Up now at AltRight Radio is a great podcast interview with Stephen McNallen in which he explains the rites, rituals, and broader significance of the "indigenous religion of Europe."

Here's an account from Njal's Saga , ch. 97, of a debate that took place shortly before the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in the year 999:

Thangbrand and his messmate fared right through the west country, and Steinvora, the mother of Ref the Skald, came against him; she preached the heathen faith to Thangbrand and made him a long speech. Thangbrand held his peace while she spoke, but made a long speech after her, and turned all that she had said the wrong way against her.

"Hast thou heard," she said, "how Thor challenged Christ to single combat, and how he did not dare to fight with Thor?"

"I have heard tell," says Thangbrand, "that Thor was naught but dust and ashes, if God had not willed that he should live."

If you are ever inclined to indulge certain masochistic tendencies, forget the dangerous new fads enjoyed only at the cost of life and limb; just head on over to National Review.

The premier magazine of the conservative movement provides a sure means of inciting incredulity and aggravation even in those of the most pacific temperament.  Looking for a heaping dose of jingoism for Washington's postmodern empire? Victor Davis Hanson has it covered. Michael Novak, the neocons' house theologian, is always available to justify the finer points of aggressive war for democratic capitalism. How about painful attempts at keeping relevant with septic pop culture? Well, hey, they've got  that, too! This assortment of conservative wisdom might even serve as a source of morbid entertainment, causing readers to laugh in despair for the country and our beloved West.

Jack Donovan has called for a rag-tag alliance of right-wingers, Richard Spencer for a coalition against bad things. Both can serve a function, and I agree with the project. Still, the direction of events has been against us for a long time so something more is needed.

Health-care and immigration "reform" show the problem: for years we've been playing a series of sudden-death overtimes against disaster. According to the rules, our losses are enduring but our wins are only temporary because they're just followed by another sudden-death overtime.

It's obvious that we have to change the direction of events in some basic way. The difficulty of doing so doesn't change the situation. It's the only way we can win.

Much as has been said of me, I know Larry Auster, he's very intelligent, and I respect him. I read his blog just about every day and find him an engaging presence in person. And I hope he takes the following criticism in the constructive spirit in which it is written.

I often get the sense that Larry has turned himself into a kind of Ayn Rand of the paleo Right. So often, do I see him expelling others from the circle of "conservatism" -- to the point that the only conservatives left are himself and a handful of intimates -- inflating a single issue or difference of opinion into an existential Either/Or, and proclaiming the absolute consistency of his philosophy (while in actuality it's full of the elisions and willed forgetting characteristic of an ideology.)¹

His recent comments on AltRight follow this trend...

L. Paul Bremer, former head of the US Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, popped up for an interview recently. Bremer (His nickname "Jerry" is much too bland. Victorian custom might accord our hero the moniker of "Baghdad.") had nothing to say about the bang-up job he did in managing the occupation of Iraq from 2003-2004. But as a former ambassador to the Netherlands, he did elect to share his wisdom on the subject of Islam in Europe.

Bremer is a Neoconservative, in case his position in Baghdad didn't clue you in. As such, he purports to defend the heritage of the West while maintaining a worldview and positions that only work to undermine it.

FrumForum's latest attack on me and AlternativeRight, "Richard Spencer's Nordic Supermen," is notable in that its author, Alex Knepper, has moved beyond the ho-hum "guilt by association" accusations we've come to expect from such people. Earlier he had attempted "guilt by dramatization" and now has tried the exceedingly difficult "guilt by the recounting of an anecdote that reminds the author of the person he's trying to smear." Bold! Knepper's article makes SPLC tactics seem tame and boring in comparison.

The young Alex speaks of his fascination with the esoteric and the fringe, and tells a tale about how he attended a Nordic Pride festival (where, we're not told) and met some Odinists. These rough-and-tumble folks, who wore Thor's Hammers, discussed kith, kin, and bloodlines, and talked about rearing warriors, clearly offended Alex's delicate sensibilities. Alex hints that they're anti-Semitic, but the portrait he paints doesn't lead me to believe that these people have done anything wrong. Our world is full of groups that desire a sense of roots and "Us-ness" -- for proof, Alex might try to join the National Council of La Raza.

I don't have any problem with Pagans, but these people are supposed to be my Nordic Supermen? Really? For nowhere in the article does Alex claim that, say, I was there, that I'm a member of their group, that I even know any of these people, etc. etc. etc.

For further evidence (as if it were needed) of my Nordic supremacy, Alex cites the title of an AltRight article ... by Robert Weissberg, the good-natured, Manhattan-dwelling cosmopolitan who, I'm afraid, is about as far from "Odinic" as you can get.

[Inspired by the upcoming debate on the topic, which features our esteemed Executive Editor arguing the other way.]

My answer, of course, is "no." It's obvious if you compare trends in wimpiness and trends in religious belief that the decline of Christianity has turned people into wimps. Nietzsche is big among left-wing academics. Wimpiness is big among left-wing academics. It's wimps who have superman fantasies. People, you should connect the dots!

A wimp is someone who can't stand his ground because he thinks he's nothing and has nowhere to stand. You won't be a wimp if you know what you are and what you have to do. That means that a Christian can't be a wimp, not without abandoning Christianity.

In contrast, nihilists and relativists can be wimps or psychopaths but not much else. They can assert themselves simply as such, as if they were somehow a law for the universe, or assert nothing at all and give in to whatever is pushing them at the moment. Or maybe they can hunker down and do nothing. Or act randomly, by Brownian motion as it were. Why make those the choices by choosing nihilism or relativism?