The Victimy Victim Victimized Competition

245 thoughts on “The Victimy Victim Victimized Competition”

1. Don’t get me starting on the real victims of this “I’m more a victim than thou” movement. IE white males. We’re the Evil Ones worthy of Hatred. [Frown]

   1. I think that the real victims are the kids. It’s just not a positive way to look at life and when you’re, for example, going on and on about white privilege, sure you’re insulting those white privileged people who have life on the “easy setting”… but what you’re really doing is telling all of the kids that through no fault of their own they are going to struggle and never quite make it, no matter what.

      If there is such a thing as “privilege” it’s that some people aren’t vulnerable to the defeatist message. What’s really nasty is thinking that making those white people (as an example) grovel and apologize for something that *no one* suggests is fixable (and issue blog posts about how sorry you are for having been wrong and insensitive and going through life on the easy setting) is more important than the clear damage done to the kids or the vulnerable.

      Those victims are real. And the victimizers more interested in their status as the most victimized are nasty to make that choice.

      1. yep. That’s what gets me so furious. t he poor kids.

      2. My thoughts exactly – this white privilege stuff damages kids across the board. I went on about it at some length, at Chicagoboyz.
         http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/43152.html

      3. the victimizers more interested in their status as the most victimized are nasty to make that choice.

         If it hasn’t gotten to that point yet I’m actually wondering when they’ll start with the ‘by simply being female/homosexual/leftist, I AM A VICTIM/rape victim/victim of bigotry’ ad nauseum!!!!’ At which point very few people will take true victims seriously., because of these folks who cried wolf.

   2. They keep telling us humanity started in a region that is warm. Jump forward a number of years – and who do you find living up north freezing various body parts till they drop off? It’s a vast conspiracy against the melanin deficient, I tells ya..

   3. No, we white males are the ones least victimized. We may suffer, but at least we get to keep our thought processes mostly intact. The other groups get the offer of free candy with a lobotomy (not every member of said groups takes up the offer, of course).

2. Very good but you mistake the people you are discussing for rational adults. The ones you are talking about are neither rational nor adults in the true sense of the words

   1. I expect that a significant percentage of them could become at least semi-rational adults without too much of an effort.

      1. ah, but they’ve been told there is to be no effort needed

3. Hear, Hear! I refuse the occasional urge to get into a one-downsmanship (it’s certainly not upsmanship) competition with them. I’d win, but it would take me down to my level, and feels too much like baring my throat to wolves. I’d rather take my successes, pin them to my chest, take a deep breath, and strut. I’m no victim. I EARNED these.

   1. They’re doing it because victimhood is a route to social power, due to the aforementioned therapeutic culture.

      Plus, I read your argument with Steven Saus, who filters according to race and sex. I wouldn’t write for him either, and to hear Larry tell it, you won’t get much money.

      1. You’re absolutely right. The hard part for some is, when the bottom REALLY drops out of the economy, victimhood’s ability to grant social power suddenly evaporates, and the professional victims are left in a society of people saying, “Get a job and a haircut. You’re nothing special. Everybody’s life sucks right now.”
         😀

         1. I see. That makes sense.

         2. Is there a bottom to it? Maybe there is if the “bottom” is defined as the point where the trend reverses… which would be when society starts saying, “Get a job and a haircut.”

4. I never have understood the “geek/nerd = victim” model. But in part, I’ve always been the 400 lb gorilla in the corner ready to thump the jock who thought picking on the nerd was cool. There are some benefits to the “big and dumb” stereotype, especially when arguing with special snowflakes who think that they’re better than you cause they’ve got muscles and are popular.

   1. Yes. I was the big moose too!

5. I want to apologize for posting the IO9 piece. Frankly when I did it the comments and the whiny whiny just had gotten started. To say nothing of the sheer hate of these people. The best thing to do is to refuse to be a victim in the first place.

   1. You weren’t the only one who called it to my attention, and besides, John, it’s all over FB in SF/F, people arguing which of them is more victimized.

      1. How far has SF/F fallen? It seem like only a couple of years ago that SF/F was relevant and the genre that big ideas happened. That SF authors would be consulted by presidents and invited to speak at tech conferences. How did the vision get so mired in this sewage so fast?

         1. I wonder if we (sci-fi writers in general) underestimated the anti-science side of the Boomers and the VileProgs, and got distracted by other things. And how many of us know enough hard science to write it well? Well enough to compete with games and the visual culture? No offense to our gracious hostess and people like David Weber, but how many scientists are writing now as compared to the ’50s-’70s? Add a push from editors for fantasy over sci-fi because “fantasy is more woman-oriented” and hey-lolly, sci-fi is a shadow of itself as far as influence on the general society is concerned.

            I’m probably way off, but that’s my impression looking in from semi-outside.

            1. How many working scientists are actively writing SF/F? Well, I know one for Baen, ‘Doc Travis’ Taylor, when he’s not doing splodey TV shows. Dr. Pournelle is also still writing, but he’s certainly of a previous era of writers. Hmm, anyone know of any others?

            2. The sciency part of my fiction is more a sense for history and how society changes. Of course, I have a panel of (evil of course) scientists who answer my every question.

         2. I think the answer lies in what kind of people used to be attracted to the genre and what kind are now.

            “Hard as it to believe, somewhere right now, a white, straight male is explaining to a woman or POC what they =really= meant.” – Steven Gould, president of the SFWA yesterday.

            Let’s be honest: can you imagine any single editor of SFF from 1910 to 1970 was dumb enough to write something like that? Even Ray Palmer at Amazing Stories in the ’40s with his earth’s core theories wasn’t that far gone. AND Palmer had the circulation of Amazing Stories as high as 400,000 a month in a country with half the population we have now. I’m not sure how he did that cuz the stories were nothing to write home about. It’s possible not writing editorials pointing out the immoral racism and sexism of its readers helped. Earth’s core stuff doesn’t look all that bad compared to the gossamer thin thread of sanity intersectional feminist hang on to.

            Sure there are many more distractions, but Asimov’s SF Mag today has maybe 25,000. Given the addiction to “marginalized” identities, if there were a Golden Age, would anyone notice it, or come?

            1. “Hard as it to believe, somewhere right now, a white, straight male is explaining to a woman or POC what they =really= meant.” – Steven Gould, president of the SFWA yesterday. ” Yep, my post on how the entire victimhood schtick is destroying sf. Cedar echoed it on her Facebook page and a white, straight, suburb dwelling male came and explained to me how I — a woman the government (meh) calls “of color”, who is an immigrant — am just “scared of the growing diversity in sf/f” and held onto it buckle and tongues in face of other people pointing out to him how ABSURD this was.
               But I don’t think it’s what Gould meant 😉
               Vileprogs — they self-parody.

               1. I thought you said you were neither of color or female because you were conservative.

                  As far as what this white, straight male meant when he calls someone a jackass, well, I mean they’re a jackass.

               2. I see them making that mind-reading argument about losing privilege and control all the time. Since no one is writing about that stuff, they’re just making it up. Why would I be afraid of losing privilege I don’t even believe exists in the first place? It’s a self-serving argument I’m frankly surprised any adult would make. Who’s scared of diversity? Is the idea we’re too stupid to know we are or that we’re lying and speaking in code? More self-serving junk passed off as an actual thought.

                  They keep saying things like we’re opposing women. No one’s opposing women – we’re opposing demonstrably insane radical fake feminists. Should I lay off the KKK cuz that would be attacking men? These people don’t even make any sense.

                  Or they say I am offended by bi-sexuals in a story, or the author. Bi-sexuals don’t offend me. People like that are part of the landscape. It would be like being offended by a river. I’m offended by supremacists hiding behind their victim identity like a shield to deflect any criticism whatsoever while they indulge in pretty clear bigotry. I’m pretty sure the percentage of bi-sexual bigots will be the same as anyone else. The point is the supremacists who happen to be bi-sexual act like they can never be bigots, and so of course they let fly with the most rancid prejudices. The PC are dazzled by identity. Thank god the law hasn’t sunk to that point. If it ever does we’re finished.

