Blessed Are The Stirrers — by Cedar Sanderson

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

UPDATE: The Sarah has landed.  I’ll have to see what’s been going on around here.

Blessed Are The Stirrers — by Cedar Sanderson

I’ve been watching the whole Hugo brouhaha with a rather detached eye, not really being “of” fandom, besides the small and Odd group that is the Baen Bar. Honestly, until a couple of years ago, I had never heard of the Hugos. But it did bring something to a head for me, as I mused on the behaviours of people who called themselves professionals and acted in strange and perverse manners.

 

There have been attacks, counter-attacks, and in general a lot of very bad words used all across the spectrum, and as I read some of it, a few things occurred to me. One, the fine art of stirring the fecal matter has its uses. Bear with me here, because I know some of you have a vivid imagination and it’s not a pretty picture. Dung can tell you a lot about the creature that left it: healthy vs sick, dietary preferences, parasite load, and so forth. I’m equating some of these blog posts to this dung… For one thing, poke at fresh droppings and see movement, then you know the creature was infested with parasites. I’m going to quote John C Wright here, not just link to his blog, because his take on a human parasite was breathtakingly beautiful usage of the English language.

 

“The simian creature does not write in his non-work hours, as do I; he is a beggar. An aspiring beggar. Nay, let me insult no beggar. The creature is not an honest beggar. Honest beggars asks and accept only alms freely given.

He fawns and licks the bloodstained hand of Caesar, and suckles at the bloody teat of Caesar, drinking up the wealth and labor of honest working men like a vampire. The creature is a slave and less than a slave: a sycophant. He is a catamite literally, but, worse, figuratively, and plays the role rumor says Augustus as a boy played to Caesar.”

Vox Day, someone I do not know at all, nor had I read anything of his previous to about a year ago when he was himself the center of a controversy, is one who seems to take great pleasure in flipping over the leavings of those who react without rational thought. It’s interesting, I learned as a girl that if I were being pestered and teased, the best way to make it stop was to ignore the gadfly. There are those who haven’t learned that lesson, and at their age, seem unlikely or incapable of learning. But by their reactions and venoms, they make themselves out clearly to be what they are. Vox may be as abrasive as coarse sandpaper, but at least seems to be honestly so. Those who bullied him out of their organization have shown themselves utterly without couth. Brad Torgerson in an online conversation stated it best: “ The thing with Vox is discouraging because basically it’s following the rules of political radioactivity: get enough people to agree that a man is “untouchable” and suddenly anyone who dialogues with him becomes tainted by default, and also untouchable. This is about as far from LIBERAL as it gets. Liberal means having an open mind and not declaring people untouchable. That was the whole thing from the 1950s through the 1990s: pushing to get more and more “off limits” people included in society . . . . only now they’re turning the tables and drawing up lists of people for eviction. Hypocritical barely describes such thinking. Illiberal and patently Marxist is how I’d put it.”

Without even looking very hard, I found this comment, by someone who chose to use a nom d’ plume rather than a real identity: “In better days, people were easily thrown out of the city and the gates were locked behind them, let them starve. We need a system like that today, people like Vox Day need to die on the vine. Anyone who holds such opinions should not be allowed in society, it doesn’t matter what the quality of their “art” is. I’m sure that there were many people who thought Hitler was a good painter.”

So stirring the, er, pot has its uses. Rough on the stirrer, at times. That, and reading through the blog droppings to try and diagnose the parasites and diseases can be tiresome as well. Frankly, I rarely have the stomach for it, and I was raised on a small farm shoveling the real stuff. It begins to be very depressing, when you see rant after rant with no basis in truth or reality, and you wonder what the human race is coming to.

But they are only words, right? It’s not like they are sticks and stones being thrown. Perhaps, for now… That edge between meatspace and cyberspace is knife blade thin. When ‘hitting’ online spills over into the real world, what then? The manners are corrupted online and it’s going to have repercussions outside the internet as people forget what kindness, empathy, and decency really are. I have seen on this blog, in comments, a commenter suggesting that perhaps someone ought to rape the hostess so she would know what it really felt like. I have seen blog posts that called for the actual bodily harm of those who disagreed with them, like the comment above suggesting people he doesn’t like should be exposed to the elements for death.

It’s easy to say, oh, they are just blowing off steam, they wouldn’t hurt a fly… but I am suspicious of that. I see the people who are armed, trained, and have seen the elephant being abrasive, sure, but not threatening. They know what could happen, were this wretched hive of villainy to spill over into the streets. They won’t lift a finger until they are forced. While those who would have us all stripped of the slightest defenses scream, rant, and threaten grievous damage to those who oppose them.

Manure is a good thing. You can feed your garden with it, properly aged and prepared. But when you flip a piece over and find the wriggling white things, then the proper reaction is to recoil. It’s not going to end well, if you argue. There’s no mind there, to argue with, only a voracious appetite that will devour, and never cry enough!

Now, you may be wondering why I refer to the fine art of stirring what most of us prefer not to think about, let alone see. Because it’s a difficult job. Larry Correia, with his Sad Puppies campaign, embarked on an epic level of it. And they are flinging that which has been stirred up at him. But without the blogs and comments being brought into the light, and that light shone on them, so a larger audience could see what is wriggling in it… we might not know, until the infestation was so dire there was no recovering from it.

Larry points out in the post I’ve linked above: “If right wing authors share their opinions, they will be openly chastised and attacked by very vocal, very angry people. Any deviation from the approved narrative is met with scorn, mockery, character assassination, and because the author doesn’t want to damage his career, he will usually fall back into line and shut his mouth. Basically if you step out, they form an angry mob and attack you until you roll over and apologize for something that shouldn’t be apologized for. Once you’re apologizing for your principles, they own you. They really don’t know what to do about people like me.”

It isn’t just here, in our tiny little corner of the world, either. While the Hugo furor might have seemed like a big deal, it really isn’t. It is merely a microcosm of the world around it, where the bigger badder predators roil the global waters, draining the life from those who work for their living, and trying to hide in their own odure. We need people with metaphorical sticks, to poke, and reveal, and hopefully to provoke actual thought, not just poo-flinging.

It’s a horrible metaphor, I know. But blessed are the shit-stirrers.

 

 

323 thoughts on “Blessed Are The Stirrers — by Cedar Sanderson”

  1. ‘Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view.’ —William F. Buckley

    1. And, many times, if a true liberal listens long enough to other points of view, they start to question their own.

  3. The Left no longer makes any attempt to pretend that they have any interest in a conversation. Silencing dissent by force is now the first resort. I recently saw an ad campaign that was being used on a university campus in which models proudly proclaimed the things that they would not say, that by implication should not be said, by anyone.

    The idea that the Left is open-minded or ever was is simply absurd.

    1. It’s the use of force that is appalling me and making me stand up when I would normally dismiss them as random loonies. But still, you can’t argue with those who cannot and will not think. However, we might reach those who can think!

    2. I saw that too, Misha. Because “man up” is, um, I really couldn’t tell from the poster why it is supposed to be bad. But these are the same people who want to make “cisgendered” and “temporarily abeled” the abnormal instead of the default. And who assume that even people who are not at a party were part of a purported crime at that party. *coughDuke88cough*

      1. “Bullying” “Hate Speech” “Trigger Warnings” “Consensus”–all code for rebranding censorship as a good thing. Once the narrative turned the corner to arguing what should censored–rather than if a vocal special interest group has the right to silence its critics under any circumstances–the Left has won.

      2. Actual dialogue—
        Me:Stop whining about fixing your bugs. Sack up.
        Developer 1 to Developer 2: Did a girl just tell us to sack up?
        Developer 2: (with crushed expression) Yes.

        It’s super effective! 😀

        2. Do you do testing? What programs do you work with? I’m not a creepy stalker, I’m curious because that’s what my hubby does.

          1. If you have the ability to bend developers to your will as your super power, I know someone who’d probably like to talk to you.

            1. She has certain physical advantages not available to your husband, well at least when dealing with male developers.

    3. I was looking for something I could use as a reference photo today, and ran into several feminist blogs while doing it. One had a post about the Zimmerman trial, with the usual view (poor little boy on his way home, big bad gun bigot).

      What was worse was this: she attacked the jurors and not only condemned them for the verdict, but moaned the fact that ‘these’ kind of people are allowed to do things like drive and vote in Florida.

      She seemed to want to condemn _the jurors_ into jail, for having dared to give the wrong verdict.

      I suppose it’s most likely she was writing from just the popular image, and had never bothered to find out the reasons why the jurors gave the verdict they did (I did look at the time and they seem to have had no other choice if going by the evidence, and they were honest enough to go by the evidence given, not by what they might have preferred to imagine). But I guess that’s worse. She liked the story she had seen on MSM, so damn the facts, best not to take a look so she can stick to her preferred narrative with a ‘clear’ conscience… And now that preferred narrative includes bigoted jurors who should be in jail.

      Great.

