Archive for October, 2014

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Gamergate and Morlockery

Posted October 23, 2014 By John C Wright

This is not my world; I know nothing of it and have no curiosity about it.

But I recognize the spoor and fewmets of the Morlocks, who are the same in the Gamer world as they are in the Science Fiction world, in law, in journalism, and in academia, which are worlds of mine where I know the landscape, each rock and tree.

For those of you not familiar with my quirky personal jargon, those I call ‘Morlocks’ are the vehement and zealous evangelists of Political Correctness. Science anticipates that by the year AD 802701, they will devolve into the perfect expression of their philosophy, retreating from the abhorred sunlight into the sewers, chasms and crannies of troglodytes, and emerging only on moonless midnights to savage the weak, feasting on flesh and bathing in blood. However, in the current year, the Morlocks hide their true nature, but form the backbone of the press, the entertainment, academic and legal community, the political elite, and of the loudest voices on social media. 

Those of you who have taken pains never to understand what Political Correctness means, should be made aware: The Political Correctors have no defined cause or viewpoint to defend, but instead form a scattered mob or cloud gathered around the viewpoints they oppose: they are foes of the Church and friends to whatever can oppose or harm her, from Islam to New Age to Socialism to Gnosticism; they call all moral codes are relative, all aesthetic judgments subjective. They oppose chastity, romance, marriage, family life, as well as masculine and feminine roles. They despise Christendom with ghastly bigotry and hate Caucasians with appalling race-hatred. They support the inversion of all normal ethics, and the reversal of all the normal meanings of normal words.

In economics, they are socialist; in politics, totalitarian; in speech, Orwellian; in thought, nihilist; in psychopathology, they are sadists.

The Morlocks never seek to persuade but only to bully, browbeat, and (ironically) play the victim card. The method is called ‘White Blackmail’ where you use your opponent’s own moral scruples of courtesy and compassion against him, scruples who not only do not share, but mock. They never, ever debate an opponent, but only accuse, accuse, and accuse.

The accusations rarely are sensible or proportionate, but, instead, the accusations form the script of the Two Minute Hate.

In sum, the even the girls of our side talk like gentlemen: honest, straightforward, bold, rational, humble, honorable. Their side, even the men talk like mean girls, termagants and slatterns: simpering and sniping by turns, self-righteous, sarcastic, backbiting, craven, arch, vain, venomous, vicious, vacuous.

One Mangotron, assuming an admirable stance of reconciliation and neutrality, posted an article interviewing a Gamergate and a Morlock. Mangotron, however, pulled the article, citing that Gamergate partisans had publicized his name and address on Twitter, causing him fear for his own safety.

This is a shame, because the difference between the two interviewees could not be more clear. I do not know what criteria were used to select the interviewees, but unless Magnotron went out of his way to select the most coherent and polite Gamergater and the most morlockian of Morlocks, the difference is damning.

As a public service, so that it not fade from the memory of my readers, I post the whole thing here, without comment. The thing speaks for itself louder than trumpets.

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The Christian Magicians

Posted October 23, 2014 By John C Wright

L. Jagi Lamplighter over at Arhyelon pens a significant and seminal column on the point and the spirit of the Superversive literary movement.

The movement is about the magic of the sacred. We Christians are forbidden to monkey with occult things not merely because such things are snares for the unwary, but also because it is the Sin of Onan before the wedding night: the false thing blocks and forestalls the much richer and more glorious reality it mocks.

The Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time, the magic of the witch, is mysterious and majestic and surely the Sons of Adam have always lusted for such powers: yet we were meant for more, much more. The dreams of witches are small and shabby compared to the visions of prophets. We baptized Sons of God are meant for the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time.

http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2014/10/22/superversive-literary-blog-deeper-magic-from-before-the-dawn-of-time/

 

For decades, there has been a large gap between traditional fantasy stories and Christian stories—fantastic or otherwise. This gap is growing smaller, especially with the existence of such things as Enclave Publishing, which specializes in Christian fantasy and science fiction. However, if the gap has been crossed successfully, more than possibly a few times, I have not yet heard about it.

What is this gap?

It is the gap between the wondrous and the pious.

The traditional fantasy stories include very little reference to Christianity. Many are overtly anti-Christian. The Christian stories, on the other hand, tend to be overtly pious, with no ambiguity or deviation from the particular strict doctrine.

I don’t know about you, but my life is not like that.

My life is more like being behind enemies lines. All around me is the secular world, filled with its terrors, its sorrows, its terrible doubts. I find myself challenged from all directions—both by the difficulties of life and by the skepticism of mankind. Those who are not Christian question my reliance on God, and many who are want to argue with me about the particulars of how to worship.

Yet, in the midst of all this comes glimpses of brilliant light, as if the Hand of God itself reached down from Heaven and touched some aspect of my life.

Miracles occur.