                  1. “It’s a self-serving argument I’m frankly surprised any adult would make.”

                     There’s your problem — where’s your evidence these are adults? They display all the attributes of adolescents, including insistence despite all evidence that they are too adults.

                     1. “Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

                        ― C.S. Lewis

                        1. I think C.S.Lewis is talking about a different type of adulthood. He is talking about putting on airs and putting childish pleasures behind oneself (which is a loss), rather than shouldering responsibility (which is a gain).

                           Then again, IIRC in his culture adolescents had a lot more responsibilities than they do now.

            2. I’ve been saddened at how Asimov’s and Analog’s readership has declined. But I never see them on the rack at B&N, and only rarely see an ancient copy of F&SF (at least 5-6 months old).

               And – to be honest – the stories don’t thrill any more. Immediate recollections of the last ten years or so bring to mind maybe five memorable stories between Analog and Asmiov’s. And one was because it was politically distasteful. (Really, having the Co-President Bush daughters help interrogate a scientist about an alternative energy source? FFS, what are they putting in the editor’s water?)

               But the answer is to push diversity. Not concentrate on good stories, but fill out checklists of trendy sociological (sociopathic, I’m starting to think) stuff that everyone agrees must be included for the stories to be popular.

               And it’s ALL got to be in, otherwise the stories won’t sell.

               Well, screw it. That’s what Kindle Publishing’s for.

               1. “… the answer is to push diversity.”
                  No, the answer is to push conformity under a superficial skin of diversity. Like saying you will all receive Blackberries and will be free to put any protective skin that you please over your Blackberry.

                  Meanwhile, those selecting iPhones, Droids or simpler models will be guilty of thought crimes, accused of benefiting from privilege and denounced as divisive. ‘Cause the one thing the Diversity Crowd can’t stand is divisiveness.

                  If the SF/F mags actually wanted to offer diversity they could publish nothing but stories by Albanian Dwarfs and none on the Right would object so long as some stories presented a libertarian view, some a conservative perspective, some a liberal and even some a Progressive (we would mostly skip over those, sure, but we wouldn’t demand they be ripped out of the magazine and the authors burned.) Instead they offer us men of color, women of color, homosexuals, transsexuals, autosexuals, bisexuals, polysexuals but no asexuals, And they all look dissimilar but they all think the same.

                  1. They decried the boxes. So they took over the universities. Now they are packing the next generation of boxes without any apparent recognition of the irony of it all …

                     1. I have come to the conclusion that the Progressives will tell what they want most by telling you what they hate. They want us in little boxes, they want fascism and they want to be the man.

            3. Oh, and if the stories DO fill in all the current PC checklists (which may or may not align with past or future ones – and which may change even as the story is awaiting publication, depending on what the oversensitivity of the moment is,) and DOES get published (assuming it doesn’t gore some ox that wasn’t even around when the previous checklists were adhered to) – what are the chances it’ll find a reader it resonates with?

               With Asimov’s – apparently not all that good.

               I’ve seen this time and time again with technicians trying to troubleshoot a problem. You become fixated on what SHOULD be the cure – so when the fix doesn’t work, it’s not because it’s the wrong fix but because you got a bad part. Then two in a row. Then a third. Then MAYBE with some it’ll click – there might be something ELSE wrong that their troubleshooting skills didn’t detect, so you need to check everything from scratch.

               SFWA thinks they know what’s wrong – and will attempt to revitalize SF by what THEY think the fix is. They’re ignoring what has been proven to work, proven to appeal, proven to SELL, in the belief that they’re smarter or ‘better’ than the authors who are selling like crazy.

               They’d rather be ‘right’ with their peers and have meager to nonexistent sales, than ‘wrong’ and making money off their work.

               It’s crazy.

               1. All that stuff you mentioned, the SFWA, those webzines, will probably fold in several years. You can’t affirmative action or pie-chart art and make it stick. Just imagine the fall off in quality if you did that with pro basketball or hockey. If they ain’t there they ain’t there, and all the wishing wells and drives to recruit the “marginalized” in the world won’t change it. Imagine if you recruited whites for basketball. How the heck will that work? It’s just not how culture and hobbies work. Good stuff is where you find it. People have to learn to deal with the fact that is almost always going to be demographically askew. It’s just the way it is. Other than niche stuff like the gay or ethnic section of a book store, anyone who tries to mainstream that stuff will meet with failure. You just can’t manufacture excitement in literature by pushing mediocre proper race and proper gender at people. I’m just not going to read books full of empty literature because of colonialism or women couldn’t vote 100 years ago or something.

                  1. “It’s just not how culture and hobbies work. Good stuff is where you find it.”
                     ^^^^^^
                     THAT, in spades.

                     The high performers are, as you point out, always niche and never mainstream – like the old joke that if it were easy then everyone could do it. The GHH don’t particularly care about quality or even particularly long-term ‘survival’ of the genre (since they’re convinced it’s pretty much completely contaminated by old white guys and if they kick them all out then it’ll still be their fault because people won’t buy their stuff..) – they simply want it to be easy for THEM to get awards for mediocre work.

                     “I’m just not going to read books full of empty literature because of colonialism or women couldn’t vote 100 years ago or something.”

                     I don’t think I’d go so far as to even call it literature – the vast, vast majority’s going to be forgotten in ten or twenty years. But yet – I think if they could force you to do so they likely would. To expand your consciousness, and make you more aware of the ‘issues’ they face on a nanosecond-by-nanosecond basis.

                     Because THAT is how you sell books and develop a genre’s readership… until the entire market collapses because you’re not selling anything that anyone else wants to read.

                     1. Again — this is how traditional publishing has worked for 20 years. these are young women and women who don’t know history. They think “push” is the only way to sell books, and they don’t see what it’s done to the market.

                        1. Well, ‘worked for 20 years’ is certainly open to interpretation there. Based on what I’ve seen reported, and seen in the bookstores, traditional SFF publishing (aside from Baen) isn’t long for this world.

                           Kind of like an APA I used to be a member of – with the advent of the internet, APAs just kind of… died.

                           1. Yeah, the internet pretty much killed my APA’zine as well. I used to run one with the amazingly creative title of “Gallery” that was full of art, and even paid the artists a royalty by selling additional copies to subscribers and at Cons.

                           2. You published pictures of American pale ales? And people paid money for that? Good for you! *runs*

                           3. All right, I really didn’t want to look like I’m totally clueless (probably too late anyway), but what the heck are APAs?

                           4. APA = Amateur Press Association. The original idea was people publishing (usually by Mimeograph) their own little ‘zines (short for Fanzines, Fan Magazines) and mailing sufficient copies to the OE, or Organizing Editor, who collated them all and mailed them back to the contributors. The members had to send the OE postage money, and had participation requirements.

                              My take on the system was unique at the time, I’d handle the reproduction, and send them back to the artists at cost, subsidized by subscriber sales. It ran for 14 years and produced 51 issues.

                              I still need to track down some of the subscribers for refunds of their accounts.

                              In any case, the Internet killed the format. Blogs took the place of Fanzines, and web sites allowed artists to show their work in color, and the fans could get it for free (although usually in lower resolution, but they didn’t care).

                           5. Thanks for the info. And yes, I can certainly see how the Internet could kill small zines like those.

            4. I was a subscriber of Asimov’s since April of 1998, and I’ve just let it lapse because of how far it’s declined. I used to be excited about it, and read each issue as I got it, but when I realized my stack of unread issues starts with the August 2012 issue, clearly it’s not interesting me as much as it used to.

6. Being of Jewish descent I can trump anybody’s ancestral victim points three times* over, and that with a buck seventy-five will get me a small coffee at Starbucks. Get over it and remember: living well is the best revenge.

