If leftist moral-political axioms were an argument, these (dazzlingly white*) guys might have one.

* Perhaps the funniest part of all this, it’s only a matter of time before they’re chaited by the all-devouring lunacy they align with.

ADDED: The New Inquiry piece helpfully fnorded (+) by laofmoonster.

Ushering in the new era, Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister-designate, announced that he would not be sworn in, as tradition dictates, in the presence of Archbishop Iernonymos but would instead take the oath of office in a civil ceremony. At 40, he becomes the country’s youngest premier in modern times. […] The leftist, who surprised Greeks by speedily agreeing to share power with the populist rightwing Independent Greeks party, Anel, is expected to be handed a mandate by president Karolos Papoulias to form a government later on Monday. Earlier, Panos Kammenos, Anel’s rumbustious leader, emerged from talks with Tsipras lasting an hour saying the two politicians had successfully formed a coalition. […] “I want to say, simply, that from this moment, there is a government,” Kammenos told reporters gathered outside Syriza’s headquarters. […] “The Independent Greeks party will give a vote of confidence to the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras. The prime minister will go to the president and … the cabinet makeup will be announced by the prime minister. The aim for all Greeks is to embark on a new day, with full sovereignty.”

Anyone who thinks it odd that Marine Le Pen and Slavoj Žižek are both firm supporters is missing the picture entirely. As Žižek remarks:

This is our position today with regard to Europe: only a new “heresy” (represented at this moment by Syriza), a split from the European Union by Greece, can save what is worth saving in the European legacy: democracy, trust in people, egalitarian solidarity.

That’s what the Left means. Construct your ideological spectrum accordingly.

Mainstream, but sane:

Of course, politics is about emotion as much as reality. And here, socialism has one advantage in its favor: easy populism.

Socialism has one huge advantage: People are idiots.

… and while I’m slumming it at NRO, here‘s Andrew Stuttaford:

Fun fact No. 1: One of the two sons of Syriza’s leader was given the middle name “Ernesto” in honor of the murderer better known as Ernesto “Che” Guevara. […] Fun fact No. 2: The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn probably came in third with 6 percent or so. […] I, for one, continue to be grateful that the single currency has proved to be such a bulwark against extremism.

ADDED: Childish incomprehension from the Left (of which we will be seeing a great deal): “… Last but not least, while Mr. Kammenos and his sovereigntyist right-wing ANEL party [Independent Greeks] are certainly a lesser evil compared to formations like To Potami (whose stated goal was to force Syriza to stay within the narrow boundaries set by the EU and the Memorandums), they are nonetheless an evil. Their participation in the government, even with just one minister, would symbolise the end of the idea of an ‘anti-austerity government of the Left’. Moreover, this is a party of the Right, one that is particularly concerned to protect the ‘hard core’ of the state apparatus (it will be important to keep a watchful eye over whatever cabinet portfolio it might get). It will be no surprise if its first demands are for the ministry of defence or public order, though it seems that it will not get them.” (Relevant predictions from Jim.)

NRx doesn’t vulgarize to a denunciation of Cultural Marxism (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 …). Yes, ‘Duh!’, but well worth making explicit. Widening perspectives in time and space. “[T]he Reactosphere [is] an Illiberal University System.” Against critical thinking (and response). On the holiness problem. A thoughtful appraisal of Neoreaction (1, 2), but I’m reserving judgment on this. Terminal-phase feminism. Fragged Friday. Mitrailleuse off-blog channels. Meta-masters (1, 2, 3).

“Things without boundaries rapidly become unthings.” (This is also good.)

A few of the more notable aftershocks following the Paris massacre, from two generations of Le Pens (this is better), Malcolm Pollack, and the Anarcho-Papist. No go zones? A wide-angle view. Our interesting times are getting more interesting. The Saudi king is dead. The interim successor “has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and at many times cannot remember his own name.” ISIS made its move just in time. (Chaos, right?) An analysis of Saudi oil politics. Then back to France (sort of). Auster holds up well.

Venezuela, don’t laugh (related).

The Duck at Chateau Heartiste. Before Yarvin was Moldbug (from 1995). A Scott Alexander no-like list. The long culture war (and a more conventionally humanistic account). Broken democracy. The value of independent corroboration.

Unamused at work. Gregory Hood on MLK. Bookishness is over-rated. On Guillaume Faye on sex. The Economist tip-toes towards reality. Hope for Wikipedia?

Bahrain government unfairly spying on man who has dedicated his life to overthrowing it. http://t.co/gKRdZFrOwW

— anomalyuk (@anomalyuk) January 23, 2015

(There’s a perfect sanity to this tweet, sarcasm of course included, that would be hard to top. That is equally to say there is a perfect exposure of our reigning moral-political insanity. The “C’est un chien sauvage …” quote that should accompany it is escaping me for now … Something like: “It is a fierce beast. When it is attacked, it bites.” No doubt one of my cultivated readers can help.)

This elusive aphorism is driving me slowly insane. The closest I can get right now: “A French philosopher once said that a dog is the most dangerous animal in the world because when it is attacked it bites.” (Voltaire?)

ADDED: Thanks to Harold (in the comments) for hunting this down:

Cet animal est tres méchant;
Quand on l’attaque il se défend.

Shut up and show us the code.

And if the answer is “Justice!”, then our reply has to be this: The code is its own justice. No compiler or network stack or 3-D printer gives a crap about the shape of your genitals or the color of your skin, and hackers as a culture don’t either.