Many of them would not convince a skeptic. They are too subtle to point at: a sudden release from dark thoughts, an unexpected change in a seemingly hopeless situation. But some are more obvious: poison ivy on a baby instantly healed, a baby with a high fever instantly healed, back pain instantly relieved, Lime’s disease, which had progressed to such a degree as to cause semi-paralysis, instantly healed. The list could go on and on.

To continue, however, would be to miss the point, which is that it was not the physical changes that made the events so amazing, but the spiritual uplift that came with them. The moment when there was no hope—and suddenly, hope was present after all.

Unexpected touches of grace.

That is what I find missing from most overtly Christian stories, that moment when something totally unexpected but totally real happens. How could they be there, if the religion is so obvious that no one could miss it?

Where are the stories about people who discover the wonder and majesty of God, the way cleaning maids come upon unicorns or farm boys discover that they are Jedi?

Where are the stories that are as amazing as what happens to Gideon in the Bible? Or to Elisha? Or to Jacob?

(And if you have forgotten how utterly amazing and unexpected it is when three hundred men route an army, or when chariots of fire appear on the mountain, or when an angry, betrayed man who is coming to kill his brother suddenly embraces him instead, you might enjoy rereading a few of these stories.)

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The Raven, the Elf, and Rachel — A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment

Posted October 22, 2014 By John C Wright

Today is my birthday, and I would like all well-wishers to give me the same birthday present, of going immediately to Amazon and buying a copy of my beautiful and talented wife’s latest and greatest novel, THE RAVEN THE ELF AND RACHEL by L. Jagi Lamplighter (her maiden name).

This is the big day! This is the roll out! Buy multiple copies and drive up the sales figures!

If asked, I describe the book as ‘Nancy Drew coming of age in the Roke of Sleepy Hollow hidden in the world from FRINGE hidden in the universe of Gaiman’s Sandman hidden in the multiverse of Zelazny’s Amber meets Aslan at Camp Halfblood: girl detective at magical boarding school uncovers figures from spooky New England folktales, secret weirdness and secret conspiracies, ghosts and elves and gods and greater powers beyond that, hellish and heavenly. And has a crush on a boy.’

Before coming to Roanoke Academy, Rachel Griffin had been an obedient girl—but it’s hard to obey the rules when the world is in danger, and no one will listen.

Now, she’s eavesdropping on Wisecraft Agents and breaking a lot of rules. Because if the adults will not believe her, then it is up to Rachel and her friends—crazy, orphan-boy Sigfried the Dragonslayer and Nastasia, the Princess of Magical Australia—to stop the insidious Mortimer Egg from destroying the world.

But first she must survive truth spells, fights with her brother, detention, Alchemy experiments, talking to elves, and conjuring class.

As if that were not bad enough, someone has turned the boy she likes into a sheep.

When someone tries to kill a fellow student, Rachel soon realizes that, in the same way her World of the Wise hides from mundane folk, there is another, more secret world hiding from everyone-which her perfect recall allows her to remember.  Rushing forward where others fear to tread, Rachel finds herself beset by wraiths, magical pranks, homework, a Raven said to bring the doom of worlds, love’s first blush, and at least one fire-breathing teacher.


Trade Paper:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Raven-Rachel-Jagi-Lamplighter/dp/1937051994

Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Raven-Rachel-Unexpected-Enlightenment-Book-ebook/dp/B00OM73EXC

 

! The Raven- the Elf- and Rachel finish

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You Cannot Boycott a Nobody

Posted October 21, 2014 By John C Wright

By definition, one can only boycott a vendor one patronizes, perhaps even patronizes on a regular basis. So, one cannot boycott someone of whom one has never heard, or someone one already avoids as a matter of course.

That said, I know nothing of Gamergate, aside from dim echos and third-hand accounts from partisans involved in the matter. I do not know what it concerns and I could not care less. However, I can tell, even from a distance, what the tone and the tactics of the self-appointed Social Justice Crusaders, or, as I call them, Morlocks, are attempting: accuse, accuse, accuse, ad hominem and personal destruction.

Had I not been on the receiving end of similar tactics myself, I might be willing to extend the Morlocks the benefit of the doubt. As it is, after the boy who cries wolf has cried it for over a hundred years and never once, no, not once reported a real example and real instance of a real injustice, but instead always and forever without a single exception used the cry merely to savage and silence decent and normal people going about their normal business, I would, myself, far rather see the boy who cries wolf eaten by the wolf than run the risk of listening to what I damn well know is one more false alarm turned in by professional false alarmists who hate me and everything I love, my clan and nation, way of life, philosophy, worldview, church.

So I was bemused by this list, found at Vox Day’s website, complied by a Morlock boasting of the relevance and victorious might of the forces of Morlockery.

Look it over. Notice anything odd about the list? Read the remainder of this entry »

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Snap Out of It

Posted October 17, 2014 By John C Wright

The proponents of what is called (with unintentional hilarity) gay marriage express the gaiety for which they are named by crowing and gamboling with delight that the Supreme Court has declined to do its core Constitutional mission of interpreting the law, and chastise and check the abuses of activist judges overruling the sovereign votes of the decent and sober majority.