      I guess that was one reason why I finally permanently left the leftist world once internet became available (yes, I have some opinions which fit theirs, but too many which don’t). Both camps (well, all camps, but yes, it seems to be dividing more and more clearly into two main ones) go by images and their preferred narrative, but more often than not when it has become possible to dig out the actual facts it seems to turn out the libertarians/conservatives were being more honest. And somewhat more likely to be trying to both actually dig out those facts, and then try to figure out what might work in the real world, instead of just blithely going by what they think _should_ have been the facts, and then touting solutions which would surely work in their imagined utopia.

      1. The leftoids still ignore that what happened was a thug, suspended from school was walking back from the store after buying items needed to make his preferred mind altering substance, attacked an armed individual (who it seems possibly was an 0bama campaign volunteer at one time) for the crime of following someone unknown to him in his gated community that had been suffering a spat of burglaries (and one of the things that said thug was suspended for was “burglary tools”). If the roles were reversed, they’d ignore it, or if Travon had been lily white, and especially if George had been unable to protect himself and suffered brain damage or died, he then would not be a “White Hispanic” and would have been the victim of the racist hatred inherent to the American system.

        1. Yes. Maybe that blogger would have changed her mind if she had looked at the trial transcripts (and been willing to believe that perhaps what was presented in that trial did more or less correlate with what had actually happened).

          Or maybe she did but had just dismissed them as fabrications, or dug out every little detail which might have cast doubt on them in order to be able to stick to her preferred story. Most likely she had not bothered but had just gone by the story as first presented in the news.

          And neither alternative is good. She thinks the jury members should not be allowed to vote based on their perceived inability to choose ‘right’, but she herself seems to be somebody who decides how she votes according to what she thinks the facts should be like instead of trying to find what they actually might be (or not believing them when they don’t fit a story she likes).

          1. And that is the frightening part – they are essentially joining a lynch mob, while preening themselves on not being a lynch mob.

        2. There’s a Contributor over on Ricochet that was informed of all the facts… and still insisted on talking about how “Tray” was a victim and “Zimmerman” was the bad guy for leaving his vehicle while armed. (Although he consistently forgot details that did not help that characterization.)

            1. And claimed the REAL selfies were fakes, and tried to wave away the evidence for extensive illegal actions, and and and….

              Did eventually admit that Martin was “as guilty” as Zimmerman.

      2. There are many people who cannot understand why we do not understand that if only we practiced more understanding towards others there would be no need for a law that allows guns to be used in cases where one has reason to believe they are threatened.

          1. No. Thei just goes to show a particular ODD deviousness of my mind. This is how it came forward, and, in spite of every effort to coax it into a different shape or go quietly back into its corner, it absolutely refused to cooperate. <sigh>

  4. Well said, Cedar.

    You’re very right about how many on our side are being abrasive, yet not calling for harm to befall the other side (with possible exceptions for jokes about meteors and other natural disasters). Of course, all of us with guns are the ones looking for an excuse to use them. They never realize that if we’re as unhinged as they think, they might be better off not poking us with sticks.

    1. If we were really as unpredictably dangerous as they claim, they wouldn’t be here by now to make those claims.

      1. Pretty much what I was thinking, when I was arguing with someone about a year back who was insisting she could never again come to the US, because ‘everyone has guns!’ and I’m thinking, honey, they had them when you were growing up here, it hasn’t changed in the two decades since you went overseas to live.

        1. The whole gun issue is the poster child for the left’s inability to accept simple facts, their eagerness to take that trip up the river D’nile.
          Cedar, in fact things have changed in the last two decades, gun ownership has skyrocketed in the US. There are now an estimated 300 million firearms in civilian hands spread over something like 100 million families. And what sticks in the craw of the left is that violent crime is dropping here. Seems John Lott was correct, more guns does equal less crime.
          Will leave you with this interesting factoid based on the 2010 UN crime statistics. In that year the UK with one fifth the population of the United States had roughly the same number of reported violent crimes. Consider that fact, the model for gun control with a total ban on handguns and strict limits on long arms has a rate of violent crime five times what we do. Tell that to your favorite lib/prog and either their pointy little heads explode or they jump straight into denial. Caution, you may be called a liar and other names.

          1. While I agree with the sentiment, you really can’t compare crime stats from one country to another. Different countries define crime differently and even when the definition is similar don’t always count in the same way.

          2. But, but, but … don’t you understand guns are evil! A gonne will whisper in your ears, encouraging you to use it, just ask Captain Samuel Vimes.

            If that won’t do thy this, from His Girl Friday: ‘Hildy’ Johnson, a crack reporter, has been conned by her ex-husband, a newspaper editor, to do one last story before going off to marry an insurance salesman and settle down and live in his mother’s home in Albany:
            [in her story] And so, into this little tortured mind came the idea that that gun had been produced for use. And use it he did. But the state has a ‘production-for-use’ plan too. It has a gallows. And at seven a.m. unless a miracle occurs, that gallows will be used to separate the soul of Earl Williams from his body. And out of Mollie Malloy’s life will go the one kindly soul she ever knew.

          3. Cedar, in fact things have changed in the last two decades, gun ownership has skyrocketed in the US. There are now an estimated 300 million firearms in civilian hands spread over something like 100 million families.

            To me, that suggests that the guy who joined the Army and, before he left, gave his mom a gun, made his (unmarried, raised him alone) mom go to gun classes and had her swear she’d keep it next to her bed each night is not that unusual.
            (She killed the guy who came in her bedroom window with a knife, who IIRC was connected to several other robbery/murders.)

          4. Uncle Lar, what makes UK stat’s so interesting, is how they “create’ them. In most “civilized” countries, someone reports a violent crime, and it gets listed. In the UK, it’s “counted,” if and only if, there is an *arrest and conviction.* Based on about 10-20% are solved in that manner (might possibly be either higher or lower), the actual “crime” rate is *5 times* what they claim. I’ve also heard that like some cities, they “downgrade” crimes, to make the stat’s look better. Rape becomes “battery, is one example that I heard about.

      2. Exactly.

        Of course, the fact that I’ve had access to firearms my whole life and never committed murder, nor have the vast majority of people who own guns, doesn’t mean anything. It’s all about what some nut job might do.

        1. I’m still waiting for the full moon (or is it new moon?) night when my scary-black-handgun nudges me awake and asks to be let out so it can go commit a rampage.

          2. Rugers are a bit more taciturn, but Glocks WILL NOT shut up. I swear, they are worse than three-year-olds.

            1. “the Stars are calling, drawing me on…”
              “Polaris again?”
              “No, the 9mms in the safe. They want to go shooting.”

                2. If I were the type to giggle, which clearly I’m not, I might find them uncontrollable about now.

              1. Yes, but is it a Hello Kitty stock?

                http://www.google.com/search?q=valhalla+pink+gun&nord=1&biw=1024&bih=653&tbm=isch&imgil=JcGwd7DCQKRk0M%253A%253Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ft0.gstatic.com%252Fimages%253Fq%253Dtbn%253AANd9GcRdH9OymKplq6OY18su6I-qOWF1CJLQC9x1MXI9FTjp53JB_37o%253B600%253B450%253BHZ_lUc44Hg8p-M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.thefirearmblog.com%25252Fblog%25252F2009%25252F03%25252F15%25252Fpink-suppressor-on-pinkblack-rifle%25252F&source=iu&usg=__OSc2Af7ltkNAvdSj8JaTXY_a90A%3D&sa=X&ei=6RZfU8yeCKSuyQHW-4GIBQ&ved=0CE0Q9QEwCA#facrc=_&imgdii=JcGwd7DCQKRk0M%3A%3Bc11avHhJdnAm2M%3BJcGwd7DCQKRk0M%3A&imgrc=JcGwd7DCQKRk0M%253A%3BHZ_lUc44Hg8p-M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.thefirearmblog.com%252Fblog%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2009%252F03%252Fpink1-600×450.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.thefirearmblog.com%252Fblog%252F2009%252F03%252F15%252Fpink-suppressor-on-pinkblack-rifle%252F%3B600%3B450

                  1. When you see a nice simple link in your Google Search results, beware right-clicking it: the instant you click it, they annotate it with all sorts of URL parameters designed to help them keep track of when you clicked on it, what you searched for, etc., to improve their ad targeting.

                    If you’re intending to copy and paste that link to an email, a blog comment, etc., better to open the link in an actual tab, then copy and paste the link from the tab where it won’t get annotated by Google Search.

                    … Although I just clicked on your link and saw that it was a Google Image Search result. Good luck with trying to make those a little less wordy: almost can’t be done.

                    1. Then it’s a matter of clicking through to the page which contains the image, finding the image on the page, then right-clicking the image and copying the URL. Or, of course, you can copy the URL of the page and explain how to find the image.

                      One benefit of going to the page is that sometimes, the Google image result is to a small preview image, and you can find the full size image by visiting the page first.

            1. And that is rather funny, in it’s way. Maybe Moorcock’s Elric stories are the secret bible of gun banners, considering they really seem to think they are dealing with something like the Stormbringer when it comes to those evil, very often black, things. Surely they are all demons in disguise.

              Poor babies, they are just trying to save all of us, and we don’t appreciate it at all. No wonder they sometimes get a bit frustrated. 😀

          4. And that is why stainless gonnes are superior to the blackened ones.

            Well, except for the fatigue life thing.

            And the galling.

            And the result of the fact that, as my materials instructor once emphasized, “It’s called stain-less, not stain-free!”