   *Slavery, genocide, dispossession of homelands — honey chile, ghetto and diaspora are Jewish words. As my brother observes, virtually every Jewish religious festival can be boiled down to: they tried to eradicate us, they couldn’t, let’s eat.

   1. Lessons to be learned in that. Like how to cook a proper lamb, and why bitter herbs are the best part of the seder. Also, latkes. And schmaltz. Maybe latkes fried in schmaltz.

      1. fat rules

   2. Google “Tal Fortgang”, and if you can stomach them read the responses. It turns out that Jewish holocaust survivors’ grandson privilege is a subset of white privilege.

      1. Isn’t it sad how some people are so obsessed with themselves that they cannot recognize, much less empathize, with the travails of anybody else and must deny, disparage and disdain the horrors inflicted on others?

         Truly, I feel victimized by such people who, in their self-ompoed ignorance, blame others for privileges never asked for, never received.

         1. ????
            Strike “self-ompoed ”
            Insert “self-imposed”

            Bad fingers! Bad, bad fingers. Just for that I shall wash you!

            1. Ah! I need not rush to scour the dictionary in futile search for what my feeble brain does not know?

               Such relief.

               😀

               1. Here I was thinking it was probably somehow related to oompah-loompahs.

               2. well, now, perhaps we can compel you. . . what can ompoed mean, that can be self-ompoed and apply to ignorance?

                  Oh, I know. It means staring at a navel (or omphalos), so self-ompoed ignorance is ignorance stemming from staring at one’s own navel.

                  1. Well played, madam, well played.

                     1. Indeed. Now, this really ought enter the lexicon. ‘Least-ways, ’round here.

                        1. Along with Cedar Sanderson’s one downmanship.

                           1. Yep.

                           2. yes.

                  2. So is ompoed two syllables or three?

            2. No, I think self-ompoed is much more appropriate considering the intellect of the individuals in question.

      2. Oh, don’t remind me. I got very… red mist of fury. My Jewish ancestry is from the southern side of Europe, and we never had an holocaust, (the inquisition was not that systematic) but as my son put it “You can’t help but seethe.”

         1. Though the Sephardim weren’t exactly treated with kid gloves.

            1. No.

      3. To be fair to the respondants, Asian privilege is also now a subset of white privilege ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/ ), so it’s not simple anti-semitism.

         I’m not sure I understand what it *is*, though. I guess calling any successful demographic “white” is supposed to be *anti-racist* terminology somehow?

         1. Everything that is not in complete head-nodding agreement with the current PC critical race/gender ranter is a subset of “privilege.” Everything. You can’t be the most victimy victimized victim if all others are not less victimized than you.

            1. Well, they gotta project that privilege somewhere. Notice how leftist activist privilege checks all the boxes on their description of privilege: they are certain they get to make all the calls, they get to indulge in arrogant bullying and call it virtue, and they refuse to acknowledge it when called on it.

               Indeed, they are so oozing with it that it’s not surprising they see it everywhere, just like someone wearing green-colored eyeglasses will see green everywhere.

         2. Since the apartheid South African government made Japanese “honorary white people”, that is especially hilarious to me.

         3. So, “white privilege” now applies to:

            1.) Asians.
            2.) Jews.
            3.) Indians.

            In other words, the phrase is meaningless noise. A random collection of sounds, conveying nothing.

            1. And me, and Larry, and any black person who agrees with us.

            2. Once it gets applied to “Oreos” (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oreo&page=2, first definition) all will be well. It will become a synonym to “American”..

            3. It means anyone who works hard and achieves is “privileged.” They don’t see any effort. Either you are a victim or you are “privileged.”

               1. I think that’s part of it. If you achieved more than they did, you must be privileged. But they came to this conclusion because they have everything handed to them with no effort. THAT’s the evil of just giving people things.They think that’s how the world works. This is where the whole concept of “privilege” comes from.

7. OMG 😉 I had a hard time– but I have learned in the years since I left home that there are others who had it harder than I did. My husband’s story amazes me– that he thrived and actually survived. Also the members of my family who whine and complain about their childhood– have made their situation worse by having a hand out (candy anyone?) from anyone who would give it to them. One of them told me that they deserved it because they had such a hard time. She was talking to me who cleaned up all her messes. I think it was then that I decided to concentrate on my own problems and leave hers alone.

   Even with my disease which is awful and scary, I have friends with the same disease who are losing lungs, having bone necrosis, and other problems that you get from the disease and the meds. I have it much better.– not as good as some people, but “meh” I can walk, talk, sleep, and eat.

   1. Trigger warning: From Here comes the Waves, with Bing Crosby and Sunny Tufts in, gasp, !Black Face!

      1. Thank you– it has been years since I listened to that song. Still great–

         1. You are welcome.

8. “No pain, no gain” is an important lesson to learn. We’re damned lucky that the only injuries we need to worry about are psychic ones.

9. The one-downsmanship had just started when I got to college the first time. I could not understand the value of doing “you think you’re poor? Well my family’s so poor” at a school where over half the students were on some form of scholarship, ranging from religious to academic to work-study. That and a massive administrative scandal drove me back into the real world for a decade. I prefer the real world, with all its pitfalls, thank you. I realize there are some affirmative action aspects in aviation, especially with the airlines, but you have to have a certain skill level no matter what flavor of whatever you happen to be, ‘cuz gravity (like a honey badger) don’t care!

   1. That’s a bald-faced lie. Gravity does, too, care. It wants to give you a BIIIIIIIG hug! With the earth.

      1. Dave, when’s the last time you slept?

         1. I’m not allowed to talk about that.

10. To all would-be “Victims”;

    I am a male White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. I am the bloodline that told the Catholic Church and then the Church of England to take a hike. My kin conquered the continent. Yes, we did the Native Americans dirt. So has every migrating wave of humans dealt with lower tech aboriginals, everywhere, always. Deal. With. It. In the process we roiled over the Apache, who scared the piss out of everybody else in the neighborhood. You’re welcome. We spearheaded the first anti-slavery movement that wasn’t basically a (usually abortive) slave revolt. We built the railways, the electrical network, the sanitation systems in cities worldwide. We promulgated germ theory, and did something about it. We established the practicality of representative government. We won both world wars and the cold war.

    We are getting sick and tired of listening to you whine. If you want to be taken care of by Daddy, it can be arranged. But when we were ready to “take up the White Man’s Burden”, you complained about “colonialism” and “exploitation”. And then we left you to your own devices and what followed was kleptocracy, famine and genocide as tools of stagecraft, and other such “enlightened” behaviors.

    Be careful how badly you annoy us. Our patience is not infinite, and since you are all in favor of Gun Control, if we decide to take back our society, just what the hell could you-all do about it?

    *end rant*

    1. *looks around for the ‘like’ button*

       1. Seconded.

          Look, I grew up poor. My dad worked for the railroad as a yard clerk — not a terribly demanding position, but far from easy. He was outside in all kinds of weather, which in Louisiana can range from ice and snow storms to hurricanes and tornadoes, baking heat or freezing cold. I was 8 when we moved into a house with inside walls, and married before my parents installed “indoor plumbing”. I learned to chop kindling when I was five, and learned to act as the counterweight (can’t say I contributed much…) on a cross-cut saw at six. We always had a garden and a cow, and I did my share of breaking, hoeing, watering, and picking. I managed to get a first-class education in what, for the time and location, was considered a second-class school.
          — I had a choice between West Point, the Air Force Academy, or the Merchant Marine Academy when I graduated from high school.
          — I married young (19), and we’re still together, 48 years later.
          — I learned to WORK at an early age, and knew that’s where goodies came from. No work, no goodies, including food, clothing and shelter.
          — I had a chance at a job I love, and spent 25 years doing it. I received recognition and promotions for outstanding achievement in that field.
          — I had the opportunity to learn, and took it with both hands. I don’t have a degree, but I have 214 semester-hours of college credit, a HUGE amount of “life experiences” that would probably translate into another 100+, and just a ton of “common-sense” experiences, from reupholstering furniture to making lace bobbins on a lathe (neither of which I can do now, but that’s another story).
          — I’ve written and published eight novels. At least a dozen people have read and enjoyed each of them, and some have been read by dozens, if not hundreds.
          — I have four children (three grown, one in-house). I’m proud of each of them, for different reasons. I have one grandchild and one great-grandchild.
          Yeah, I’m a white, Anglo-Saxon/Native American, Protestant Male. I am NOT a victim. I worked hard for what I achieved. I have friends (Black, Asian, mixed) that have achieved equally as much. They did it the same way I did — by working for it.