They should perhaps rein in their gay celebrations: gay marriage cannot be justified either in law or logic. This means the law has just departed from the environs of law and logic.

The gay partisans should instead recoil with dread, for the thing, by being given into their hands, is effectively destroyed. Whatever meaning or sanction the pairs of homosexuals are seeking out of the pretense of marriage is destroyed by the very fact that it is a pretense, not a marriage.

I am not speaking about an abstraction, but as a matter of law. The way law works, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the basic principle, is that once a precedent is established, until and unless it is definitively overruled, it has controlling authority over every case standing on similar facts, and the degree of similarity is the core of what all legal arguments are about.

This ruling, now left to stand, will and must create more havoc with family law, with testaments and estates, divorce laws, property laws, far more than if the government simply decreed marriage to be a private contract. No matter what the desires and tastes of the reformers, and no matter their promises, once set in motion, the law operates by a logic and by an inertia of its own.

Let us take it as a given that all men are sinners, and that my personal motives are malign beyond description. Nonetheless, if I speak the truth, my words are true, no matter what my motives are, and if an malign man says twice two is four, the statement is true. Those who argue that twice two is three must address the argument given, not the man who gives it. It is a sign of the deep mental corruption of our times that I must preemptively fend off the yawningly irrational personal attacks and informal logical error that just so happens to be the only counterargument ever encountered to an argument in favor of chastity, marriage, decency, sexual normalcy.

Such nonsense is predictable to the point of tedium. Gossipy, shrill and groundless accusation is the way schoolgirls maintaining a clique punish dissenters, not the way sober men debate the great issues of the day. If one argues that the law concerning marriage must concern marriage and does not concern sodomy, if one argues that a thing is not its very opposite, if one argues that twice two is four and not three, the only response will be an eructation of scorn directed against the speaker, not a response addressing the points spoken.

That said, for those who read these words with the eyes of sober men, with a refined sense of logic and a stern and clear understanding of justice, let us turn to the matter:

First, there are those, including a surprising number of conservatives, who hold that it is a matter of fundamental moral right that two sodomites who wish to solemnize their alliance with a marriage-like ceremony or civil union should be seen and celebrated by the same customs, mores, and obligations society beholds and celebrates a husband and wife establishing a family. We should throw rice, and cheer, and teach our children that such unions are romantic and healthy and normal and permanent, and we should scorn and condemn, and perhaps punish at law, those who teach their children otherwise.

Second, there is a parallel legal argument that it is a matter of fundamental justice that the same legal privileges and rights awarded to a marriage couple should be extended to an alliance of sodomites, such as tax loopholes and hospital visitation rights and child custody and survivor’s benefits.

Third, there is a technical legal argument that the Fourteenth Amendment is properly interpreted to mean that should a state government treat a married couple and an alliance of sodomites with two different ergo unequal rules, such is a violation of the Constitution.

Fourth, there is a Civil Rights argument that for a private individual to refuse to do business, to hire, or to serve a pair of sodomites who wish to represent themselves as a married couple is a violation of the fundamental human dignity of the sodomites. The argument here is that the same penalty at civil law should obtain which prevents, for example, a diner from refusing to serve Negroes, or seating them only in the back of the restaurant. This argument mainly applies to businesses such as bakers, caterers, photographers whose services are purchased for weddings, to bake wedding cakes and such, or to institutions renting halls, or clergy performing the ceremony.

Finally, there is the libertarian argument that a man’s vices are private, and that the state should have no power to say as to which marriage ceremonies shall be recognized and which not recognized, allowed or prohibited, for the same reason that the state should have no power to interfere with private contracts.

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Purple Penguins and Black Sheep

Posted October 17, 2014 By John C Wright

This is not a parody:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/racial-connotations-over-black-sheep-prompts-changes-to-baa-baa-black-sheep-at-victorian-kinders/story-fni0fit3-1227093091674?nk=29afdb5129fd7e153c6e35b08c4b869b

Staff at childcare centres in the south-eastern suburbs told the Herald Sun the lyric was being changed because of concerns over the racial connotations of “black”, and to reflect a multicultural community.

Kindergarten teachers have told the Herald Sun a centre in Melbourne’s east had also considered changing the line “one for the little boy who lives down the lane” in case it could be deemed sexist. [Emphasis added]

Celine Pieterse, co-ordinator of Malvern East’s Central Park Child Care, said children could still use “black” if they chose to.

“We try to introduce a variety of sheep.”

Cheltenham’s Lepage Primary principal came under fire in 2010 after pupils were told to replace “gay” with “fun” in Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gumtree.

The Education Department said it did not tell early learning staff what to teach children.

It should be bothersome, at least to some people, that their actions are indistinguishable from parodies.