            OK, in truth I actually prefer a nice hard chrome plating…

    2. They never realize that if we’re as unhinged as they think, they might be better off not poking us with sticks.

      But these are the same kinds of people from the ranks of which we got the guy who went to live around the bears. Until one ate him.

      1. I love that story. How one guy thought he knew more about bears than the experts, until he became Winnie’s Pooh.

        2. Winnie’s Pooh.

          Choke hazard! Spew warning! Mad cackling ahead!

          I feel vaguely dirty, but that was funny.

                    1. I was actually hoping to spark a whole chorus of “Me, too!”s, so that it would look like it was a futile gesture because everyone knew it. Intentional humor is not my strong point. I’m great at unintentional humor, though. 🙂

                      I can keep secrets really well, because I can never remember anything. 🙂

                    2. No, that was perfectly played (better without the chorus, IMO). Fit right in with the riff Tom and I played. ‘Caused a choked off guffaw on my end.

                      So, sir: *stage bow-gesture to Wayne*

        3. Ah, yes – Treadwell, or something. To paraphrase a grim old country saying, “He went to take a leak an’ the bear et’ ‘im.”

      2. I still feel sorry for him– more for his girlfriend, though.

        They were both lied to, and the only way for the lies to be REALLY disproven was for them to die; he had more of a chance to see and reject countering information.

        He chose to believe his personal experience over VERY PLENTIFUL other-experience; she believed the lies and his faulty information as an “expert.”

        1. Now, now. Bears are perfectly peaceful, that is up to the moment they are no longer are.

          This does confuse some people. I, The Spouse and The Daughter have encountered black bear on the Blue Ridge Parkway on various occasions. Fortunately this has never occurred while on a hiking trail. Each time we were in a large mobile metal container, and were properly thankful for it.

          (BTW: The last time the bear was strolling southward down the middle of the southbound lane heading into Asheville. I do believe that not having to worry about many preditors leads to a certain cockiness.)

      3. I’m going to Stir the pot.

        They never realize that if we’re as unhinged as they think, they might be better off not poking us with sticks.

        But these are the same kinds of people from the ranks of which we got the guy who went to live around the bears. Until one ate him.

        So we can be trusted to have guns and not use them to abuse those around us, but we are not trust worthy enough to live with out a state?

        To me most people are just like that guy. We live with the Bear of State and get surprised when it eats us.

        It also reminds me of the story of the Frog and the Scorpion.

    3. You’re very right about how many on our side are being abrasive, yet not calling for harm to befall the other side (with possible exceptions for jokes about meteors and other natural disasters).

      So, the Sweet Meteor of Death is a joke?

      *starts entering abort codes*

      1. Oh, before you do that, could you read a dozen books by the likes of our esteemed host, Larry Correia, Mike Williamson, and Tom Kratman and give us a detailed book report.

        (Don’t really care about it since I’ve read most of them myself…just don’t want you to get too far into that whole “abort code” thing at this point.)

      2. Check with our Esteemed Hostess before you abort all the strikes. She may have a few on the “not enough save votes” list you can smite.

          1. Hopefully Detroit isn’t on the list. Sure, it’s a basket case, but it still has some utility…

  5. “Blessed are the peacemakers…” But some demand compromise for peace. And they ain’t a gonna git it.

    1. “Blessed are the peacemakers… ” Right on, bro! Colt’s Army Revolver, Model 1873, caliber immaterial.

      Ben Hartley

  6. It appears Mr. Vox got “eiched”.

    (Ref. Brendan Eich, who lost his job at Mozilla last month after the howling mobs cried “Off with his head”.

    1. Given the order in which the two lynch mobs formed, it’s more like Eich got “Voxed”. Vox’s ouster is making the news now because of the Hugo nomination, but it happened several months ago.

  8. This entire Hugo situation has seriously brought a bad taste to my mouth. I don’t like the reaction from the left (refusing to read the works that are nominated), but I also don’t love the defense of a guy that says some pretty racist stuff either. What mostly bugs me is the view from the liberal side (and maybe even a little from the conservative side) that a lot of issues are black and white.

    I’m liberal in a lot of ways. I support gay marriage and I’m okay with some government welfare programs. But I’m also a law enforcement officer, so I think I have a more “experienced” view on the pros and cons of firearm ownership than the average liberal. Hell, I’ve even shot someone (not killed, thankfully). Most (but not all) of the issues I’ve had with firearms have come from either people that own them illegally.

    I carry a firearm for work. I also own a personal firearm that I carry concealed. There are a lot of times, though, when I think how much safer I would be in my line of work if there weren’t as many guns on the street. I’m not calling for stricter gun control, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t cross my mind sometimes.

    I’ve also had to deal with race more directly than I expect that a lot liberals have… every police officer, correctional officer, and parole officer does. On one hand, I spend A LOT of time dealing with problems in mostly black communities. Some days I find myself thinking some pretty shitty things about minorities.

    But, I also spend enough time people in “bad areas” to know that life isn’t exactly easy for them, and it’s really only a very, very small number of people in the hood that actually cause problems… even in the worst areas.

    I grow concerned that the people on both sides of the political spectrum don’t have enough real work experience to really understand the issues around them. Obviously, for me, I’m more comfortably talking about crime and race than I would be, say economics or foreign policy…. and I’m ok with that.

    1. ” it’s really only a very, very small number of people in the hood that actually cause problems… even in the worst areas.”

      This… there are a small number of bloggers and media voices that are causing problems overtly. It’s time for some of the good people to stand up to them. There are too many others who hide and watch through the curtains while those few bad people run the streets.

      1. The thing that struck me the most about this whole thing was how quickly and easily the SJWs turn on their own. Talking to my husband today about this, he said it’s like watching piranhas feeding. Or shark feeding frenzy – tearing chunks out of those like them who happen to be in the way of their metaphorical teeth doesn’t bother the SJWs at all.

        That description is rather viscerally and stomach-turningly apt to me.

          1. vile progs are similar to a bucket of crabs in that they fight each other with as much glee as as with avowed enemies.

          2. “Here lies a fallen god / His fall was not a small one / We did but build his pedestal / A narrow and a tall one.” (Frank Herbert).

            Those who imagine themselves SMOF should not forget this little poem, but then they have also rejected Heinlein, so they probably aren’t even aware Frank Herbert existed.

        2. I grew up with this stuff.

          As I was growing up, I realized could do a purity test more stringent than other ‘Social Justice Warriors’ could pass.

          I realized that using human efforts to change human nature was most likely an exercise in futility.

          Yes, if I go looking, I can probably find a line of attack on anybody. It is far more profitable to mind my own business.

          I can only ever hope to control myself, and be responsible for my own words and actions.

          As for society, I do not forecast with any certainty. We shall see what happens.

          The other day, I was speaking with some folks enough older than me that the SJW stuff was not part of their culture. As opposed to the kids of one, who apparently paint with a wide brush when it comes to the word racism.

          It took me until now to articulate it, but if ‘racism’ continues to be used so broadly that it may as well be meaningless, it could go beyond that in common usage.

          “What do you think of my new car.”

          “That’s pretty racist.”

          “I know, isn’t it great?”

          1. I thought the new meaning of ‘racist’ is: you are an evil person for disagreeing with me.

            1. Why wouldn’t using it that way devalue it to the point that it could be used as a generic positive, like the non-thermal uses of ‘cool’? Or at least, why wouldn’t it widen the definition so much that the idea itself might no longer seen as objectionable? If a Korean owning a Nisson is racist, what isn’t, and why avoid the label?*

              *my mind went strange places trying to find a joke to fit the first sentence or two. I continue to use a narrow definition of racism. I see it as a form of thinking that does not bring be any value. I don’t do it. I think it is more correct not to describe me as such, but putting my self esteem and identity in the hands of other people just isn’t practical.

    2. “There are a lot of times, though, when I think how much safer I would be in my line of work if there weren’t as many guns on the street.”

      Which points out the logical flaw in most gun control efforts. Such laws are only obeyed by the law abiding. You could pass legislation to confiscate 90% of the legally held firearms in the country (not really, there would be civil war) and not impact those guns held by the bad guys an iota. Those guns and the felons who hold them are already illegal.
      See my earlier comment regarding Great Britain and how well their massive gun control effort has worked for them.
      My classic response to law enforcement personnel who favor more gun control is: fine, leave your weapon at the precinct house when you go off shift. Since no one will have a gun you should be perfectly safe, right? If that bothers you, why should it not bother any other honest citizen as well?

      1. I think you misunderstood my point. I don’t favor gun control, or cutting offenders slack, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about ways to limit gun violence.

        I think a bigger problem is the ghetto culture. Where I work (Philly), we have serious issues with kids being taught from a young age that violence is the only way to survive. The ease of acquiring an ILLEGAL firearm is just alarming. Combine the 2 and you get a very combustible situation.

        1. I think a bigger problem is the ghetto culture. Where I work (Philly), we have serious issues with kids being taught from a young age that violence is the only way to survive.

          If civilization hits a low enough level, that is true.

          Michael Nutter is rather famous for preventing civilization from legally defending itself.