          Victimhood is for the cowardly and lazy.

       2. I second the like. And that’s the thing to remember. If things go pear shaped, the majority is STILL THE MAJORITY. Sheesh. There are no points to losing the fight.

          1. What they have learned about the majority indicates it is possessed of boundless patience and a willingness to assume unto itself all sins.

             They forget reality, the majority is human.

             1. At this point, most of what they’re doing equates (for most Americans) to a child’s tantrum somewhere on the other side of the grocery store. Annoying, sure, but nothing to worry about. We’re all too busy getting ourselves stocked for that next summer storm, worrying about our own kids, thinking about the bills that need to get paid, etc. No real idea where I’m taking this, just that noisy, annoying people hundreds or thousands of miles away aren’t really on most people’s radar. That said, we do tend to react poorly to genuinely transgressive behavior.

       3. I like the ‘like.’

    2. White ASP and proud of the fact that if we are pissed off, the world trembles.

    3. Huzzah!

11. Here is the proper way to play the victim:
    
    Miss USA hopeful: I’m the product of a rape
    A stunning Miss USA hopeful revealed Thursday that she was conceived when her mother was attacked and raped at knifepoint when she was 19 years old.

    Miss Pennsylvania Valerie Gatto, 24, who will compete for the Miss USA crown on Sunday, told NBC’s “Today” show that she wants to use her mom’s rape experience to teach women to be more aware of sexual assault.

    “Being a child of a rape, not knowing who my father is, not knowing if he’s ever been found, most people would think it’s such a negative situation,” she told the network.

    “Being a voice is life-changing, and I just want to keep going.”

    [MORE]
    [INSERT audio clip of I Will Survive]

12. Game cheer at Vanderbilt University (while they were playing Alabama): “That’s alright, that’s OK, you will work for me someday.” Geeks really end up ruling in any technological society. Ah, victimhood. I did research on the Massai one time for a book that was never finished. Most admirable people, because they never surrendered. Massai weren’t taken as slaves, because slavers that went into their territory didn’t come back. Or they were chased all the way back to the coast. The Massai had strength, and nobody messed with them. I also trained in Child Psychology, and found that the kids that reacted to bullying were the ones that continued to get picked on. So reacting, unless it’s the kind of reaction that puts them on the ground, is bad. I was thinking about the topic of being a victim in a post apocalyptic world. Victim means one thing in such a place, target and source of food, sex, labor, whatever. The bad motorcyclists (and no, not all bikers are bad, not even the majority) will be lining up to take what you got. Only by standing up for yourselves do you force them to look for an easier target (and there always will be an easier target).

    1. In my personal experience, it was different from the usual descriptions of bullying. Bullies always hung out in groups, and jeered and japed only when in a group. But if you accidentally met one of these bullies alone, they’d just ignore you, or even shrink away from you. So their goal wasn’t to feel superior, it was to fit in with their clique: the cool kids pick on this nerd, so I will too. In this case, it doesn’t matter if the victim reacts to bullying or ignores it — these bullies won’t stop. Ever. They constantly need to prove themselves to their little pathetic club.

    2. In my personal experience, it was different from the usual descriptions of bullying. Bullies always hung out in groups, and jeered and japed only when in a group. But if you accidentally met one of these bullies alone, they’d just ignore you, or even shrink away from you. So their goal wasn’t to feel superior, it was to fit in with their clique: the cool kids pick on this nerd, so I will too. In this case, it doesn’t matter if the victim reacts to bullying or ignores it — these bullies won’t stop. Ever. They constantly need to prove themselves to their little pathetic club.

       1. Good point.

          There needs to be a way to differentiate between “social posturing” type bullying and “direct personal satisfaction” type posturing.

13. I grew up in a family with a major disfunctional element. The sort that, if you had anything at all, well blood was thicker than water, so you must share with them. They, on the other hand, never seemed to have anything much to contribute other than a never ending series of trials and tribulations. As a classic example, my older sister carefully explained to me one day how she and her husband had gone out twice in the past week or so to nice restaurants, you really weren’t living unless you could eat well. In the same breath she asked to borrow a few bucks so the phone company wouldn’t turn their service off.
    I learned the poor poor pitiful me litany early on, as any smidgen of good news or fortune meant a bevy of hands out demanding to share the wealth. Accompanied, of course by detailed explanations of how my good luck was a product of chance or sucking up to someone, not by any means a result of my own efforts or hard work. Come to think of it, this faction of my extended family was ahead of their time. They were doing “you didn’t build that” long before the current doofus coined the phrase.
    Took many years, a lot of introspection, and some very harsh words to divest myself of these folks themselves and the conditioned responses their association had instilled in me. I can now celebrate my good fortunes and take credit for my hard work, both in my own mind and share with people who celebrate and encourage my achievements.

    All said to reinforce the point that victimhood is a pernicious poison that if allowed to develop will permeate your life and set you up for manipulation and abuse. Bless you for speaking up. Needs saying and repeating until the practitioners of such dry up and blow away.

14. Once upon a time Horatio Alger was considered the way to go … you know, rising above your circumstances.

15. The four yorkshiremen sketch springs to mind

    1. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be here playing this over and over, at top volume.

       1. LOL! This is funny. Reminds me of a conversation with a guy who answered my nuclear-power technological-future argument with some stupid bit about how he thought life was better before he had bought into modern consumerism.

          I’m like… You’re a slave? Someone got you chained to that house in the suburbs? Then shut up or put up bozo. Look me up when you’re living your preferred small-town low-impact life and then you can argue against progress.

16. Living in this country is living in a paradise on this earth. It’s not just that we’re safe from so much of the horrible and brutal reality of so many parts of the world, it’s that we’re innocent of it.

    It is a credit to us as a people that hearing of brutal murder and mutilation in Mexico, Africa, the Middle East, (and on…) we are shocked. We are angry and affronted when this occurs, and we decry it. It violates our beliefs. Again, a credit to us.

    Where it happens? The people are sad, often terrified, but not shocked. Atrocity becomes commonplace, and the capacity to feel outrage that ‘someone would dare!’ shrinks. They dare, and worse. In these places people feel pain, and anger; their hearts break and their souls cringe. They are no different than us in their capacity to feel devastation and loss. But they are not surprised. Crushing subjugation and obliteration is not nearly uncommon enough to elicit surprise.

    In our innocence, asses firmly planted in paradise, living in an accommodating culture people want to try and claim victimhood?! They want to publicly bare their laundry and sift for the ugliest piece to hold up in comparison?

    I’m not a fan of the “first-world problems” bit, largely because it’s tossed out to grant the tosser some superiority. But if we can’t understand our own blessings…

    1. Our surprise is also why so much of the world hates us. The one thing that slowly percolated into Iraqi brains (that hadn’t ossified into unreasoning hate) about the time I left was that corruption and oppression weren’t inevitable, and that leaders could be held accountable. It was, to them, an insane notion. It was also one of the reasons that the Iraqi powers that be did not want us there. They were terrified we would rub off on the locals. The realization you don’t have to be a victim is huge. In all oppressed societies there are a lot more oppressed than oppressors, which terrifies those that wish to oppress.