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Solitudines Vastae Celeste

Posted October 16, 2014 By John C Wright

I am begging for more help with my Latin from my kind and helpful readers. I am trying to name a starship ‘Wastlands of Heaven’ in Latin. I know from studying old maps that the poetical term for an empty area on the map filled with dragons is Solitudines Vastae (3 1 NOM P F). But I cannot figure out the proper declension for the adjective ‘celestial’. Would it be Solitudines Vastae Celeste ? or Solitudines Vastae Celestissimus ?

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Publications

Posted October 16, 2014 By John C Wright

I was updating my list of publications, both current and forthcoming, but I am haunted by the thought that there is one or two I forgot. So, as a service to any reader who wishes a complete list of wrightabilia, and a service to me from any editor or reader who bought or read something of mine not on this list, I thought it was fitting to draw your kind attention to it.

If you see anything missing from the list, please tell me.

Publications by John C. Wright:

Short Fiction:

  • Farthest Man from Earth, (novella) Asimov’s Science Fiction Vol. 19 # 4 & 5, No.229-230, April 1995.
  • Guest Law, (novella) Asimov’s Science Fiction Vol. 21 # 6, No.258, June 1997;

–reprinted in Year’s Best SF 3, ed. David G. Hartwell, HarperPrism, 1998.

  • Not Born a Man, (short story) Aberrations #24, October 1994.

– reprinted in No Longer Dreams, ed. Danielle McPhail, Lite Circle, 2005.

  • Forgotten Causes, (short story) Absolute Magnitude #16, Summer 2001.

–reprinted in Breech the Hull, ed. Mike McPhail, Marietta Publishing (October, 2007)

  • Awake in the Night (novella) appearing in William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands: Eternal Love, edited by Andy W. Robertson, Wildside Press (December 2003).

–reprinted in: The Year’s Best Science Fiction 21st Annual Collection, ed. Gardner Dozois,

–and Best Short Novels 2003 (Science Fiction Book Club), ed. Jonathan Strahan

–and published separately as Awake in the Night Castalia House (May, 2014)

  • Last of All Suns (novella) appearing in William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands II: Nightmares of the Fall, edited by Andy W. Robertson, Three Legged Fox Books (2006).
  • Silence of the Night (short story) Readercon 18 Souvenir Book, 2007 Readercon, Inc.

– reprinted in electronic publication, Andy W. Robertson, ed. His website http://www.thenightland.co.uk/nightsilenceofthenight.html

  • Cry of the Night Hound (novella) appearing in William Hope Hodgson’s Night Lands II: Nightmares of the Fall, edited by Andy W. Robertson, Three Legged Fox Books (2006).
  • Father’s Monument, (short story) No Longer Dreams, ed. Danielle McPhail, Lite Circle (2005)
  • The Kindred, (short story) No Longer Dreams, ed. Danielle McPhail, Lite Circle (2005)
  • Peter Power Armor, (short story) Breach the Hull, ed. Mike McPhail Marietta Publishing (2007)
  • Guyal the Curator (short story) Songs of the Dying Earth, ed. Gardner Dozois, Subterranean (2008)
  • The Far End of History (short story) New Space Opera II, ed. Gardner Dozois, Eos (2009)
  • One Bright Star to Guide Them (short story) The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction, ed. Gordon van Gelder, April-May 2009 issue.
  • Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two (short story) So It Begins, ed. Mike McPhail, Dark Quest book
  • Choosers of the Slain (short story) Clockwork Phoenix, ed. Mike Allen, Norilana Books (July 1, 2008)
  • Twilight of the Gods (novella) Federations, ed, John Joseph Adams, Prime Books (April, 2009)

—Reprinted in Years Best Science Fiction 27th Annual Collection ed. Gardner Dozois

  • On the People’s Business (short story) Dappled Things, ed. Katy Carl, Mary Queen of Angels 2009 issue (web publication)
  • Murder in Metachronopolis (novella) Clockwork Phoenix, ed. Mike Allen, Norilana Books (July, 2010)
  • Judgment Eve (novella) Engineering Infinity, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris Books, London (2011)
  • A Random World of Delta Capricorni Aa, Also Called Scheddi (short story) electronic publication Flash Fiction Online, ed. Jake Freivald, May 2010 issue.
  • The Lunar Sacrament of Confession (novella) Altered Perceptions, ed. Brandon Sanderson (2011)
  • The Ideal Machine (short story) Sci Phi Journal: Issue #1, October 2014.