        2. Matt, the _real_ problem is the lack of any punishment for bad behavior. Do Google search on Nathan Trapunzo, Indianapolis. His killer is/was *15,* and has a list of something like 5-6 crimes *committed on parole.* One them, IIRC, was armed robbery, and he was *never*violated on parole rules. The killer was caught, _on camera_, smiling and laughing on his way to a hearing about the murder. He apparently thinks. “I’m 15, they’ll just send me to a Juvie center.” He has a real surprise in store. IIRC, he’s being tried in _Adult_ court, for Murder 1. The *best* he can hope for, is LWP (Life Without Parole). The ad truth is that he’s not alone in how he thinks.

    3. But, I also spend enough time people in “bad areas” to know that life isn’t exactly easy for them, and it’s really only a very, very small number of people in the hood that actually cause problems… even in the worst areas.

      When society trys to help by ‘being understanding’ and ‘cutting slack’ for the few people who live in bad areas and have turned to crime, who actually gets hurt the most? The people who are living around them. Thus you keep a bad neighborhood a bad place to live, and create more of the same.

    4. But, I also spend enough time people in “bad areas” to know that life isn’t exactly easy for them, and it’s really only a very, very small number of people in the hood that actually cause problems… even in the worst areas.

      Yeah, I’ve lived in those areas, and while technically it may be a small number of people that actually cause the problems, it’s almost everyone around them that decide to live there (often because they’ve made choices that mean they can’t afford to live anywhere else) and it’s almost everyone around them that aids and abets them by not calling the police on them, not testifying against them or taking some more drastic actions.

      1. Not everyone in such neighborhoods make a choice to live there. They are born there. Then they are required to attend schools that fail them. For example, the Philadelphia public school system has performed so poorly that it had to be taken over by the state of Pennsylvania.

        Yes,some do make it out in spite of everything. It takes a certain gumption to rise above it when the world around you tells you it is hopeless and that, as an individual, you are small, weak and worthless.

        BTW: I support school choice. No one should be forced to keep their children in, or to stay in, a school that is, at best, a holding pen.

    1. But I’ll note that the entire howling mob would fit in my very small backyard at one time. Lots of noise, but little substance.
      It’s like they’re compensating for something.

      1. My initial thought was they were compensating for something south of the belly button, but on second thought it seems to me that the howling mob seems to be compensating for a long list of other things which they need, but they don’t feel they require.

  10. To me the most unsettling thing about the ongoing and vicious ‘othering’ of conservatives, or libertarians, or Tea Partiers is that for the last couple of years or two, the rhetoric has been ratcheting up, and up – to the point where various progs are perfectly OK with wishing violence on those they disagree with. It’s the start of a long slippery slope, which usually ends in actual violence against those ‘otherized’ – instead of just social shunning and rhetorical violence.
    I comment at a libertariansh blog called Chicagoboyz.net, where some of the other contributors have a fascination about how the Nazis managed to take control of what had been a nation fairly tolerant of Jews … and within a decade of taking control, they were systematically murdering them in industrial job lots. Step by step, the otherization proceeded. It scares the heck out of the other Chicagoboyz regulars, and me as well.

    1. Then, when they forget that their calls for violence are all virtual, and someone goes and does violence on someone from the other side, and that person defends himself, then they will screech that they were right, and we’re all a bunch of violent whackadoos.

        1. Well, yes, but that’s a little different from direct confrontations, and those who make bogus calls like that can be prosecuted.

          I was talking about someone actually going to another person’s house and trying to get violent with them. It will happen, and probably within the next two years, I think. Then, it’s going to get ugly, if they pick someone who can defend themselves.

          1. For a while I was afraid of exactly that – less for myself than for my own kids due to a thinly veiled threat. That fear never really goes away. I’m safer now where we live, and it seems to be getting better, but I can never really let my guard down either.

            1. For a while I was afraid of exactly that – less for myself than for my own kids due to a thinly veiled threat.

              ‘s why I have a pseudonym and a couple of false-flag identities hanging out there, and sometimes switch if folks are my husband’s relates, or mine, or if they’re male, or female, etc. (Only if I think it has nothing to do with the point.)

          2. I was talking about someone actually going to another person’s house and trying to get violent with them.

            Something similar has already occurred, and been ignored. There wasn’t enough for them to build a corrupt version on, I suspect. I have no doubt that the rest of your prediction will play out in future.

            For details, search Sou Pov Law Cen, hate map, shooting. Sorry for the truncation (it’ll still point in right direction), trying to avoid bringing silliness down on the blog.

            1. Similarly obscure; I much preferred the original mock-the-incompetent interpretation of “what, that idiot thought it was camo or something?”

              Thank God that first guy was as good as he was.

          3. I was talking about someone actually going to another person’s house and trying to get violent with them.

            You mean like going to the Family Research Council with a bag of Chick fil A and a gun, so you can rub the sandwiches into the faces of those “haters” you murdered as they lay dying?

            1. were you being sarcastic foxfier? I need help sometimes when on the ‘net. Nobody I know and nobody I’ve read or heard of would do that.

              1. Sadly, no.

                I’m factually describing the publicly available motivations of an attempted murderer.

                It’s OK, because his targets were on a “hate map.”

                1. Said map was created by the aforementioned Sou Law Pov Cen place which also helped the aforementioned Homeland Security piece come up with its definition of “terrorist”, IIRC.

              2. put “Family Research Council with a bag of Chick fil A and a gun” into a search engine, Emily

    2. Considering how comfortable “liberals” tend to be with murderous monsters like Bill Ayers and Angela Davis, Castro and Che, I find it entirely believable that they could support a full-blown fascist regime complete with death squads.

      If current rhetoric worries us, it’s not because liberals have suddenly become more extreme; it’s because the election of Barack Obama has emboldened them into taking off the mask.

      1. Huey Long was right: when fascism arrives in this country, it will come calling itself anti-fascism.

        1. Interesting. Huey Long should know.

          This brings to mind some things that are very human. People often become like that upon which they fixate. Having taken power they will do the same as those they claim to despise, or worse, and consider that their actions are justified by the necessity to eliminate any lingering evils remaining in society that might threaten their vision of a utopia. The Who put it this way:

          1. The fascist element in the American political system is precisely that element that promises to deliver the people from the evils of capitalism.

            Nice try, though.

            1. marycatelli | April 28, 2014 at 2:55 pm | Reply
              Huey Long was right: when fascism arrives in this country, it will come calling itself anti-fascism.

              Tom Simon,

              Crony-Capatalism is Fascism. We didn’t needed to coin a new term (label). If it walks like duck and Quacks like a duck.

              For the most part in the US we call our Fascism Capitalism. If you doubt me just walk down the street and ask people, “What economic system do we practice in the US?”

              So, again Fascism is already here and being practiced in the State and it didn’t come calling itself Anti-Fascism.

              🙂

              1. Crony capitalism is indeed Fascism; what it is not, to any appreciable degree, is capitalism. However, there is still a considerable amount of genuine capitalism in the U.S., a fact that you conveniently overlook in your haste to libel your own country.

                1. Really?

                  Supossedly we practice “Free-market” Capatilism in the US. Can you name one sector of the US economy that isn’t control; i.e., regulated by the US government? I can’t think of one.

                  I did not say Capitalism is Facsism only what the general public call Capitalism is indeed Fascism.

                  It’s not libel if it is the truth.

                    1. Or a Libertarian (and some of them are also idiots). [Sad Smile]

                    6. You do know that Sarah considers herself a libertarian and she’s no idiot. [Wink]

                    8. Yes, I know.
                      🙂
                      FYI: I, also, don’t normaly identify myself as a libertarian to confusing to many flavors. If I do it’s as a Anarcho-Capitalist, Objectivist sympathizer that’s to militant for Voluntarism (I believe in the non-aggression principle, but don’t piss me off I might forget.).

                  2. There is no sector of the market that is not regulated by the state in any capitalist economy, past or present. If nothing else, the market is subject to the law of contract, and to whatever uniform weights and measures the state establishes.

                    Since you are proposing that capitalism is fascism except under an impossible condition, I am quite justified in dismissing the exception. And I nevertheless maintain that market economies as such are not Fascist.

                    Where Fascism exists in the U.S. at present is in certain sectors, such as medical insurance and public utilities, where the regulations are so pervasive that every firm’s business activities are dictated by the state down to small details, and where the subsidies and regulatory barriers to entry are so massive that no new firm can enter the market, nor any old firm go out of business, without the express collusion of the state. Most of the private-sector economy is not in this condition.

                    1. Tom just because you and other want to call a regulated market  doesn’t make it a free-market, for however long this has ben going on.

                      Where is this redline when a free-market becomes fascist?

                      Is it the same and as meaningless as the one with government, “A free market is one were the govern interfers as little as possible?” 

                      As to this, “Most of the private-sector economy is not in this condition.”

                      Really? Have you tried to start a small business recently?

                    2. Correction

                      “Tom just because you and other want to call a regulated market [a free-market] doesn’t make it a free-market, for however long this has be[e]n going on.”

                      In other words we like to call thing something they’re and pretend. We like to pretend that it’s only the left that likes to use language to obfuscate the true meaning of things. It’s a regulated market but will call it free because that makes people happy.