       These people flaunting their victimhood need to see reality. The vast majority wouldn’t survive being made a real victim. They are setting themselves up for painful failure.

       1. From the Powerline blog:
          
          You Can See Why the Taliban Was Confused
          Deep down in today’s Wall Street Journal front-page story about the negotiations for Bowe Bergdahl’s release is this ironic gem:

          As talks were getting under way in 2011, the U.S. negotiating team struggled to explain to the Taliban why Mr. Obama was unable to unilaterally release the Taliban detainees. They would say things like, “What are you talking about? He’s the president,” according to a former U.S. official close to the talks.

          In the spring of 2011, the U.S. negotiating team provided the Taliban with copies of legislation restricting the president’s ability to release detainees unless the administration could certify to Congress 30 days before any transfer that possible dangers have been mitigated.

          “They thought we were tricking them,” said a former official.

          The Taliban negotiating team seemed particularly confused by the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

          Well that would just make these Taliban negotiators perfect appointees for the Obama Administration wouldn’t it, since the Obama Administration is itself deeply “confused” about the separation of powers? I’m guessing the Taliban were only reading the American press on this point, or perhaps took an online course in modern American government from the University of Michigan or somewhere.

          1. Yeah… they thought we were lying when we explained that “free speech” and the Constitution made it impossible for the US to punish blasphemy, too.

             So… we arrested that filmmaker and stuck him in jail.

       2. In the beginning, walking around in An Najaf, Kerbala or Mosul, the expectation was that we were the next group of conquering oppressors. They really couldn’t line our actions up with their expectations and they were frequently — unsettled by us.

          I’m not certain how many American ideas bled into the larger culture, but I saw any number of individuals whose outlook changed.

    2. It is interesting to observe how many of the reactions to Game of Thrones (the TV series) completely misses the author’s point about what was once accepted as commonplace. Complaining about rape, pillage and murder was like complaining about the coming of winter.

       1. Complaining about rape, pillage and murder was like complaining about the coming of winter.

          How many more miss that it still is, in one place and another?

          1. Bad things happened in the Middle Ages, especially in war. (Don’t be in a besieged city that gets conquered.) But Game of Thrones is freaking ridiculous as a portrayal of a prosperous society in the Middle Ages. In a medieval society, you can’t both have lots of money and food to throw around, and be killing and raping everybody, for very long, and particularly in peacetime. Nobody is going to do business with you, and nobody is going to be productive even if they try. Even in war, it’s very possible to run out of things to forage, and then you starve right along with your victims.

             So either you have to be nice to certain segments of society in order to be unremittingly nasty to others (like the tyrants who terrified their nobles and relied on their prosperous peasants and burghers, often setting up free cities and the like); you play everybody against everybody but never let it get so bad that it interrupts productivity; or you have to have somebody shipping you food and money out of the goodness of their hearts.

             Or you’re serving peasant-haunches with burgher sauce and nobility side dishes at your lavish feasts, and will shortly die of rabbit starvation.

             1. And yes, you can get a pretty decent look at crime rates in the Middle Ages in any country or city where they kept records of things like trials or executions. Murders and rapes didn’t really happen that often, in the countryside; and even the cities weren’t necessarily all that bad, compared to modern times. Feuds and bored people with quarrels were a lot of the problem; even most arrogant nobles didn’t just wake up in the morning and decide to try their sword on the first guy they met. Nobles have to eat, too, and dead peasants can’t farm much. (Granted, many Russian nobles never really seemed to grasp that bit, but I think we can blame Russian culture for that.)

             2. GoT occurs at a time when the kingdom has enjoyed nearly two decades of peace and prosperity. Most of the battles have been fairly local in scope, mostly occupying the area around the capital and the center of the kingdom. It is also happening in a fairly short time, so the destructive effects of the anarchy are only beginning to manifest.

                It should be noted that the Hobbesian description of life as applies only to periods when the lack of a strong central government occurs:

                “
                During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.
                – – –
                [In a state of war] No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
                Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. 1651.

                Emphasis added.

    3. We (the white population of the United States) are always accused of the
       “atrocity of slavery), and indeed, there were atrocities committed against slaves in the US. There were also atrocities committed against the native American population. But to put the matter into perspective, I highly recommend reading “The Crime of the Congo”, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Caution – it’s not fiction.

       I know I have ancestors who owned slaves. Almost to a man, they freed them when they died, including my ancestor who was also a Creek war chief who owned both black and native-American slaves. I’m not proud of it, but these people were products of their times and locales, so I don’t condemn them for what they did. Most of my ancestors were too poor – and too proud – to own slaves.

       1. Oh, G-d. King Leopold’s Ghost. Do not read unless you have a strong stomach.

          1. Yeah. It’s down there with “Bloodlands” as far as cheerful history books go.

       2. Good heavens. Slavery was known in every civilization, most barbarian cultures, and even among a few hunters-and-gatherers. The chances of anyone not being a descendent of both slaves and slave-owners are virtually nil.

          (the very word “slave” means “Slav.”)

          1. They never seem to mention that White, Western European culture is the only one that gave it up.

             1. Yes, they really dislike one pointing out it is not whites but Blacks, Arabs/Islamics, and other non-whites who are still practicing slavery.

17. Wonderful sketch.

18. You think you had it tough???
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01f_1314340424

    Luxury, that’s what you lot had.

    1. Serves me right for watching it before posting. I bin victimized by masgramondou’s superior Google-Fu! I require sympathy, I does.

       1. LOL.
          At one point, I think on Free Republic, a group of us pulled this skit, line by line on a Dutch (I THINK) guy telling us how badly people in the US had it, from what he saw in the news there “crime everywhere, everyone is homeless” etc.
          It took till the point of absurd before he realized he was being had.

19. It’s getting to the point that they don’t even want the candy. One cousin posted a “If you see a dog locked in a hot car, call the police.” meme. Two weeks later she posted “If you leave your dog in a hot car, I will break your window and wait for you to come out, my tire iron still in hand.” So I commented, “If you stand beside a car you vandalized and threaten the owner with a lethal weapon, you stand a good chance of proving Darwin’s theory.” She came back with “Well, what would you do?” I replied, “Do what you said two weeks ago and reposted her “Call the police” meme. That got me a “You don’t know me well enough to tell me what I would do; and, a yard of how I was picking on her. Then she unfriended me. Maybe someone else will give her candy. Me- I thank G-D that I found out what she was like before I went to the family reunion. That’s one family member I don’t want to meet. OH- not going to the reunion either, she ain’t the only one in the family.

    1. Wow, they limit it to a hot car? Folks here throw a fit if you leave the kids in the car on a rainy winter day to pay for gas.

       1. Flagstaff Arizona. With the amount of snow they get every winter, you’d think… Guess she didn’t have any memes with snow. Sure has a lot of fantasy fairies on toadstools though.

20. They grow up thinking that everything that goes wrong with them/everytime someone is rude, is racism, sexism, purplism. This prevents their taking a long hard look at what they might be doing wrong to bring about bad results.

    It also makes them more likely to justify committing really horrific actions because their targets are evil– of course they’re evil, they victimized the attacker.

21. I think there are two things worth remembering about past victimhood. The first: “My honored dead survived it – I dare do no worse.”

    The second: Victims often happen because someone was dumb enough to put their trust in princes(or presidents, rulers, or magistrates). Don’t be that dumb. Prepare to negotiate in good faith. Prepare to hold them off/retreat in good order when they prove the psalm once again. And if that don’t work, prepare to show up at the Pearly Gates and/or Valhalla with as big an honor guard of the sorry bastards(bonus points for high ranking ones, a _lot_ of bonus points if you bring along the prince in question) as you can manage.

    1. Insert Kipling’s “The Old Issue”.

22. One day when my daughters are older and close on to getting their MMA black belts, and I’ve got them smoothly operating weapons in a shoot house, I will be teaching them the Creed of the Warrior’s Daughter:

    “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, evil better fear me, for I have enough training, cutlery and firearms to skin an army of ninjas, and I just hit that time of the month…”

    Victim mentality is for those who WANT to be victims.