The Golden Oecumene Trilogy:

THE GOLDEN AGE (novel) Tor Books (April 2002)

THE PHOENIX EXULTANT (novel) Tor Books (April 2003)

THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE (novel) Tor Books (November 2003)

The Books of Everness

LAST GUARDIANS OF EVERNESS (novel) Tor Books (August 2004)

MISTS OF EVERNESS (novel) Tor Books (March 2005)

The Chronicles of Chaos

ORPHANS OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (November 2005)—Nominated for a Nebula

FUGITIVES OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (November 2006)

TITANS OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (April 2007)

A.E. van Vogt’s Null-A

NULL-A CONTINUUM (novel) Tor Books (May, 2008)

The Count to the Eschaton Sequence

COUNT TO A TRILLION (novel) Tor Books (December, 2011)

THE HERMETIC MILLENNIA (novel) Tor Books (December, 2012)

JUDGE OF AGES (novel) Tor Books (February 2014)

ARCHITECT OF AEONS (novel) Tor Books (April, 2015)

VINDICATION OF MAN (novel) Tor Books (forthcoming)

COUNT TO INFINITY (novel) Tor Books ( forthcoming)

A Tale of the Unwithering Realm

SOMEWHITHER (novel) Castalia House (forthcoming)

NOWHITHER (novel) Castalia House (forthcoming)

Anthologies

AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND (anthology) Castalia House (April, 2014)

  • Introduction: On the Lure of the Night Land (essay)
  • Awake in the Night
  • Cry of the Night Hound
  • Silence of the Night (revised for this volume)
  • Last of All Suns

CITY BEYOND TIME Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis (anthology) Castalia House (June, 2014)

  • Murder In Metachronopolis
  • Choosers of the Slain
  • Bride of the Time Warden
  • Father’s Monument
  • Slayer of Souls (original to this volume)
  • The Plural of Helen of Troy (original to this volume)

THE BOOK OF SEASONS Tales Inspired by Feasts and Fasts (anthology) Castalia House (forthcoming)

  • Pale Realms of Shade (original)
  • A Random World of Delta Capricorni, Called Scheddi
  • Nativity (original)
  • Sheathed Paw of the Lion (original)
  • On the People’s Business
  • The Meaning of Life as Told Me by an Inebriated Science Fiction Writer in New Jersey (original)
  • The Parliament of Beasts and Birds (original)
  • Eve of All Saints Day (original)
  • Yes Virginia There is a Santa Claus (original)

Awake in the Night (Novella) Castalia House (May, 2014)

One Bright Star to Guide Them (novella) Castalia House (September, 2014) — expanded and revised from a previous short story for this publication.

Nonfiction Collection:

TRANSHUMAN AND SUBHUMAN Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth (collected essays) Castalia House (May 2014)

  • Introduction: The Wright Stuff (by Mike Flynn)
  • Transhuman and Subhuman
  • The Hobbit, or, The Desolation of Tolkien
  • Whistle While You Work
  • Science Fiction: What is it good for?
  • John C. Wright’s Patented One Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction
  • Swordplay in Space
  • The Glory Game, or, The Bitterness of Broken Ideals
  • Gene Wolfe, Genre Work, and Literary Duty
  • Storytelling Is the Absence of Lying
  • The Golden Compass Points in No Direction
  • Faith in the Fictional War between Science Fiction and Faith
  • The Big Three of Science Fiction
  • The Fourth of the Big Three of Science Fiction
  • Childhood’s End and Gnosticism
  • Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters
  • Restless Heart of Darkness

Nonfiction Articles:

  • May The Midichlorians Be With You; The absence of religion and ethics in Star Wars, (essay) Star Wars on Trial, ed. David Brin, Benbella Books (June, 2006).
  • Twas Beauty Killed The Beast; King Kong and the American Character, (essay) King Kong is Back, ed. David Brin, Benbella Books (November 2005).
  • Just Throw Him In The Engine; Or The Role of Chivalry in FIREFLY, (essay) Finding Serenity, ed. Glen Yeffeth, Benbella Books (April 1, 2005).
  • Heroes Of Darkness And Light; Or, Why My Girl Goes For Batman over Superman (essay) Batman Unauthorized, ed. Glen Yeffeth, Benbella Books (March 1, 2008).
  • Faith And Scientific Imagination (Published as Aliens Need Christ’s Redemption, Too) (essay) Catholic Herald (June 2008)
  • C.S. Lewis Was The Joshua Flattening The Walls Of My Disbelief (testimonial) Mere Christians—Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis, ed. Andrew Lazo and Mary Anne Phemister, Baker Books (February, 2009)
  • Heinlein, Hugos, and Hogwash (essay) Intercollegiate Review May 7, 2014 (web publication)
  • Faith and Works in a Science Fictional Universe (essay) One Peter Five, ed. Steve Skojec, August 2014 (web publication)
  • Prophetic & Apotropaic Science Fiction (essay) Sci Phi Journal: Issue # 2 (forthcoming)
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Oceania Has Always Been at War with Eastasia

Posted October 15, 2014 By John C Wright

Bush, and all Republicans, have been vindicated in everything we said about the Iraq War.

Lest I be accused of cherry picking my sources, allow me to quote from an ardent sufferer from Bush Derangement Syndrome. Any reader reading these words can tell they mean the exact opposite of what the writer is saying, and I am so confident that any reader can tell the truth hidden beneath the layer of bullshit, that I will not bother to interpret it from Newspeak to English.