    3. Maybe I’m paranoid but I think that this ratcheting up to violence is a planned move.

      1. As some have put it in the past, first they nudge, then they shove, then they shoot. And there are too many on both sides who seem all too eager for violence to break out.

        But… that won’t end well. As I recall, one of the things that cemented Hitler’s position was the night of long knives, when he had a number of the leaders of the brownshirts – people who supported his policies – killed because of their violent actions. The brownshirts had helped him get into power, and when they became politically inconvenient, he killed them in without trials or juries or anything, and the Germans praised him for it because the brownshirts were so bad.

        Violence will only help those who are seeking to grab and hold on to the levers of power.

      2. Snark Warning

        Try: Re-education camps, so much more polite. Someone will propose the placement the unenlightened malcontents into re-education camps for their own safety. While we are at it the occupants of the camp should be required to do useful work to contribute to society and to offset the cost of their care. If a few get themselves hurt (or worse) along the way, well that would be their fault, wouldn’t it?

  11. I used to consider myself a liberal, until I saw what the most visible liberals were like. One of the things that really got to me was when colleges started instituting a Politically Correct speech policy where students are told what to say, and, but insinuation, what to think. Universities used to be the places where people could come and hash at any ideas that were on their minds. I actually found more of the free exchange of ideas when I was an enlisted man in the Army than I did as a graduate student in the 1990s.

    1. Actually, I was in the first generation hit by such codes. In those days, they were still so self-absorbed and silly as to explicitly tell us that it was intended to mold our minds so we could not engage in thoughtcrime.

    2. I’m cheering it, but for different reasons. I respect and admire Mr. Wright, and would consider him a friend if I dared; and I am very glad indeed that he has shaken the dust of that place off of his feet.

  13. The funniest thing about this whole flap has been watching John Scalzi veer wildly from cheerleading the thought police and organizing his own little “army of ants” brownshirts — to suddenly realizing that a deal with Fox makes him a potential target for the Social Justice Warriors et al, at which point he changed his tune and started preaching moderation and tolerance. For now, anyway.

        1. I give it 2/3 of a season. It really isn’t all that strong premise, especially for episodic television, and, well, you know, Fox.

        2. Ermmmm … ya know, Guy in Galaxy Quest was awesome, but I’m trying to stretch that into a series … and failing … (shoulder shrug)

              2. Attempted to read it. Part of the idea is that the “redshirts” are actually characters in a Star Trek like TV series and we’re seeing their reactions to the terrible script writing.

                1. It came across as a polished, written version of this:

                  Very impressed with how clever they are, not much love for the original (which is really my major beef… I can put up with a lot of handwavium if it’s with love) and the only way it could be cherry picked is if you had choke cherries or something even tinier.

                2. Hence the connection with Galaxy Quest … at least in my mind …
                  there are just so many things to read that I have never gotten to Red Shirts The Novel.

              3. Imagine Guy treated as irony, rather than loving homage.

                Didn’t make it more than two chapters in, I’m not going to waste time on something that hates what I love.

  14. The standards for defensibility are also intriguing to me. A leftist-Prog can have a few assaults, truly racist views, commit certain types of sexual assault or harassment, but they “have issues” and no one “should judge them because we all have flaws,” and they should be defended, and so on. Neutral, center-right, and libertarians had better be more godly and upright than Mother Theresa or we’re not worth defending and (as Cedar says above) all who associate with us are forever tainted and should be shunned (at best). Because it is so much easier to attack the person (Vox Day, Cliven B., others) than to devise honest arguments to their critiques and complaints (soul-numbing cultures, governmental overreach, academic censorship).

    1. I think the phrase that fits best is: “No enemies to the left, no friends to the right.”

  15. While I can applaud Torgerson’s sense of ecumenity, I must demur. I lived through the period from the ’50s to the ’90s and I can accurately and categorically say this: I have NEVER seen anyone who self-identified as liberal (i.e., progressive) who was in truth or in any way liberal — except, as is wryly noted in irony, with other people’s money.

    I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that an (if not the only) appropriate response to what Celia quite rightly calls the othering of we in the Right is, (to quote Josh Miller, Democrat of the Rhode Island state senate): GO F*** YOURSELF. There certainly is no point in rolling over and exposing the throat to the raving mad-dog behavior.

    M

    1. As often happens the leftoids will call me and others terrorists, fascists, nazis, hostage takers etc. and then demand “civility” in a discussion (often in the same sentence let alone “discussion). My replay is much the same as you point out being atributed to a leftoid (Alan Greyson is often my example, as is Dem Senator Byrd … who was the last senator to use “The N Word” on the senate floor in 2007 or so … my reply if they called me a racist).
      You don’t get to slander me and demand I be polite. I am not very polite to those who attack me to begin with.

  18. I will try to be brief over a complicated issue, so will only hit the high points.
    Te Dept. of Homeland Security submitted a paper stating that the Left Wing is prone to violence, mentioning in passing that the Right, including Libs can sometimes go off. The Republicans skimmed until offended and raised a stink. Thereby, destroying the true info that the Left is dangerous.
    Matt: Vox Day is not a racist and I am not defending him either; but, commenting on the offense. I have read his articles for years and what his commentary comes down to is something that should be taught in High School Social Studies. He writes about for example- the difference between Black People as a whole and Orientals as a whole and suggests that the way for Black people to rise to their level is to work on building themselves up in the areas that they have potential. The same point that Douglas and Washington made. Instead the Liberals want to encourage Blacks to go into the fields like science where even with affirmative action they end up failing and/or making a mess of their lives and end up back in the slums believing they are failures. Where they may have made good engineers or heaven forbid carpenters. The same as the majority of us White Folk. Only a few of any race make it to the top and they don’t have the numbers. He is classified as a woman hater, but, when asked who is on his list of favorite writers, you would be surprised to see that he lists many females. What he is saying is that women should hone their craft if they want to be respected writers. Same with women voting- stop voting for liberals because of your emotions and instead vote with your mind and show you’ve got one.
    Recently a woman (could have been a male Liberal with the same result) recommended that people that had read his book come on her site and give a review of his book. He posted the invitation. One of his commentator recommended that if they did, be sure to make a copy and share it on Vox’s blog; because, she would try to do something with it. Sure enough, some did, some of which I know are professional writers themselves. They were polite, gave reviews, even spoilers, that the story was how people of two races could become friends and equals. Immediately, they were banned and she called the reviews hateful and demeaning. This brought sympathetic comments about how they abused her act of charity.
    He has an open door policy on his site- if you have a ‘intelligent’ reply that might lead to a serious enough solution to the problem, he would love to hear it and if convinced support it- instead, all he gets is “Your a meanie” Thereby preventing progress away from their ‘protection.’
    Therefore, though you don’t like some of the things Liberals do, you still buy the hate and think that a person who wants to move things like race into an intelligent debate that will give the Blacks a chance is a racist. Yep, they win and Blacks stay on the plantation.

    1. Te Dept. of Homeland Security submitted a paper stating that the Left Wing is prone to violence, mentioning in passing that the Right, including Libs can sometimes go off. The Republicans skimmed until offended and raised a stink.

      Problem is in how they defined them:

      Click to access LaFree_Bersani_HotSpotsOfUSTerrorism.pdf

      Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under
      attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific
      ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by
      participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of
      centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that
      involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.

      vs

      Extreme Left-Wing: groups that want to bring about change through violent revolution rather than
      through established political processes. This category also includes secular left-wing groups that
      rely heavily on terrorism to overthrow the capitalist system and either establish “a dictatorship of
      the proletariat” (Marxist-Leninists) or, much more rarely, a decentralized, non-hierarchical political
      system (anarchists).

      1. Paraphrase:
        If think that forcing nuns to pay for chemical abortions is a attack on the American Way Of Life, you’re an “extreme” right-winger and possible terrorist.

        On the left, as long as you’re not promoting violent revolution, you’re not extreme.

        So… the ELF is on par with the Little Sisters of Charity?

        Yeah, no.

      3. “Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under
        attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific
        ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by
        participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of
        centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that
        involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty. ”

        In other words: Patriots.

    2. Your comment and a few others, along with this whole idiotic character assassination program from the left, has prompted me to sit down and take a good look at what Vox is actually saying. If nothing else, he is certainly making me think; and I have the strong impression of an Aristotlean Gadfly at work. Will I come away thinking he’s racist? I don’t know. But at least I’m going to make up my own darned mind about the guy.

      I did this with China Mieville a little while back after someone around (on either mentioned his incredibly reprehensible politics, and at present, I consider Mieville worse by an order of magnitude, than Vox, by simple expedient: Vox merely expresses- as far as I can tell – his opinions on his blogs. China tried to make his ideas into part of British policy and law, by running for Parliament under the Socialist Workers Party. Being part of a party with incredibly strong anti-semitic stance coupled with overt sympathy toward radical Jihadi Islamists is apparently VERY okay with the lot who are screeching about Vox, but blogging unpopular views is not tolerable and worthy of the Nuclear Option?

      I’m boggled. These are the people screaming to us about how hateful and racist and whateverist they say we are? Talk about priorities.