    1. Queen of Wands by John Ringo (approximately): “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. Because I am the baddest b***h in the valley!”

       1. When I was in the Navy, just before Nam, a lot of guys had engraved on their cigarette lighters- the last line was ‘Because I’m the meanest M…… F…… in the valley’
          Anti-victimization has been around for a long time, I guess.

          1. Santa’s in on the anti-victimization, too. That fat, bearded sucker brought all my kids BB guns for Christmas this year. I highly recommend the Daisy Pink Carbine if you have daughters. Just tell the little ones it’s a Princess rifle.

          2. Do remember why Rod’s sister, in Tunnel in the Sky urged him not to take a gun on his survival test.

             1. Because there’s more in the woods than you can handle even with a gun. Without the firearm, you’re more likely to have sense enough to run or hide.

                1. Yep.

             2. When you are my age, you can’t run as fast, so you take the gun.

       2. This is why Ringo is my favorite author!

    2. And that creed’s followup, as spoken by a warrior’s daughters in the film “Night of the Comet,” where the daughters in question, locating firearms, discover they had only access to Ingram Mac-10s:

       “See, another jam. Daddy would have bought us Uzis.”

       1. My wife, for some reason, didn’t like that movie. I thought it was a classic! I had to ask her if she’s a communist.

23. Intellectual integrity requires I acknowledge that there was a time in my youth when I desired the sympathy and comforting touch of attractive members of the opposite sex and imagined that the intensity of my suffering would grant me that attention.

    I outgrew it, helped in no small part by the writings of Mr. Heinlein and others of his profession.

    When the Daughtorial Unit was young a phrase often heard by Beloved Spouse and myself was “It’s just a phase; she’ll grow out of it.” We noticed that as she grew the phases tended to take longer for her to outgrow them. And one day I realized that there many many semi-adults of our acquaintance who had failed to grow out of certain phases and did not appear likely ever to do so.

    Angsty emo victimihood is one of those phases. Like a bikini or Daisy-Dukes it is a fashion which only the young (and dang few of them) can carry off with any attractiveness. The appropriate response of an adult society is not to offer the little snivelers support but to tell them to suck it up and apply themselves; other people have problems, too, and obsessing over them don’t milk the cow.

    1. Angsty emo victimihood is one of those phases. Like a bikini or Daisy-Dukes it is a fashion which only the young (and dang few of them) can carry off with any attractiveness. The appropriate response of an adult society is not to offer the little snivelers support

       Another feautre of angsty emoness I’ve noticed is that when they’re confronted with real reasons for depression/grief/distress, the emo angster has no idea how to deal with it. They get upset that someone else may have more reason to be unhappy, and cue the “you’re just creating drama!” response, to belittle and marginalize the other person’s problems, so that the other person is ‘taking away’ attention from the emo… To the point that even if someone DID need a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to listen to that the person in actual need doesn’t dare open up and continues to suffer quietly, or simply deal with their own problems…

       Waaaaaaaaitasecond. Isn’t that what the SJWs and the glittery hoo-haas pretty much do all the effing time? Act like ‘tragic’ emo angsting brats? That act like they’re entitled to all the attention in the world?

24. Jemisin’s WisCon GoH speech could’ve easily come from a Philip K. Dick novel. WisCon itself resembles a padded cell with patients bouncing off the walls claiming white men are out to get them and trying to out-victimize each other to occupy the tallest hill of sadness and tears. The sad fact there is that WisCon is the go-to ideology behind every single stupidity you are seeing in SFF.

    Someone should start a hashtag #…SaidTheRacist and then start dumping in retweets of this truly brain-damaged group of brave warriors against oppression.

    My own idea is to start #ReparationsSFWA in order to pressure them to make some kind of formal apology for whites and men and promise all SFWA-eligible venues must do set-asides for the marginalized or suffer the Scalzi boycott. SF must atone for its sins because racism is on the march and we must be vigilant and maybe have air-raid sirens.

    1. The problem is that someone will see this and take it as a good idea instead of sarcasm.

       1. I think it is a good idea. Let us help them.

          1. As it is a widely recognized fact that many SF/F fans are often oblivious to non-explicit elements of non-verbal communication (i.e., clueless) it seems likely that such victims of harsh authority be allotted some form of uniform, in order that their status be more easily identified. Such uniform might be made of silk or satin, expressing the sensitivity of their psyches; it ought perhaps be of a single piece expressing the unity of their tormented souls with the universe. To represent the sensitivity of their feelings they might be given over-sized floppy shoes in order that their toes not be inadvertently stepped on.

             Their outfits should have large, soft floppy collars, indicating the schism between mind and body which afflicts them as a result of their harsh treatment. They should wear colorful gloves to convey their desperate need for human contact. The buttons on their outfits ought be large, representing their need for connection, yet soft (I’m thinking pom-poms here) as acknowledgement of the inability to attain such interaction in an insensitive world.

             In order that they not be judged by coarse appearance, they should be granted make-up, perhaps a base of even white greasepaint symbolizing the purity of their desires, with a large bright smile painted on to represent the hypocrisy of how most people approach them. Because hair is frequently a tool of oppressive judgmentalism I recommend they wear wigs, perhaps employing colorful yarn mocking that superficial judgment.

             All of this would more easily aid the insensitive amongst our community to recognise such victimy victims and treat them with the respect they are due.

             1. “…treat them with the respect they are due.”

                You mean running away from them screaming like little girls? Of course, this might actually make coulrophobia understandable, maybe even respectable…

                1. I think more like sneering at them in condescension, and answering every one of their hyperventilating accusations with, “Heh. Wuss.”

                2. Personally, I’m in favor of a hard slap across the face that makes their ears ring and drops them to their knees, followed by, “Look, I don’t have time to reprogram you gently for success in a world filled with people who are ACTUALLY cruel and nasty. I mean you no harm, but your petty arguments with history are not my problem. Now get up and work for what you eat.”

                   1. Traditionally people in such costume were saluted by striking them lightly with an inflated sheep’s bladder or, alternatively, a bataccio.

                   2. It makes you wonder how these folks manage to not be eaten alive in the world.

             2. From Alice Cooper’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare, the song, The Congregation (voice of Rob Zombie) [The Guide]:

                Ah, as you can see over here the broken glass chamber are the boys from wall street. Let’s here it for the boys. And here in the eternal mariachi room for the defrocked priest and telemarketers. And the totally fiery pit of boiling death the lawyers, pimps and mimes…

             3. Let’s just hope they haven’t seen Goodfellas.

    2. Maybe they could combine Wiscon with the White privilege conference:

       1. She also said that white people fighting oppression is akin to alcoholic trying to resist the temptation to drink. The dark sickness of racism is at the heart of all the actions of white people.

          “Being a white person who does anti-racist work is like being an alcoholic,” she said. “I will never be recovered by my alcoholism, to use the metaphor. I have to everyday wake up and acknowledge that I am so deeply embedded with racist thoughts and notions and actions in my body that I have to choose everyday to do anti-racist work and think in an anti-racist way.”

          – Kim Radersma, a former high school English teacher and current activist.
          Found here.

          Aside from the disgust and irritation immediately sparked by such idiocy, I can’t help but feel sadness. She’s so desperate to fit in, to belong, to be liked. And all she’s going to get is mockery from all sides.

          And deserve it.

          Fool.

       2. Maybe as a response to the White Privilege Con, we should start an annual “Peace Through Superior Firepower Con.” We could get Adam Baldwin to reprise his role as John Casey to lead us in a salute to the Gipper. Gift bags of .22LR would be raffled off to attendees and we could get COL Allen West to come give us a discussion on how arming and educating minorities benefits society.