This article is one taken at random from dozens:

On Tuesday, an investigation by veteran New York Times war correspondent C.J. Chivers revealed that between 2004-2011, American troops fighting in the Iraq War found over 5,000 chemical warheads, shells, and aviation bombs. The discoveries were never publicly disclosed by the military; U.S. soldiers who were exposed to nerve agents like sarin and mustard gas while attempting to remove conventional weapons were denied appropriate medical care and ordered to remain silent about yet another miscalculation of the Iraq War.

But in the midst of the revelation about the Bush administration cover-up, conservatives took to Twitter to express vindication for the former President who embarked on the ill-fated war.

The debate over the legitimacy of the Iraq War was never about whether or not Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction at some point in history.

Five thousand warheads and shells, eh? FIVE THOUSAND!?!

The Iraq War was never about WMDs? WAS NEVER ABOUT??

Wow. It boggles the mind.

Note the utter lack of dignity present in the act of humbly admitting being proved wrong, or, rather, note the psychotic ferocity with which the parties proved wrong pretend not to notice themselves proved wrong. They are as elegant as if the Queen of England were to be found at a public function with a leprous wet dog slumped from ear to ear on Her Majesty’s head, dripping, barfing and puking down her shoulders and bosom, but grandly not noticing the faux pas.

Leftism is a mental disease, or, specifically, a self-induced rejection of religion, reason, decency and shame wherein the victim deliberately at first (but rapidly losing the ability to correct or control his behavior) impersonates the behavior of a neurotic, and, for more hardcore Leftists, a psychotic. The neurosis is an inability to grasp history, economics, or political realities, and a pathological need for self flattery and for an unearned moral superiority.

The day is fast approaching when we should all rise up and club to death all Leftists as one would club down a shambling mob of zombies. The shambling Leftists can avoid being on the receiving end of the real version of the Zombie Apocalypse — for the living shall surely overwhelm the dead — if and only if they wake up and shake off their addiction to lies, delusions, delirium, self-righteousness, falsehood, sleaze and bullshit.

But Leftists never wake up. Never.

* * *

As a public service, for those with short memories, I here reprint an article that I have reprinted more or less annually to remind the zombie hoards of Leftists allergic to thinking what the causes of the war were. Note that the sole claim not proved was the WMD claim, which, at the time this was written, had not been found. Now they have been.

This article is now so old that I cannot confirm all the links are still good. That is how long this easily-debunked lie has been going on.

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Darwinian Blithering

Posted October 14, 2014 By John C Wright

One Mr. David P Barash wrote a bit of typical Hitchens-style Christ-bashing, but without the stylistic wit of Hitchens. Also without the manly courage: Unlike Hitchens, Mr. Barash never actually finds the fortitude to come out and say what he means to say. This affords him wide avenues of retreat, as well as a mask of objectivity. Because he is a professor.

He has the startling news that science exiles faith! Because Darwin!

It is astonishing that some parents somewhere are paying this inarticulate or uneducated windbag good money to ruin the minds and souls of their impressionable schoolchildren. Simply the errors in straightforward logic are appalling, not to mention the lack of structure in his column: he seems to drift from topic to topic without any rhyme or reason.

Let us fisk this bit of blather.

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Othering the Cis

Posted October 13, 2014 By John C Wright

CPE Gabler asks:

[Quoting me] “The difference is that the Puritan moral code was actually moral, if excessive. They were trying to be holier than God, and to be meek, chaste, modest and humble. These modern Puritans express the same degree of zeal and mouth-foaming fervor by trying to kill more children than Moloch, screw more catamites than Asmodius, gnaw out their own guts with more envy than Leviathan, flatter themselves with more vainglory than Lucifer, and in general by trying to be more unholy than the wretched devils swarming in the smoldering sewers of Hell.”

Aren’t those vile depths generally reached from a starting point of wanting to be more loving than God, and to be compassionate to the outcasts and disenfranchised? I believe you’ve said similar things in the past.

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Beyond Binary Sanity — and a call to arms by Hoyt

Posted October 9, 2014 By John C Wright

Back when I was a Libertarian, we would ask each other when it was time to stop talking and to shoot the bastards.

Myself, I would like to have conservatives ask each other when it was time to stop apologizing to the Left, being nice to the Left, petting the Left, and bending over and clutching our ankles to allow the Left once again to kick us in the butt, or, given their sexual proclivities, perform an unnatural act which they regard as equal to marriage.

Here is yet one more example the Left buggering civil society:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/389862/school-told-call-kids-purple-penguins-because-boys-and-girls-not-inclusive

This is not a parody.

A Nebraska school district has instructed its teachers to stop referring to students by “gendered [sic] expressions” such as “boys and girls,” and use “gender [sic] inclusive” ones such as “purple penguins” instead.

“Don’t use phrases such as ‘boys and girls,’ ‘you guys,’ ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ and similarly gendered [sic] expressions to get kids’ attention,” instructs a training document given to middle-school teachers at the Lincoln Public Schools.