      (The link I gave above is just a starting point for research.)

      1. I’m no longer boggled by what can be a source of outrage and basis for attacks from the Left. ANYTHING at all can qualify. Occasionally, I will boggle at some of the actions they are capable of committing, but only because I thought that anything with enough brain capacity to breathe would have better sense.

      2. China Mieville would destroy all peace in society and substitute eternal war, until (he believes) his side would win and Utopia ensue.. And he seems unconcerned by the fact that, historically, his preferred Revolution has happened again and again and again, and brought nothing but Death.

        1. Frankly, a guy named “China Mieville ” or how everyour spell it and pronounce it is (as my dad used to say) ‘cruising for a bruising.’ Just on general principles, he comes off as a major a-hole. The same principle applies to Ta-Nehisi Coates. I swear, long before I ever saw a picture of that person, I thought she was an epic a-hole, just based on the name. Oh – a guy? Yeah – still one of those silly screeching a-holes.

          1. I think he’s actually a victim of indoctrination. Red Diaper baby (there’s a reason he’s named China) of the Maoist variety and a “good boy” who wants to please mom and dad.

            1. Wait, he’s actually pro-Maoist? That automatically makes him at least as morally bad as a neo-Nazi — which Vox Day isn’t.

              1. Better yet, he ran for public office on a pro-Maoist/pro-Sharia platform. Yes the mind boggles.

  19. One thing I’ve noticed with the many blog posts commenting on Larry Correia/Vox Day/Hugos is that quite often the people offended by LC/VD moderate their comments to the point that all dissenting opinions, even those that are cordial, get deleted and the posters banned. While LC and VD and many others let all comments through. The social justice warriors than say that LC/VD ‘obviously’ approve of these comments because they don’t remove them, because these views don’t exist in a vacuum. Which leaves me scratching my head over the logic involved in that.

    While I don’t approve of the way VD pointed out the racism of Jemison, it was painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that was what he was doing.

    I have to agree with some of the other posters on here. If those of us with access to weapons were as violent and looney as they made us out to be, they wouldn’t be around to complain about it.

  20. Excellent and insightful, thank you.

    I do believe that there are some things that are not necessarily polite for general conversation. It should not surprise anyone that most people would find graphic descriptions of certain actions taken during the occupation of Nanking as offensive at the dining table.

    Still, shutting down any conversation anywhere creating long lists of ideas never to be visited and words that are never to be used is, to me, even more offensive.

    1. I wonder if the weather will be off limits next, out of concerns for triggering people who are afraid of severe storms.

      /sarc but only a little.

      1. Warnings before the weather forecast when there might be warnings of tornadoes or such, so that those people who get distressed about the thought of a tornado in their area can change the channel? 😀

        1. Probably, maybe on the east and west coasts. I think right now most of the Midwest and Old Southwest (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama) are ducking and covering.

          1. (In ‘Bama now.) The storm is growling on my horizon right now. A friend of mine in Huntsville is ducking and covering for a few hours now. I hope she’ll be okay.

      2. Please note that the Catholic Church doesn’t control the use of “fiesta,” and all Spanish speakers everywhere don’t control it, either.

        What you need to become Language Czar is to be some chica with alleged
        ethnicity, a chip on her shoulder, and admission to an Ivy League school.

        PS. I notice she’s not celebrating Cinco de Mayo by joining her country or ethnicity’s military, but she is celebrating by hitting out at furriners.

        1. Is the fact that I used to own a dog named Chica racist? Would it still be racist if she was white instead of black and tan?

        1. Of course they are. Filipinos clearly don’t understand the pride of being from Michoacan. Or maybe Sinaloa. And don’t know what it is like being ruled by a oligarchic government and plagued by drug and criminal gangs….I have discovered over the last 20 years that no matter how cosmopolitan Mexicans are supposed to be (They’ve been in two cultures you know!) the ones I’ve dealt with as a group tend to be parochial and insular.
          A lot of them are really nice people by the way, and a joy to know, but not cosmopolitan.

          1. This is the first time I have ever heard Mexicans accused of being cosmopolitan. In fact I have only ever heard that accusation used against Europeans and those from the Northeast US.

                1. Yanno, maybe if we do get a line of Hunnish shirts and swag, there should be a “I got Carped!” badge of (dis)honor. And a “Bad Person @ AtH” challenge coin or patch or something.

                    2. You do know that this would only encourage them?

                      Anyway, I suspect that some of the worst offenders lack the necessary storage space. At least, I know one of them does. (Some of us operate under the rule: All spare space, and much that isn’t should be devoted to books.)

                2. Supersoaker? What supersoaker? Nobody saw me taking it. (Thinking of using it on somebody in another thread). [Wink]

                3. Here, on my right, is a nifty little pump action model, fully loaded. I was just preparing to use it, but take and enjoy, with my blessings.

    4. Creating long lists of ideas never to be visited can be useful. Narrows the field a bit and gives one direction on where to look for interesting things.

    5. I’ve slowly come to realize that “polite” is what you do when things are not entirely safe– what you say may have consequences beyond a need for better explaining.

      The problem with “The Left” is that they assume that EVERY conversation is entirely safe, and react as if they were betrayed when it turns out not to be.

      (This actually helps out a lot for an aunt who has a history of reacting histrionically to mild jokes. How mild? “I know Victoria’s secret– she dresses like a hooker!” Expressly as a joke, in a suitable situation, even.)

        1. True.

          Also a Saulinsky tactic– can’t remember which, but “be rude as shit and then throw a fit if they are.”

          Broadly paraphrased.

  21. Rob: I’m not going to argue with you. I’m not a particularly articulate guy, nor do I claim to be exceptionally intelligent, just someone who spent most of my 20’s dealing with some pretty serious racial issues.

    I’m not buying into the hate. I do think race needs to be brought into an intelligent debate, but I think Vox enjoys stirring a pot a little too much. I don’t think Vox is a racist, I think he writes in a way that he KNOWS will offend people, even when there might be a more civil way. It’s the same thing that guys like John Steward and Bill Mahr dor. Again, there’s nothing objectively wrong with that style, I just find it distasteful and I don’t like it. Believe me though, I’m sure as hell not calling for people to hate him or boycott him (or anyone else) because of his opinions and how he expresses them.

    On the other, I think it’s hard to talk about issues like race, gender, sexuality, gun control, and such without offending someone. They’re complicated issues… if they weren’t people wouldn’t be arguing over them. I just prefer to discuss those issues without insults (from both sides of the political spectrum).

    1. “I think he writes in a way that he KNOWS will offend people, even when there might be a more civil way.”

      I will out myself with you … this is the impression I got from reading his blog and why I don’t read it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (duck n run)

      1. My impression as well.

        He seems to be of the opinion that it would be better if the slide towards something more and more unpleasant could be accelerated, that it will be impossible to really fix things until we have hit the boiling point.

        Who knows, maybe that is right.

        On the other hand, maybe it would still be possible to start fixing things before they fall completely apart. In which case people who push towards that boiling point would be something of a problem.

        I don’t know. At times I prefer to feel optimistic, and then I mostly avoid his blog. At other times I get pissed (why try to stay polite and try to have actual conversations and try to stay understanding of other opinions when the leftists rarely seem to bother…), and then he is something fun to read.

        1. Vox is an argumentative smart*ss, with a side order of troll and another side order of bad attitude. The history of sf fandom and sf prodom are both full of such people. Very often, they make a lot of money.

          He seems to be more successful than anyone I can remember in maintaining both a career, and a career in messing with hostile people (who for some reason keep allowing themselves to be messed with). But of course I wasn’t around in the dino days, and know most of our fannish historical figures solely by reputation.

          He makes me miss the old Usenet days, particularly standing on the sidelines and watching the storied flamewars of yore.

    2. I think he writes in a way that he KNOWS will offend people, even when there might be a more civil way.

      As I’ve said elsewhere:
      he really enjoys pissing people off.

      That annoys me.

      I do not like his style, I do not approve of it, and I think he’s usually more of a harm than a help.

      ****

      That means that he’s guilty of being an honest version of the standard left-wing “be a prick” tactics.

      Guess they find that to be a threat.

  22. It is interesting to note that in the UK – home of Teh Grauniad where many of these vile prog people hang out – there is real panic that UKIP (a party that mostly wants the UK to leave the EU, but also has a lot of libertarian/tea partyish ideas as well) will become the 3rd party and possibly even challenge the top 2. This despite the clearly documented fact that some of its members are pretty racist – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/10791905/A-week-of-woe-for-Ukip-and-yet….html – and clearly not ready for the probing that goes with being a major political party that scares the statists in power. Part of the reason for the fear is that working class people perceive UKIP as “normal” and hence are likely to vote for them instead of doing what they are expected to do and vote labour.

    The fatc is that in the UK the lower classes seem to be realizing that big government and particularly the big statist one of the EU is not their friend and that there’s only one party that really wants to overturn the big government and all its nutty ideas that have caused (for example) energy prices to rise enormously

    1. And the lower classes in the UK have perhaps begun to realize that the ‘ruling class’ (in the words of Angelo Codevilla) has not, in fact, done much good for the working classes in decades. In fact, they may have come to the sneaking suspicion that the ruling classes have sold them out, politically and culturally. A couple of weeks ago, Neo-neocon linked to a video of the funeral observances for Winston Churchill. One thinks about what the UK was once … and what it is now, and it’s pretty shattering. The ruling classes dissolved the people … and replaced them with another.
      http://www.ncobrief.com/index.php/archives/winston-churchill-funeral/
      The people may yet be able to hit back, though.

