Points Of No Return

     Among the lessons a chess player must master, if he’s to get beyond the “gifted amateur” point in the game, is how to recognize the point of no return in pursuing an attack. It’s an important concept because so many attacks are sacrificial in nature. That is, they involve the sacrifice of material – pieces and pawns – or positional features – pawn structure weaknesses or control of the center – to prosecute an all-out assault on the opponent’s king. The point of no return is the point in the game at which the attacker is fully committed and a draw is no longer available: either the attack will break through to victory, or it will peter out, leaving the defender with a winning advantage.

     As a rule, points of no return are relevant only to a sacrificial attack on the opponent’s king. Any other objective would be strategic in nature. Such a maneuver can almost always be diverted to other aims. An assault on the king that requires a material or positional sacrifice is a win-or-die commitment.

     They who undertake political or geostrategic maneuvering must recognize such points, as well.

---

     “So you plan to shoot at the King? A word of advice: don’t miss.” – Origin unknown.

     The American Left has gone “all in” on its assault on the Trump Administration and the sentiments of Americans of conservative or traditional views. They’ve resorted to tactics that have cost them any claim to a portion of the moral high ground, and have horrified far too many persons: everything from the vilest sort of accusations and denunciations to outright violence against Administration supporters. In choosing to do so, they’ve passed the point of no return: either they’ll succeed in bringing down the American Constitutional order and installing themselves irremediably in power, or they’ll go down to a defeat so smashing that it will marginalize them for decades to come.

     As Leftist activism is a centrally-directed undertaking, its strategic planners should have known that they were committing their forces irrecoverably. If they didn’t, they’re as stupid as their politics are vicious. If they did, it’s imperative that the rest of us recognize that the point of no return is past for us as well: if we don’t defeat them, we’ll be crushed under their heel.

     This has tactical implications for us in the Right: specifically, that from this point forward, no tactic will be ruled out of bounds. The Marquess of Queensbury has retired from the field. It’s not fair play and may-the-best-man-win in the American political order any more; it’s war to the knife:

• Accusations and denunciations must be met with even greater counterblasts.
• Lawfare must provoke a counter-reaction of such magnitude as to humiliate and impoverish our attackers.
• Conservatives’ political campaigns must not hesitate to employ their opponents’ methods.
• And of course, violence must be met with even greater violence.

     We didn’t choose it, but we’ve been left unable to avoid it. Conservative luminaries and spokesmen had better take note.

---

     Europe, by choosing to open its borders to the Islamic tide, has passed a point of no return of its own. While there is no central governing authority over Islam, there is an overwhelming commonality of sentiment among Muslims: Tomorrow belongs to us. No matter where they migrate, they strive to establish an Islamic culture complete with sharia law. Even those who were desperate to escape the sharia-controlled hellholes of their origins submit to the more consciously active Muslims among them. They will undertake no resistance to the sharia advocates, much less to the jihadis.

     Today there are far too may Muslims in Europe to impose forcible assimilation upon them. Their communities are self-reinforcing in too many ways, including violence. Moreover, events suggest that the political elites of Europe are aware of that. If they aren’t, their passive acceptance of the Muslim hordes and their unwillingness to speak against such horrors as female genital mutilation testifies to a remarkable flaccidity of will.

     At this time, the nations of Europe retain the ability to defeat the Islamic tide. They still possess enough numbers and enough force. Recent events suggest that willingly or otherwise, the satraps of Europe have acknowledged that private Europeans will tolerate no more. That, of course, doesn’t mean that the forces the command will be deployed to turn back the Muslim torrent. They might be put to the suppression of anti-Islamic sentiment, as “anti-religious-defamation” laws in several countries hint.

     One way or the other, the point of no return has been passed, both for Europe and for Islam. Victory will require the conquest and humiliation of the defeated opponent: either Europe will become wholly Islamic, or Islam will be routed out of the Old World and straitly confined to its Middle Eastern bastions. Another outcome is no longer possible.

---

     We are involved here in a far reaching conspiracy to undermine our most basic beliefs and sacred institutions. Who's behind this conspiracy? Once again ask yourself: who has the most to gain? People in high places: their names would astound you! People in low places: concealing their activities beneath a cloak of poverty! People of all walks of life, left wing and right wing. Black and white. Students and scholars. A conspiracy of such ominous proportions that we will never, ever know the whole story and we'll never be able to reveal all the facts! We are readying mass arrests. I am going to see that you people get every possible break. If there is any information you would like to contribute at this time, it will be held in the strictest confidence.... [Lieutenant Practice, in Jules Feiffer's black comedy Little Murders]

     Let us not talk falsely now,
     The hour is getting late. – Bob Dylan

     America might well be at a point of no return as regards individual freedom. However, in our case, the crisis point is located in the courts.

     Constitutional language notwithstanding, no right remains absolute. Even freedom of expression has been abridged, often under the aegis of “national security.” Moreover, the citizenry’s ability to defend itself against outright oppression has been undermined by federal court decisions that hold that the citizen has no right to resist even an unlawful state action – that he is criminally liable for violence he might commit to defend himself against an unlawful home invasion by the police, for example. That ratifies any and every imaginable oppression. If legislation to correct this horror is in sight, I’m unaware of it.

     The situation is bleak. It’s largely unrelieved by recent improvements in our economy. The height of your pile hardly matters when it can be taken from you for any reason or none, with no recourse available to you. Neither is your right to life worth much if the cops can ram in your front door on the pretext of searching for drugs, and gun you down on the representation that you “resisted.”

     Our political class, being immune to this sort of interference, seldom deigns to comment on it. Rather, we hear paeans to our “brave protectors,” the police, and are expected to be horrified when one of them is killed in the line of duty. Granted that no innocent, uniformed or not, deserves to be killed, where is the outrage against the use of SWAT teams to conduct drug raids on the homes of private persons? Where is the outrage against police seizures of travelers’ cash holdings on suspicion of “trafficking,” and IRS confiscations of small businessmen’s bank accounts on suspicion of “structuring?”

     We may cluck at those in even worse shape, but let it not blind us to the approach of a point of no return of our own.