          1. I think we’d have to fold that program into the Hun-Con, else we’ll have too many cons to juggle.

             As it is — Hun-Con could be the One Con.

             There is no evil laughter, and these aren’t the subversives you’re looking for.

             1. One Con to rule them all . . .

                1. Ack. Beaten to the punch. I should hit refresh more often.

                   1. One con to rule them all and in their dorkness bind them.

                      1. YES!

             2. One Con to rule them all?

                1. *Innocent face*

                2. Hold it in Dallas!! Ain’t no finer place (with the exception of Lulungomeena)!

                   1. Lulungomeena For The Win!!!

                      (And don’t question that alien’s honesty, or he’ll rip your face off)

                      1. I think his short stories are Dickson’s best work.

             3. Wait and see, my friend. Wait and see.

          2. I like it!

25. I am a Viking-American. Everywhere I turn, my cultural values — rape, pillage, and murder — are under attack from bigoted elements of society. The value of my contributions to civilization (howdy, all you red-haired Irish lasses!) has been marginalized and deprecated. I want to know when my culture will receive the respect it deserves.

    (In all seriousness, I dearly wish that I had thought of creating a Viking-American club when I had been in high-school/college. The screams of outrage would have been delicious)

    1. red-haired Irish lasses

       Actually red hair is a trait that came from the Celts. However the spread of most of the red-headed folk are either Irish or Scandinavian from the time when the Vikings ruled Ireland and took many Irish as wives.

       I am a Viking-American.

       Me too. The real trait we vikings gave to the world is blue eyes. The only folks who ever had blue eyes (a recessive gene causes it) are people from Scandinavia..

26. “… When he repeated it to my son, who was then one and a half, I answered “Yes, dad, but Rome has fallen, the legion is no more, and I think he’s a tad bit young for it.” Dad looked confused.”

    Wait, whut? Rome has fallen? No one tells me anything.

    1. It’s OK, there’s a guy named ‘Putin’ who is trying to sell a reboot, though in slightly colder climes.

       1. When he claims “Czar” as a title, call me. ** mimes phone to ear with hand **

    2. well… uh… mostly.

    3. Well, there were some Greeks who called themselves Romans for about 1000 after, and some Germans who had a so-called “Holy Roman Empire”.

       1. Poseurs

    4. Good Lord, man. It took the better part of 700 years. Do try and pay attention.

27. Let’s help get Sunil Patel’s career off the ground. The more editors who read his deep victim/diversity thoughts, the more they can throw his submissions straight into the garbage. These are before and after Nebula Awards weekend, and Patel was a panelist.

    “how many of you refuse to watch/read something if it’s about Yet Another Straight White Man?” – Sunil Patel

    “Not a single white man won an award tonight. OPPRESSION.” – Sunil Patel

    Yes, odd that not a single white man won an award. Gee, how did that happen I wonder? And why would anyone gloat over that? Gee, what kind of person might do that? Let me see…

28. This article.
    All. Freya’s. Day. LONG!

    1. All live long long day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkwiQmGWK4c
       (One of my cats talks. He’s one of the most neurotic beings alive and in the middle of the night he stands in the hallway outside my bedroom and goes “oh, no, oh no, oh, no.” Until I scream.

       1. No wonder you dream about rafts of squirrels.

       2. HAIRBALL AHOY!!!!

29. If you think of yourself as a victim, that places the burden of change on everyone but you. On the other hand, your behavior is the only one you can control.

30. Pingback: The Infinite Brat | John C. Wright's Journal

31. re “my ancestors” — this really jabs my buttons —

    My ancestors were awesome kick-butt go-and-do-it achievers. My ancestors (3 of them) came on the first Dutch trade mission to settle New Amsterdam. They farmed up the Hudson a ways, until the governor decided he just couldn’t protect the settlers from the Indian attacks, and pulled them back to New Amsterdam. They started over, adapted, and overcame.

    A hundred years later, my ancestors moved into what’s now Ohio and Indiana. Clearing the virgin forest to farm and subsist. Barring the door at night against the wolves, bears, and cougars in the neighborhood. They were so poor, they ate dirt pie. (OK, I made that last one up.)

    My ancestors fought against the British to get this country started. My 5th-great grandfather’s grave is still decorated as a Revolutionary Veteran in a tiny cemetery in rural eastern Indiana. I wonder whether I could be so brave in so risky a proposition.

    My ancestors were poor people and religious minorities, living on the margins for the 350 years before my parents were born, but they were not oppressed or downtrodden or any kind of victim. They were awesome. My life is very different from theirs; the suffering the devil has heaped upon me and mine is different from what they suffered, but as I suffer, I try to remember to spit in the devil’s eye and to keep fighting — not to let the bastard have the satisfaction of making me into a victim. To give honor to my ancestors.

    1. Let’s face it; these “who’s the bigger victim” competitions are just “dick-wagging” contests among the dickless.

    2. Ancestors? Let me tell you about your (plural) ancestors. Pace Stephenson:
       Like every other creature on the face of the earth, you are, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that you can trace your ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo-which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time.

       Everyone and everything that isn’t a stupendous badass is dead.

       My addition: act like it.

32. “Learn that every human who ever lived had some issue or other and some circumstance in which he or she was treated unfairly. That’s just how life is. You were born into a big wide world, not a bubble room.”

    The most important words, and words to live by. History tells us that most, if not all, countries grew from spilled blood. Violence and strong opinion will never disappear, so manage it the best you can.

    I know there are people who get off on pity. I don’t understand it. I suppose it is easier to get attention that way, and maybe that’s why, and living comfortably in a first world country makes this oh so easy.

    1. Woelf! I’m thinking maybe I should start hanging out with you and everyone else here, and ditch Twitter. That place has become tedious. This is far more interesting.

       1. You should. They use logic and reason here. Not very many places have that combination.

          1. What a concept. I’m sold!

             1. Ha! This is gonna rock!

                1. Also, far as I know, Fail Burton isn’t on Twitter, but he’s here, and he makes the Internet worthwhile.

                   1. I’ve seen his comments, and yeah, he does his homework. Nothing like a good set of facts to support an argument.

                      1. Did you see his WisCon fanfic over on Larry’s blog? Epic stuff. Needs to be bound and printed.

                         1. I don’t know. Which one was that?

                            1. It’s pretty far down in the comments—this link should drop you on target. Keep scrolling, it gets better. http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/05/08/operation-pouty-face/#comment-63304

                            2. That was priceless. He should send it too Kindle Shorts and call it “The Exorcism of Aurora Areola” or “911: What’s Your Phobia?”

                            3. yep

                            4. I call it the Wiscon 911 Tapes.

                            5. I prefer this, too.

                            6. Someone should do it as a two-person act at a con. It’d leave them rolling in the aisles.

                            7. The Caller sounds a lot like a certain fishy disease-nicknamed troll we had around… I can’t stop laughing!

                            8. I think I wasn’t yet here when that happened.

                      2. Insane radical feminists don’t like Fail’s homework, because mostly it’s their own heavily medicated words. In Jemisin’s WisCon speech, the word “strangled” startlingly actually meant showered with awards and book publishing contracts from the get-go for her and Samuel Delany. I can think of many authors who’d like to have their careers “strangled” by Nebula nominations. Well, not now because now it’s really shitty work by creepy KKK feminists that’s just an eff you to the white man, but I’m just sayin’…

                         If that’s what “strangled” means, should we change the famous old serial killer’s name to “The Boston Award-Giver”? How about “The Boston Career-Kickstarter?”

                         Are we then surprised a bunch of racists think they’re anti-racists? Who knows what the hell they’re saying? Their logic folds back on itself like a Möbius pretzel.

                         I have a name – “Bi-PolarCon.”

                         Fail doesn’t like the PC. They are as arrogant as little pigs in a tuxedo.

