Shea. He lives in Seattle, which is one of the outer circles of Dante’s Inferno, and reconsider your decision.

Mark Shea supports the Church teachings. He is not loyal to left or right, to Sadducee or Pharisee, but to Christ. The Second Amendment is an absolutely core doctrine of the Enlightenment philosophy of the liberty of man. The US Constitution is the greatest embodiment and monument to that philosophy and those liberties, but that philosophy is not a Church teaching.

Clicking through the links, I read that what Mark Shea said was that resorting to Secession or civil war in response, not to a general ban on guns or universal confiscation, but in response to Federico Lombardi’s remarks that “limiting and controlling the diffusion and use of arms are certainly a step in the right direction” is a patently nutjob response.

In this case, I disagree rather sharply with Lombardi, but do not consider his remarks to be beyond the pale. However, I do consider calls for Secession to be treason, and treason to be beyond the pale.

I do not consider Mark Shea saying that treason is beyond the pale, or, in his words, calling treason a fantasy, to be beyond the pale. I would not even call his remark inflammatory. I would call it ebullient.

Neither did Mark Shea ‘compare’ abortionists and ‘2nd Amendment supporters’. What he said was this:

“This blog will. not. be. a forum for “discussing” secession or civil war. Those who choose to ignore me on this point will find themselves in the same ban file as those who want to use my comboxes to advocate for abortion.”

So it is you, my dear sir, and not he, who equated supporting the Second Amendment with supporting a new civil war with all its horror and bloodshed; and it is you, my dear sir, and not he, who drew the conclusion that two people going into the ban file together are like each other in moral worth.

He did not say or even imply the thing you find objectionable.

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Five Views of the Universe

Posted January 19, 2013 By John C Wright

The universe is a large and unwieldy object, and finding a proper spot from which to regard it in a good light is a problem, considering that the spot, the spectator, and the light are all part of the spectacle to be viewed.

Nonetheless, the universe is such a large, and, frankly, intrusive object that one cannot help but view it, and, since there is no such thing as a viewpoint from nowhere, one must have a viewpoint. The viewpoint will determine which aspects of the view loom large, which diminish with distance, which are hidden by obstructions in the landscape, and so on. Which viewpoint is best? Well, that depends, I suppose, on your viewpoint.

From my viewpoint as a science fiction and fantasy writer, I am particularly interested in the views of the universe produced by imaginative fiction, or speculative fiction.  So this is a question in two parts, the first describing what imaginative fiction is, and the second describing to what points of view it naturally lends itself.

As a science fiction fan, you have no doubt heard this topic discussed far past its sell-by date, but I must needs cover these well-worn tracks to reach the second and more interesting half of the question: so what is science fiction? What is fantasy?

Imaginative fiction differs from all other genres only in one respect. In addition to the elements of character, plot, theme, setting and style, which must indeed be handled with the same adroitness and craft as any mainstream yarn, the imaginative story of science fiction or fantasy must also have world-building.

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Guest Post by William M Briggs: Firearm Homicides Dropping

Posted January 16, 2013 By John C Wright
I am permitted even when it is not a Friday to post articles written by others, as here, where Mr Briggs has prevailed upon all men of good will to come to the aid of their country. Having trampled the freedom of religion of the Roman Catholic Church, with insolent unconstitutional tyranny, our masters seek to do the same to the NRA. Two of the Bill of Rights down, eight to go. Welcome to my world, gunowners! We are all Catholics now. All the words that follow are Mr Brigg’s.

Firearm Homicides Dropping. Assault Weapons Ban Not Correlated With Decrease In Homicides. No Need For New Restrictions.

I rarely ask this, but please link, forward, email, and favorite this post as widely as possible. See below for copying permission.

Murder in the United States1 is illegal, and has been for over two hundred years. Strong penalties, up to and including the penalty of death, are incurred by those who commit this heinous crime.

Yet, strangely, despite murder’s high illegality, there were in 2011 over 12,000 of them committed! The largest number of murders were in 1991, with nearly 25,000 of these frowned-upon unlawful incidents.

It is difficult to imagine a penalty more severe than death, so it remains a curiosity that so many murderers are found when such strong laws are in place. Perhaps this scourge can be eliminated by even tougher laws?, say death by torture? Or maybe by creating Executive Orders bypassing the hindrance of Congress and Constitutional safeguards? We must protect the children!

But never mind. Let’s instead look at the number of murders and what devices were used in their commission. Read the remainder of this entry »

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Restarting Wright’s Writing Corner

Posted January 16, 2013 By John C Wright

My lovely and talented wife is restarting her weekly post about writing and the writing world.

Today, she is posted her “best of” her previous posts on Writing Tips for anyone who has not seen them.

http://arhyalon.livejournal.com/274031.html

Two Strings: Two separate issues need to be going in each scene.

The Trick: Raising expectations in one direction but having the story go in the opposite direction. It sounds simple, but it may be the most useful writing technique of all…the book Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is just the trick over and over again.

The Foil: The trick applied to people. Use other characters to showcase the strengths of your main characters and to make them seem extraordinary.

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Beauty Queen Called Beautiful — the Science Fiction Scale

Posted January 13, 2013 By John C Wright

This is a weekend addendum to my weekly Friday post, which concerned the ugly insanity of the political Left and the beauty of the beauty queen Katherine Webb.

More than one reader wrote in to say that she was not so very attractive. Now, the young lady in question did indeed win a title in a beauty pageant, so no matter what your taste or mine have to say about her degree of good looks, she clearly falls within the general category of healthy and attractive femininity.

At no point did I give my personal opinion about her good looks, but, being opinionated about everything, of course I have an opinion. Sports fans rate women according to a cuteness scale unknown to me, but which, I am sure, include sportscasters from Phyllis George to Ines Sainz and sporting figures from synchronized swimming twins Bia Feres to Branca Feres.

Being a science fiction fan and not a sports fan, I would say that, if dressed as a space princess, Miss Webbs is cuter than Space Princess Leia but not as cute as Space Princess Amidala, and, if painted green and forced to dance for my pleasure at a barbarian space-feast, she is cuter than Orion slavegirl Vina but not as cute as Orion slavegirl Marta.

Let us compare:

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Beauty Queen Called Beautiful — PCists Panic

Posted January 11, 2013 By John C Wright

My mission as a science fiction writer is foredoomed if the creatures in real life continue to behave in a fashion more alien than any three-eyed Martian, more crazy than the ‘Crazy Years’ Heinlein’s future history predicted, more absurd than even the darkest of dystopian satires could possibly satirize.

I am referring, not to the sinister and meaningless ‘Kabuki Theater’ of the current hysteria over Victim Disarmament (formerly known as Gun Control) nor over the equally sinister absence of hysteria over the fact that a bankrupt nation ruled by a lawless criminal elite continues to go deeper into debts so astronomical that they can only be expressed in scientific notation, but a matter of far more wide-ranging significance and longer lasting impact.

Someone said a Beauty Pageant Queen was beautiful.

And our self-anointed Politically Correct conformists had a psychotic episode.

Obviously this is not the most important topic of the day, but it is the one which gives me the most plausible excuse to post pictures of beautiful women.

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