“Create classroom names and then ask all of the ‘purple penguins’ to meet on the rug,” it advises.

The document also warns against asking students to “line up as boys or girls,” and suggests asking them to line up by whether they prefer “skateboards or bikes/milk or juice/dogs or cats/summer or winter/talking or listening.”

“Always ask yourself . . . ‘Will this configuration create a gendered [sic] space?’” the document says.

The instructions were part of a list called “12 steps on the way to gender inclusiveness” developed by Gender Spectrum, an organization that “provides education, training and support to help create a gender [sic] sensitive and inclusive environment for children of all ages.”

Other items on the list include asking all students about their preferred pronouns and decorating the classroom with “all genders [sic] welcome” door hangers.

If teachers still find it “necessary” to mention that genders [sic] exist at all, the document states, they must list them as “boy, girl, both or neither.”

Furthermore, it instructs teachers to interfere and interrupt if they ever hear a student talking about gender [sic] in terms of “boys and girls” so the student can learn that this is wrong.

“Point out and inquire when you hear others referencing gender [sic] in a binary manner,” it states. “Ask things like . . . ‘What makes you say that? I think of it a little differently.’ Provide counter-narratives that challenge students to think more expansively about their notions of gender [sic] .”

The teachers were also given a handout created by the Center for Gender Sanity, which explains to them that “Gender [sic] identity . . . can’t be observed or measured, only reported by the individual,” and an infographic called “The Genderbred Person,” which was produced by www.ItsPronouncedMetroSexual.com.

Despite controversy, Lincoln Superintendent Steve Joel has declared that he is “happy” and “pleased” with the training documents.

“We don’t get involved with politics,” he told KLIN Radio’s Drive Time Lincoln radio show.

These people are mentally ill.

This mental illness is why some turd-scented Morlock on Tor.com called for an end to binary gender [sic] in SFF, and why Larry Correia was subjected to the Two Minute Hate.

Mr Correia pointed out that people who buy stories about libertarian gunnuts shooting monsters want a monster story, not a finger-wagging lecture on the alleged moral superiority of unnatural sexual acts.

The Morlock, like the Puritans before him, wanted an end to all entertainment that did not serve the zealous moralizing of the fanatics. Like the Puritans, for the Morlocks, there is nothing beyond the orbit of the theocratic leaders, nothing aside from the ideal, everything for the ideal.

The difference is that the Puritan moral code was actually moral, if excessive. They were trying to be holier than God, and to be meek, chaste, modest and humble. These modern Puritans express the same degree of zeal and mouth-foaming fervor by trying to kill more children than Moloch, screw more catamites than Asmodius, gnaw out their own guts with more envy than Leviathan, flatter themselves with more vainglory than Lucifer, and in general by trying to be more unholy than the wretched devils swarming in the smoldering sewers of Hell.

And now they have declared war on ‘he’ and ‘she’.

These people are mentally ill.

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So, You Want to be Superversive?

Posted October 8, 2014 By John C Wright

Are you sick of literature, especially what is fed to children in schools, that serves no purpose other than to subvert the current social order, rot civilization, introduce despair, and cast the phosgene gas of ironic detachment over all normal and healthy human emotion? Care to join the movement that stands for the opposite of all these things?

The beautiful and talented Mrs. Wright has the second of several planned posts on the topic of what to do to join the movement, and lend your strength to the cause?

So, you want to be Superversive? Eager to join the new movement but not sure how to tell if you have? This post will, God willing, help sort out a bit of the confusion.

So, without further ado: The Benchmarks of the Superversive:

First and foremost, a Superversive story has to have good storytelling.

By which I do not mean that it has to be well-written. Obviously, it would be great if every story was well-written. It is impossible, however, to define a genre or literary movement as “well-written”, as that would instantly remove the possibility of a beginner striving to join.

What I mean by good storytelling is that the story follows the principles of a good story. That, by the end, the good prosper, the bad stumble, that there is action, motion to the plot, and a reasonable about of sense to the overall structure.

Second, the characters must be heroic.

By this, I do not mean that they cannot have weaknesses. Technically, a character without weaknesses could not be heroic, because nothing would require effort upon his part.

Nor do I mean that a character must avoid despair. A hero is not defined by his inability to wander into the Valley of Despair, but by what he does when he finds himself knee deep in its quagmire. Does he throw in the towel and moan about the unfairness of life? Or does he pull his feet out of the mud with both hands and soldier onward?

Nor do I mean that every character has to be heroic, obviously some might not be. But in general, there should be characters with a heroic, positive attitude toward life.

However, many, many stories have good storytelling and heroic characters. Most decent fantasies are like that.

Are all decent fantasies Superversive?

No.

Because one element of Superversive literature is still missing.

Wonder.