Close to the core of the tech-comm mind-set, no? (Via.)

What liberals are struggling to come to grips with today is the enormous gap between the dominant ideas and discourse in the liberal worlds of journalism, the foundations, and the academy on the one hand, and the wider realities of American life on the other. Within the magic circle, liberal ideas have never been more firmly entrenched and less contested. Increasingly, liberals live in a world in which certain ideas are becoming ever more axiomatic and unquestioned even if, outside the walls, those same ideas often seem outlandish.

Modern American liberalism does its best to suppress dissent and critique (except from the left) at the institutions and milieus that it controls. Dissent is not only misguided; it is morally wrong. Bad thoughts create bad actions, and so the heretics must be silenced or expelled. “Hurtful” speech is not allowed, and so the eccentricities of conventional liberal piety pile up into ever more improbable, ever more unsustainable forms.

Some reactosphere highlights: Questioning secession, basedness and other values, racial double-binds, doomed boomers, a call to order, warfare in the progressive-style, Dugin on IR, deconstruction in the mosh-pit. Why capitalism really sucks (a response, in part, to this lamentable development?) — highly related. Propertarianism versus NRx (hard to distinguish from a tech-comm ‘correction’ of NRx). Bonfire of the sanities. The return of Satan (see also these). Thoughts on torture. Narrative games (link mania). “This ends the third cycle …” Fragmentation continues. Mega-meta.

A gateway to Silicon Valley Cyber-Apocalypticism. “In five years, an estimated 5.9 billion people will own smartphones. Anyone who can code, or who has something to sell, can be a free agent on the global marketplace. You can work from anywhere on your laptop and talk to anyone in the world; you can receive goods anywhere via drone and pay for them with bitcoins — that is, if you can’t 3-D print them at home. As software eats everything, prices will plunge. You won’t need much money to live like a king; it won’t be a big deal if your job is made obsolete by code or a robot. The rich will enjoy bespoke luxury goods and be first in line for new experiences, but otherwise there will be no differences among people; inequality will increase but cease to matter. Politics as we know it will lose relevance. Large, gridlocked states will be disrupted like any monopoly. Customer-citizens, armed with information, will demand transparency, accountability, choice. They will want their countries to be run as well as a start-up. There might be some civil wars, there might be many new nations, but the stabilizing force will be corporations, which will become even more like parts of a global government than they are today. Google and Facebook, for in-stance, will be bigger and better than ever: highly functional, monopolistic technocracies that will build out the world’s infrastructure. Facebook will be the new home of the public sphere; Google will automate everything.”

Bitcoin for the establishment (more, and more) … and in other Bitcoin mainstreaming news. How collapse works. Recession is the new stimulus. Zombie slayer.

The Internet is escaping (so why not tickle it nicely?). A new dawn.

Double-checking. Genome checking. Dubious debunkings (also). Getting physical. Lemmings.

The geography of homicide.

For the top popcorn spectacular of the week, there’s only one link needed.

Decapitation porn and production values.

Paleolithic art. Mathematical collapse and advance.

If we’re already entering the ejection phase of neo-secessionism, it has to be a good thing, right?

@JayMan471 @matthewherper @David_Dobbs @jason_pontin @charlesmurray The Bell Curve has been well refuted. I am dismayed that you cite it.

— Karen James (@kejames) December 2, 2014

Politically incorrect research, however solidly established, is especially singled out for this treatment. Some approved (i.e. Leftist) authority somewhere has provided the excuse to dismiss awkward findings, so that the painful stimulus can be suppressed, and — just to be safe — even the pretext for suppressing it is best forgotten, leaving only the permission to be undisturbed in public circulation. All crime-think has been ‘well refuted’ (sociologically a priori) as far as these people are concerned. “It’s been well refuted” means exactly “wouldn’t it be nice if this didn’t exist?” (or “nice people have told us we don’t need to worry about that”).

Refuted where?

@DocCLAR @JayMan471 @pseudoerasmus This is ridiculous. You can google just as well as I can.

— Karen James (@kejames) December 2, 2014

Amused yet?

ADDED: A banquet of ‘well refuted’ science at Slate.

For many liberal Democrats (as well as for some of their Republican opponents) two key beliefs about immigration shape their political strategies. The first is that Latinos are the new blacks: a permanent racial minority or subgroup in the American political system that will always feel separate from the country’s white population and, like African-Americans, will vote Democratic. On this assumption, the Democratic approach to Hispanic Americans should be clear: the more the merrier. That is a particularly popular view on the more leftish side of the Democratic coalition, where there’s a deep and instinctive fear and loathing of Jacksonian America (those “bitterly clinging” to their guns, their Bibles, and their individualistic economic and social beliefs). The great shining hope of the American left is that a demographic transition through immigration and birthrates will finally make all those tiresome white people largely irrelevant in a new, post-American America that will forget all that exceptionalism nonsense and ditch “Anglo-Saxon” cultural and economic ideas ranging from evangelical religion to libertarian social theory.

If conventional wisdom on the subject is this stark — and Mead is a good weather-vane for that — then Obama might as well put on the Kill Whitey T-shirt, because he’s clearly not fooling anybody. (It’s also worth explicitly noting, for the anti-market trads out there, that your besieged cultural norms and laissez-faire capitalism are on the same radical leftist death list, whether you appreciate the company or not.)