                         1. The thing is, we all have our own demons, personal challenges that we battle with, and to be lumped into some category because of the color of my skin, gender, sexual orientation or whatever other emerging category, is insulting and ignores my individuality. If you’re gonna divide people and justify it based on history, you’re just sowing the seeds for more resentment and so the cycle continues.

                            From experience I’ve found that we’re our own worst enemy when it comes to finding success. Insisting on a trigger-free environment is not possible or very practical.

                         2. The Wiscon 911 Tapes need to be collected somewhere and either published or put online as a serial. XD

                   2. He’s on twitter. or at least he reads there.

                      1. Fail is on Twitter – but on the other side, to nudge them in proper directions. The PC love compassionate Fail there.

                         1. interestink. And why the third person, oh, evil villain much?

                            1. More like a multi-cellular Algonquin love-trap.

                      2. Couldn’t find an account when I was searching a few days ago, but I searched again and discovered he’s just been unmasked in the last few days by the glittery hoo-ha crowd on Twitter, clever little devils that they are. They’ve also provided links in their Tweets to demonstrate the extent of his dastardly evilnesssss, all of which I am enjoying immensely.

                         1. Keep diggin’ brother, really diggin’, and you’ll find they were sent there by an almost never used Twitter account. Trust me, these morons are being pranked in ways they can’t even imagine. Think giant schools of little fish that dart this way and that as one body when a shark comes by and the shark pulling puppet strings. When you want spoiled little brats to look at something they don’t want to, promote something they don’t want to, tell them they can’t, and imply it’s all a really, really important big secret. Then, slowly introduce names into their consciousness. On one occasion we pulled the site and replaced it with stuff to sell at the height of the witchhunt and put it back in 24 hours. The PC never noticed, or else thought someone ran and hid. Cash registers chi-chinged.

                            This is what a drunken Algonquin of pranksters does. These people are nothing but sick witchhunting pricks – I enjoy watching Correia take them to the cleaners, which is easy for him to do since their accusations against him are completely empty. Where’s all the quotes? No where. What they got instead constitute libel and defamation, their usual soup de jour. Happy hunting hoo-ha’s. Fail has more misdirection, disinformation and sites to visit that want visiting but must not be. Hahaha.

                            1. You’re so tricksie. Their cry of, “Ha-ha! We’ve unmasked the bastard!” really gave me a fit of well-needed laughter. Keep snarking the good snark, sir. I’ll make popcorn.

                         2. …Share? Please? I don’t have popcorn but I do have pancakes, and my breakfast needs something funny to read with XD

          2. Woelf is right, our main tool in dispelling ignorance is evidence and logic.

             Uhm, our two main tools in dispelling ignorance are evidence, logic and reason.

             Three, our THREE main tools in dispelling ignorance are evidence, logic, reason and Monty Python references.

             Our FOUR main tools in dispelling ignorance are Monty Python references, evidence, logic, reason, and Kipling quotes.

             1. Kipling sold it for me. I refer here to the poem you linked two or so blog posts ago.

             2. Monty Python references, evidence, Logic, reason, flung carp, and a fanatical devotion to Kipling.
                Do you need to come in again?

33. Jeebers Sarah, let it go. Seriously. We stopped calling the Portuguese “our illiterate inbred cousins” CENTURIES ago…

    1. But we haven’t stopped calling Spaniards “those bloodthirsty dumb bastards. yet.” 😉

       1. Aw, c’mon now — be fair! Spaniards haven’t been bloodthirsty since Franco.

          1. Is he still dead?? Ducking carp!

       2. What’s the deal with the word “pau” in Portuguese. I know it’s the name of a Spanish NBA player, Pau Gasol, and there’s a village in Spain named that. But in Brazilian Portuguese it’s a vulgar slang term. If you say “Pão de Açúcar” (Sugarloaf) in Brazil and fail to nasalize the first word they’ll jokingly say “careful.” Is it the loaf?

          Would it be like if “loaf” were a vulgar slang in America and not England? Does “pau” even mean anything in Spanish?

          1. Pau and pao are not the same word. Pao with tilda is bread. Pau is wood. the slang is the same as in the States. One Brasilian joke goes “Portuguese have all these names “Macieira” (apple tree) “Pereira” (pear tree) Castanheira (chestnut tree) — Portuguese men are made of wood.” Took me till my late teens to understand WHY that was a joke.
             There is no comparable slang for “loaf” as in English, so I think the issue is that you’re conflating pau- wood and pao – bread.

             1. So is March of the Wooden Soldiers funny?

                1. It WOULD be.

                   1. What about Woody Woodpecker. Is that outright banned in Portugal? What’s his name in Portuguese? Let me guess: “Porra Porrada.”

                      1. No. strangely, no issues with Woody Woodpecker — I can’t remember his name in Portuguese but weirdly picapau (woodpecker) is not scatological.

                         1. “Picapau”? Sounds like a pretty straightforward case of vulgarity to me.

                            1. Sounds like a pretty good name for a male brothel.

                            2. Given the tenor of characters she gets, Sarah takes notes.

          2. And yep the two words are virtually indistinguishable to people who didn’t grow up in Portuguese. The other is the difference between pilha (lh sound, more dental than in silhouette) and pila. the first is a battery. The second is the slang remnant of a legionnaire’s dirty joke.

             1. Mind where you stick yer spear, Legionnaire.

                1. Wait, whut? I think I need more coffee.

       3. Touche.

34. A boot up the behind (in a rising vector) indeed! Great post, as always. Love your snark.

35. OT, apropos of absolutely nothing, referencing nothing having any relationship to anything related to the possibility of the topic:

    I just finished watching Lone Survivor and my head is roiling.

    That is all.

    1. I’ve been too buried in stuff to pay attention to films lately; is your reaction a good thing or a bad one? Should I be making time or avoiding the theater at all costs?

       1. It’s out of the theater, probably on DVD, I just watched it on demand.

          Hm. Complex. I’d say make time, assuredly, but — prep the headspace.

36. People who claim that telling a kid to “suck it up, and quit your blubbering”, is abuse, drive me crazy. Maybe it’s my raising, but after you get out of diapers I don’t expect to here any crying unless it is going to involve a trip to the hospital, and that crying should taper off by the time you’re a teen.
    To me it is absolutely no surprise that no one has any respect for Boehner, what is surprising is how he managed to get into a leadership position when he spends so much time bawling like a baby.

    1. When I was growing up, the message to us kids was “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Self-pity was considered disgusting.
       Also, don’t whine, don’t ask for charity, and for crying out loud, have a little pride!
       None of those values seem to be fashionable anymore. It’s all make a FB page and go waaah, waah, look at me, give me money so I’ll stop crying.
       Annoying.

37. What I mean here is that everyone is going “But I/my ancestors are more victims than you/your ancestors and everyone should recognize that.

    Not my ancestors. They were Vikings. My grandfather was a stereotype of a Viking. Over 6 feet and muscular. He once sailed from Narvik Norway to Stockholm Sweden in an open boat to deliver a load of fish for the family fish cannery.

    Look, guys, we’re geeks. If you weren’t laughed at/teased/beaten in elementary school, you’re geeking wrong.

    Yep, up until second grade when I attacked the two primary bullies, and beat them up. Both were bigger than me.

    At a different middle school (we moved a lot), another idiot tried the same thing. That fight took place in the school yard. The principal brought us both in, and were told that we couldn’t fight on school grounds. If we wanted to fight, then we should take it off the school yard. That was the extent of our “punishment.””.

    1. Did the “bully” try again outside of the school yard?

       1. Nope. That was the end of his bullying me.

          1. Bullies really don’t like it when a “victim” fights back … a person could get hurt that way!

38. Reblogged this on The Worlds of Tarien Cole and commented:
    Love the bit about if you weren’t laughed at/teased/beaten in school, you were geeking wrong. So true. Especially when you’re a small boy who is the son of the most physically intimidating police officer on a small town’s force.

39. Pingback: The Human Face of Self-Appointed Victimhood « Yard Sale of the Mind

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