Third, Superversive literature must have an element of wonder

But not ordinary wonder. (Take a moment to parse that out. Go ahead. I’ll still be here. )

Specifically, the kind of wonder that comes from suddenly realizing that there is something greater than yourself in the universe, that the world is a grander place than you had previously envisioned. The kind of wonder that comes from a sudden hint of a Higher Power, a more solid truth.

There might be another word for that kind of wonder: awe.

Read the whole thing: http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2014/10/08/the-benchmarks-of-wonder-or-how-to-identify-a-superversive-story/

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Dog Latin

Posted October 8, 2014 By John C Wright

Okay, true believers, here is the scene as its stands.

Any Latin scholars out there, please correct any grammatical errors, except the one deliberate one.

The wolf speaking is actually a she-wolf, but the narrator, Ilya Muromets, does not yet know that.  So she should use the proper gender for any words referring to herself, but he should not. (NOTE: this is the only time you will hear this world ‘gender’ used correctly this year.)

A word of background: Ilya and Abby (a thin native girl in a monkey-faced breathing mask who rescued him) are traveling down the vertical highway system at the axis of the Tower of Babel. They are in a parallel timeline where construction was completed on the Tower, and it actually reaches to heaven, or, at least, geosynchronous orbit.  Astrology actually works in this universe, and correctly predicts the future. This scene takes place right after a melee fought clinging to the sheer vertical sides of freight-train sized elevator cars.

Since in Abby’s timeline the Tower builders were never scattered by the Confusion of tongues, she has the superpower of polyglossia, like Cypher of the X Men, and speaks and understands all languages.

Ilya is from Oregon on our version of Earth, but he has Wolverine power of regeneration, taken to the level of the Headless Horseman. He was dunked in the Ocean of Uncreation outside timespace,  and absorbed some of the unnatural pre-creation substance, ylem, into his cells. The chaos in his bloodstream reacts to his state of mind, and when he prays, he heals.

The dog-headed baboonish wolf-things (who can cling like Spiderman to sheer surfaces) are nigh invulnerable, like the Tick. (You can see where, as a serious and high-class writer, where I get my themes and ideas.) They are from a timeline where Romulus and Remus actually were suckled by a she-wolf, and fathered a werewolf race in Latium. (And, as a comic book fan, I also throw in these classical references, which people who, you know, read the dreary stuff assigned them in school rather than SANDMAN or THOR or Frank Miller’s 700 funnybooks will not catch.)

I could see above and behind me the glint of his nocturnal eyes like two coppery mirrors, or two burning matches, approaching.

He slid smoothly down the golden hullsurface toward me. I had some half-baked notion of grabbing the crossbow from him if he got closer, but he halted.

Twenty yards away. Fifteen. Ten. I tried to urge him within arm’s reach by radiating hypnotic waves from my brain, but that was not one of the superpowers I was given.

He stopped.

Does swearing count as blasphemy if you do it silently in your heart? I decided to ask Father Flannery next time I went to confession. If I were so lucky.

I sat there, playing possum and watched him hang head-downward and cock another bolt with three hands.

Cripes, but I wished I had something to throw at him during the moment when there was only one leg holding him to the surface.

This time, I heard the string go thwang before the bolt entered my back. He struck some major vein. I could see the blood pumping from my back. Even with my childhood acting skills of pretending to be a bear, I could not convincingly impersonate a man whose heart had stopped beating.

Lon Chaney spoke in a sonorous, delicate language, in the lofty accents of an aristocrat. I swear he sounded like a guy who would introduce Masterpiece Theatre on public TV.

“Immortalis videtur.” He said, with a slight lilt of laughter to his voice. “Rationalis creatura sum: noli te versari in me fallendo. Si lubet.”

Latin. It was one of the languages I had studied. I could translate it … that is, while sitting with my Lewis & Short Lexicon open at my elbow, or Harden’s Vulgate, a pencil with a good eraser for erasing plenty of mistakes, a bright lamp, a clean desk, and loads of time: hanging sideways over a sickening abyss while bloodied in combat while panicking about underfed little girls dressed in monkey-masks was a different matter. But I knew some of the words.

Deathless, you seem. I am a rational creature: do not busy yourself in deceiving me. If you please.
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Any Latin scholars out there?

Posted October 7, 2014 By John C Wright

I have several phrases in my current manuscript that are written in Greek, spoken by a werewolf. Originally, my idea was that werewolves are the Kallikanzaro of Greek legend, the critters busily chopping down the world tree every Christmas eve. But I changed my mind, and decided to make them Roman, sons of Romulus and Remus, and to speak Dog Latin.

I am fair hand at Greek, which I’ve studied, but not Latin, which I have not. Can any of my learned readers help me? Here are the phrases I need in Latin, and medieval or Ciceronian Latin is better, the older the better:

  • Immortal, you seem. I am a rational creature: be not occupied in deceiving me. Please.
  • speech without reason
  • if you please
  • Carrion-eater

Here is the surrounding text in the scene, along with the machine translation that I do not trust:

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