    2. Hey, what did they accept? Put some notions beyond the pale, and then only people who are beyond the pale will take them up.

        1. It made sense to me — They had accepted, if not embraced, their government’s nannyism — so where did they expect it to lead?

  23. ” But it did bring something to a head for me, as I mused on the behaviours of people who called themselves professionals and acted in strange and perverse manners.”

    It’s worth remembering what it once meant to be a professional. A professional was a member of a profession, and a profession was a guild which monopolized a skilled field, forcing those outside the guild to either join the guild or leave the field, and enforcing some kind of code of conduct on those within the guild. This code of conduct was often at odds with the interests of the individual guild member and his customers, but was perceived to be in the long-term interest of the guild.

    Thus, for example, doctors were once forbidden (believe it or not!) to give abortifacients even when they would be well paid and the customer really wanted the abortion, because it violated Hippocrates’ Oath, which was essential a guild code of conduct. Lawyers are still theoretically expected to uphold certain rules of the court even when these will hurt the case of their paying client. We tolerated these guilds because we believed these codes of professional conduct made for doctors and lawyers who could be trusted to do what was better for the larger society.

    Nowadays the term “professional” has been diluted to mean either “for pay” (when applied to activities widely engaged in by amateurs, such as athletics and sex) or “skillfully” (which is slightly closer to the truth when it implies conformance to a set of standards.) In fact, in the older and more meaningful sense, the oldest profession is anything but.

    Of course, there’s a dark side to this, and George Bernard Shaw knew exactly what he was talking about when he remarked that “All professions are conspiracies against the laity.” You’re seeing it now. You want to write good stories that aren’t politically correct. Your customers want to pay for them. Your guild wants to enforce rules that are neither in your interest nor that of your customers for what they regard as a higher social good.

    Yes, they’re professionals. In this context, it’s an insult.

    1. Sir, I should very much like to repost this on my blog – with your permission, and of course with full credit given. May I do so?

  24. Those who object to Mr. Correia know exactly what to do about him and his ilk: Make stuff up. Is Vox Day a racist? Is Mr. Correia a cismale gendernormative fascist? The enemies of open expression construe whatever each has said in the worst possible fashion (regardless of their actual intent), and cite that as proof of their accusations.

    The practice will continue as long as it works.

    1. Correia has taken on the mantel of Gendernormative Cismale Fascist International Lord of Hate. I shall simply call him ‘Sir’ for short.

  26. Matt: I’m not criticizing you. I was showing how the tactic works. 50 years of ‘quiet’ discussion has gotten no where, if fact Blacks are worse off. Maybe Day’s tactic of getting things out into the open so that intelligent people can see and maybe correct the problem isn’t any better. I don’t know but what we are doing right now ain’t helping.

  27. Quote:
    But they are only words, right? It’s not like they are sticks and stones being thrown.

    not when the words cause people to loose their jobs. That’s real damage, not ‘only words’

    1. Especially when those using the words also attempt to make people lose their jobs. IE they back their words with actions.

      Sadly, the people using the words also say things like “Hate speech leads to Hate Crimes”. They want certain speech to be banned because they believe the speakers will take hateful actions.

      Of course, the “it’s only words” folks forget “hate speech leads to hate crimes” when the words are ones that they agree with. [Frown]

      1. There is also the fact that if, lets say, some members of some protected group are acting in ways which cause harm to members of other, not protected groups, but that is something which is not addressed, and it’s not even considered suitable to talk about it, that may in time lead to way bigger problems for the ‘protected’ group than allowing people to talk about that kind of things, and maybe trying to do something about them, would.

        Feeling like victims is not something that can happen only to minority groups, if the majority start to perceive themselves as victimized by some of those there may be a backlash some day, and it may be ugly.

        1. Minor nit. IMO backlashes are always ugly not “may be ugly”. [Frown]

          1. ‘May’ – one kind of magical thinking, I’m afraid. Give it the chance not to be while admitting the chance it may be. I’d of course prefer the first alternative, so I have the need to include it. 😉

      2. “Hate speech leads to Hate Crimes”.

        It’s true.

        If you start making it OK to ban some observations– though they be totally factual and objective– as “hate speech,” you’re going to get hate crimes.

        The horrific thing is that the hate crimes will disproportionately hit the folks that, if you’d not made it “hate speech” to say this or that, would’ve been protected by either publicly objecting to the objectionable stuff or would’ve acted to stop the objectionable stuff if there’d been any chance of support rather than prosecution.

  28. Oh and on a personal note not to Matt but to the world at large. “To be fair, Correia is a gendernormative cismale,” may work for Larry; but, in my home I’m the “Man of the house” and my wife is “The woman of the house” and I don’t need no Liberal high fluting words like GNC-male to define either of us. I guess I’ll never be ready for prime time.

    1. It’s part of a joke. Larry was called a “Cismale Gendernormative Fascist” in a comment by one of the vileprog trolls, and now he uses it as a statement of his matey McHaterson persona.

  30. At the risk of being insensitive (and possibly showing my ignorance on the topic), I really don’t get the whole point of the “cis” gender thing… it seems a bit silly to me….and this is coming from someone that is accepting of pretty much any gender identity someone identifies with.

    I wonder what the reaction would be if I put “gendernormative cismale” into a match.com profile 🙂

    1. That’s kind of the point of the problem. Men have been men and Women have been women for thousands of years. I’m 73 and I never heard the word “Cis” until three months or so ago. Now, it almost drives me nuts (No, the little voices are quiet right now- it’s them) With the SFWA and whatevers it is by using the ‘cis’ before a word that shows that they are special little snowflakes that need to be looked up to because ‘cisnormal’ is so out of their level.
      If you put it in at match.com you would screen out the crazies in a heartbeat. The reply “I don’t know what that means, but I’m looking for a real man” is probably worth looking at.

      1. Outside of this context, the only time I’d ever heard the term “cis” used was when I learned about it in a college composition class, and it was more like:
        “there is a gender neutral pronoun,”cis” but it’s not very common and you’ll probably never encounter it outside of academia”… guess my professor was wrong.

      2. I’ve caused befuddlement, followed by frustration and suspicion by asking, when someone is holding forth about “trans-fats,” “What about cisfats? Are they any safer? Can you give me a list of cisfats suitable for cooking?” A little knowledge of chemistry is a dangerous thing. >:)

          1. I thought you were muscular with a sleek pelt.
            Unless you are referring to the proportions of the F8F, which I grant is a little chunky up front when compared to the Tigercat, Mustang, or Spitfire. But positively svelte in comparison to the F4F or Skyraider.

            1. Or the all time champion of the 1930s chunky airplane design competition, The Brewster Buffalo!

    2. When I first heard the term it made no sense, first thing that came to mind was the term “cislunar space” but I doubt that had anything to do with it.

      In the end, it’s just more prog effort at creating newspeak to control the language and assign evil intent to those who don’t play along.

    3. Power politics. By having a term that indicates a person who is not suffering from transsexualism, they put them on parity. This allows them to advance their gender politics.

  31. OT, irrelevant and possibly irreverent:

    I’m struggled mightily to move past the connotations of your chosen metaphor (and I mostly did, and I enjoyed your post), but…

    In field operations in the military, particularly when large numbers of personnel are expected to be housed in a limited area for an extended period, it is necessary to take steps to maintain field sanitation. Most folks around here are likely familiar with the disease/battle wounds mortality rate in various historical conflicts. To the point, one of the methods of controlling waste is to construct field expedient ‘outhouses’ with metal barrels below to collect the leavings. It is then necessary to swap empty barrels for full ones and take steps to eliminate the disease vector. Often, this is accomplished by pouring JP8 (fuel) in the barrel and setting it afire. Having a large liquid content, the contents of the barrel don’t burn readily, so it is necessary to add fuel and mix the contents about to get even evaporation and eventual consumption of the biologicals. This takes time.

    So, I’ve done my share of shit-stirring on hot days in far away deserts. I’ve learned things about the health of my fellows better left unsaid. I’ve experienced the unique aroma of pouring gasoline on that particular fire. And had the pleasure of the certain knowledge that showers were tightly scheduled and water strictly rationed.

    It’s a necessary job, in metaphor and reality. And often enough, the things that bubble up need to come to light. But there’s no beauty in it.

    Thanks for the nostalgic moment!

    😀

  32. An awful lot of people are getting sick and tired of being called “racist” whenever someone wants to shut them down, or when they state simple verifiable facts. Like any prosecuted group, they are beginning to seize control of the word and own it (see the recent Fred on Everything for an example.) So for anyone who wants to decrease the power of the left to shut down discussion through name calling, just say “yeah, so what?” As they sputter and froth, you can then ask them to dispute your facts, if they like. This could lead to honest dialog, but the most likely result is they withdraw. So win!

    I’ve been trying to read the other Hugo noms, but I’m having a hard time. I don’t want to give them any money, so I’m reading the free Tor ones. Man, I’ll tell you I’m finding it difficult going. I’ve forgotten what it was like to read this stuff.

    Spoilers possible.

    The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere, for example. Turns out it is just another ‘coming out’ story, this time with extra angst, because his parents are super traditional asians. Wow. Original work there. And he’s an insecure, whiny little snot, who is forced by the universe (in the form of the ‘water’ that falls on you when you lie) to give up lying. Add a physically abusive sister, stereotypical physical trainer boyfriend who is yet a noble and gentle soul, and the never explained anti-lie water mcguffin, and you get something that is cloying and derivative and depressing. My summary? Seinfeld people, creating all their own problems, avoid.

    Wakulla Springs, still working thru this. Some technical issues with the narrator voice occasionally falling into the negro dialect of the characters, especially early in the story, but well written. I’m just not sure yet what the point is. It seems like a biography of a family, told in short scenes, but there hasn’t been anything speculative yet (unless you count wondering if the authors could actually accurately portray the characters, since they are lightyears from the authors’ possible experience.) Maybe it will “surprise and delight” me, as it did the Tor staff, but I don’t see it coming…

    Not sure if it’s worth doing, but I’m going to keep plugging away at it. To anyone who thinks the GHH and SJW thing is being OVER-stated, well, just read a few of these nominations. Oh my.

    zuk

    1. Ok, finished this one. No SF/F content at all until the last 2 paras. (but one of the comments points out that it features the Tarzan movies and some horror movie making as part of the plot.) But really, not about the movies at all. Even a couple of the comments notice the lack of SF/F but check out the check box list:

      (commentor)It was well written. Interesting characters. Cleverly revealed linkages from generation to generation. Realistic period detail. Good dialogue. Messages against racial discrimination. Movie lore. All good stuff. (bold added.)

      It had a MESSAGE so it’s good! Well, it was an interesting story, in a dreamy, slow kind of way. Not some of the years best SF/F by a long shot.

      Don’t know how much more of this I can take before I write it all off as a bad deal.

      zuk

  33. Reminds me of something I listened to a couple of years ago – Evan Sayet’s talk at Heritage on Hating What’s Right. Fantastic talk, if a bit long. (I prefer the linked audio to the video version, because I like listening while I’m walking or whatever.)

    Touching on something that was mentioned upstream, I’m sort of sad to see John Wright leaving SFWA. I’ve been reading his blog a lot lately, and the man is an amazing writer. (I really need to read that copy of The Golden Age sitting on my shelf. Alas… I just started Hard Magic in audio…) It seems to me that we don’t necessarily help a troubled organization by having the people who are among the most thoughtful, intelligent and articulate for the libertarian / conservative viewpoint… leave.

    I mean, I totally understand it, and there’s something to be said for leaving a building that happens to be on fire but…

  34. One, the fine art of stirring the fecal matter has its uses.

    That’s how you make fertilizer.

    You pile up old offcast matter (poop, dead animals, plants, some dirt that gets stuck in the scoop when you’re moving the rest of this stuff) and keep adding to it through the year; you might cover it with dirt to keep the smell down. You let it sit over the winter, where it will melt snow up to about an inch in six hours before anything sticks to it.

    Come spring, you push it over enough that it’s fully mixed up again.

    Make a different pile for the new stuff.

    Do this for about three years and you’ve got good fertilizer!

    1. I really like horse shit. It doesn’t smell too bad, it’s usually kind of dry and easy to break up even when still relatively fresh, and you can just mix it into the dirt you are using for potted plants. Can’t do the same with cow patties. (Both can be found nearby, I live inside the city limits but this is within walking distance of where you start to get actual countryside, and yes, occasionally I collect some of the horse droppings in a plastic bag and use it on the balcony plants)(and the damn cow droppings are much more unpleasant to step on…)

      🙂

      1. The problem is that the horse poop doesn’t smell because it isn’t very well digested– which means it’s more like mulch than fertilizer, and it frequently has weed seeds.

        2. Chicken is much better fertilizer, but it also much better at clearing clogged sinus’, so not that great a choice for apartment living.

  35. I learned as a girl that if I were being pestered and teased, the best way to make it stop was to ignore the gadfly.

    I was taught that, but learned it just meant that I had a lot of gadflies around, because what they wanted was a safe source of blood.

    Swatting them fixes it.

    The problem, of course, is that if you can’t kill the gadfly, you’re just as bit as before and out the effort of swinging to boot. And the exertion might attract more.

    1. “I was taught that, but learned it just meant that I had a lot of gadflies around, because what they wanted was a safe source of blood.”

      About my conclusion, too.

      1. Any time people’s motives involve status, rules of thumb for manipulating them can easily get very tricky. “Signaling” leading to “countersignaling”, e.g. And even making a task predictably difficult or risky can act as a perverse incentive by making it a desirable strong signal of motivation and competence — beware of being the recognizably fast wily stag near a tribe of hunters.

        That said, a lot of the time the duh-obvious ordinary incentives work pretty well, and a lot of time when they don’t it is not because of such boomeranging signaling considerations, it’s because of some other unsurprising-in-retrospect ordinary incentive that trumps them. (And a lot of the time when social trickiness complicates things, it’s not by the kind of countersignaling I mentioned in the first paragraph, it’s by conspiring to hide the unsurprising-in-retrospect incentives: a significant fraction of important hidden agendas and unwritten rules are concealed pretty well.)

  36. I’m not one for stirring things up myself but I really appreciate everything Larry and others have been doing with this Sad Puppies Campaign. To see other people speaking out and cheering them on is a small contribution that I can make.

    1. I am too. But I admit I’m saddened by the vitriol erupting in places I’d hoped not to find it: saddened, not surprised. Apparently one is not to read fiction by people with unacceptable ideas (ie. Vox Day). Nor is one to read through a sample of blog posts by the accused in order to find out if what was said was 1) serious, 2) typical, or 3) part of a longer argument. *sigh*

      1. Nor is one to read through a sample of blog posts by the accused in order to find out if what was said was 1) serious, 2) typical, or 3) part of a longer argument. *sigh*

        I’m determined to do this myself, and form my own opinion – because if they take that away from me, then they’ll have won, and what I have lost – my principles, owed to myself, are surrendered.

        To my friends who don’t like the man’s opinions, I hope for patience while I work on this.

  37. “UPDATE: The Sarah has landed. I’ll have to see what’s been going on around here.”

    Oh, we are gonna get a whooping now.

        1. What? You mean she didn’t order these gun empl- er, um, terraced planters?

          (Lays down backhoe, points to the sky and says, “Look! It’s pajamas boy! and runs the other direction)

    2. Somebody call NORAD and ask them when they expect the liquor cabinet to reenter the atmosphere.

            1. I think it did open. Designing and building a supersonic parachute out of bedsheets is non-trivial.

  38. I too have enjoyed this ride, though it is getting tiring. I tend to look at it from a scientific or research view, Criminology degree, not worth much and poor sociology. But, one can watch all the conniptions being made in order to maintain a high level of hate against an individual, the word twisting, the out of context evidence, the desire to ‘throw scum over the walls’ over someone they have never met, never even heard of prior to this. As a teller of tales, I can guarantee that my villains are going to be much more realistic (meaner) in the future.

  40. OT: Just as a general statement of opinion, I hate these d-mned dust storms. Visibility is down to a quarter mile IN TOWN. People, keep your dirt at home, for Bog’s sake.

    1. D@mnit. I was just admiring the clear day. All that dirt from up your way is gonna haze up my skys later…

      I second the “keep your dirt at home” motion.

      1. My sinuses are aching, my face hurts, and I can understand why women went mad during the 1930s and 1950s. You clean and dust and BAM four hours later it’s sifting through the gaps under the doors and around the windows. And what I’ve got is nothing compared to a 1930s house.

        1. I feel your pain (rather literally, in this instance — sinuses won’t clear properly, all that…). I grew up where Grandma’s house was never “properly sealed”, and dealt with dust regularly. All. Too. Regularly.

          However, family friends had an older farmhouse that was no longer in regular use, hadn’t been opened to the best of my knowledge in five or ten years — and there was practically no dust on the flat surfaces, considering. (“practically no” approx. equal less than 1/32″; I was stunned …) Of course, said house had not been insulated, had not been painted in 20 or more years, still had all / most of the window glass intact even if not recently re-pointed/re-caulked. No idea now what had kept it that well sealed…

          1. Some people built, or rather overbuilt, amazingly well. A friend and former coworker had (probably still have) a corn crib that will outlast everything but salt cedar and cockroaches. The wife’s dad and grandfather built it back in the 1920s, screwed all the 2X6s (yes, real 2X6s) instead of nailing, and then painted it with some home-made variation on milk-paint that looks a bit tatty but can’t be covered over because nothing will stick to it. The thing is still as sound as when the men built it.

            It’s settled down, but they’re warning of more dust on Wednesday. Thanks be, we’ve been almost fire free so far this spring. *knocking heavily on wood, waving four-leaf clover, twirling Pope-soap-on-a-rope, making small offering to any passing rain deity*

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