Not Your Shield- Rhiain

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Not Your Shield
By Rhiain

K. Tempest Bradford of “The Social Justice Warrior Racist Reading Challenge” fame is at it again. On her Facebook wall, she posted the following a couple days ago (no, you don’t have to follow the link). Her original words are in italics, and my responses are in bold.

Here’s a thing: I need people to stop responding to this Sad Puppies/Hugo thing with “well, if you want to change things, you should have voted.”

Because complaints that the Hugos were dominated and manipulated by a small clique of people are exactly why campaigns like Sad Puppies were born. It’s called a “taste of your own medicine.”

First: F*** you.

You’re not my type.

Second: Has you’re a** been paying attention to the conversations in this community for the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years on this topic? because, if you haven’t, I invite you to shut your d*** mouth.

No and no. Invitation declined. Make me – perhaps by learning to build an argument on something other than victimhood.

And in the past few years more and more people who care about diversity in SFF have been making an effort to join the WorldCon voting ranks.

Your voting numbers laugh at your own efforts, then.

THIS IS WHY SAD PUPPIES EXISTS. Not because some people just happened to decide, but because the mostly white mostly male contingent of whiny a**holes saw that there was a shift happening toward a more diverse Hugo slate and away from their ilk and decided to work against it. And bring in people fro outside of the community to help them.

If you don’t f***ing know this then you should keep your opinions in your head.

I don’t f-ing know this, and again, I can be as publicly opinionated as you seem to enjoy being.

But again, the mostly white mostly men who are involved in Sad Puppies and the mostly white, mostly men brought in from gamer gate have money to spare (this is often a result of said whiteness and maleness). For them $50 is no big deal. For others it is not.

A) Nobody involved in GamerGate really knew about SP3…until you opened your mouth about it.
B) I thought a supporting membership cost $40? And this non-white chica was happy to shell out moulah for one. So all this ranting just to say you can’t afford to pay for one?

So f***ing cut it out acting like ‘Oh, you can just vote’. It’s not that simple.”

Yes, it is that simple. This non-white chica will be happy to rub that in your face for as long as it takes. Your multicultural diversity schtick bores me, is completely without reason, and is annoying the hell out of me with all the overemotional and oversentimental tripe thrown in. You call this a justification for the current status quo of the Hugos as recently as last year? The more you whine about your lack of privilege in this arena, the more other non-white people who refuse to be classified as such are going to start speaking up to make you look like an utter fool.

This is a class issue, a race issue, a gender issue.

This middle-class, Samoan female says this is only in your imagination, and only because you keep hammering on this point like there’s no tomorrow. You know what’s interesting about a hammer? It’s actually two tools in one – one to put the nail in, and one to take the nail out. You’re just pissed because other people are able to take that hammer away from you and use it to remove the nails you keep trying to put in. I’m a patient woman, and I’m willing to learn how to use tools for everything they’re intended for .

And I know some of you have a hard time with that concept. I don’t care. You’ve had plenty of time to figure it out. I’m real tired of your inability to understand these things.

Oh, I understand these things perfectly, but I refuse your attempts to maintain this as the overall narrative. No. You have not yet begun to see pushback on your lazy, self-absorbed whining.

Do you hear me, Tempest?

YOUR. NARRATIVE. IS. BROKEN.

And so help me God, people like me are going to break it into irrecoverable pieces.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I want to add something: I despise the hypocrisy on full display in this post. Here’s a non-white woman who grew up with more privilege than I did complaining about the lack of diversity in the Hugo Award nominations, and trying her best to persuade fellow scifi fans that promoting a more diverse platform in the name of equality should be done by excluding certain people because of their skin color and sex.

I’ve been more vocal about this nonsense in recent weeks because I’m non-white, female, and technically speaking, someone whom Ms. Bradford would count on as an ally based on appearance alone. But you’re not going to find me whining about what I haven’t yet earned. I don’t disparage or belittle the contributions of white guys to society based on their looks. The qualities of a person aren’t just skin deep, and I will say that to anyone who keeps repeating this tripe and make him or her eat his or her words.

This is not going to be first or last time that I repeat this, but be warned, SJWs: I’m not staying quiet on this any longer. And you sure as hell don’t speak for me.

483 thoughts on “Not Your Shield- Rhiain”

  2. I have never met either of these two people. Rhiain, is a formidable lady who is ready to tan the spoiled brat’s backside which I understand Samoans did not do ordinarily. K. Tempest Bradford had best pull her horns in and get off her special high horse because making a Samoan angry is about as smart as sticking your reproductive organs into a meat grinder.

    1. I love the smell of burning social justice in the morning. It smells like victory. 😉

    2. Liberals are great at finding places to stick their organs. They seem to invariably choose places like meat grinders, salad shooters, wasp nests, and ham slicers. If I ever lose the ability to locate open, moving gear boxes, I’m going to have a liberal family member wander around my shop, blindfolded and pantsless.

      “I have ONE job on this ship! It’s stupid, but I’m going to do it!”

        1. So do I.

          A friend told The Spouse and I that we just had to watch it. Oh my am I glad that we paid attention to the recommendation.

          1. I saw the trailer, said “this is about my people”, watched it, and loved how it both pokes fun at us while still not belittling us really.

            One hole in my DVD collection is that I don’t have it.

            Yet. 😀

          1. Which is *stupidly* affecting for a spoof of an anvialistic space show with BBC- quality F/X.

            “But inside I have seen many rooms…”

            (Shut up. I’m not crying. You’re crying.)

          3. Voted the 7th best Star Trek film as I recall. Lots of fans include it as part of the franchise.

            1. Can’t remember if I saw it in theater, or on DVD, but laughed until fell down, rolled on floor. If anything, it provided proof that the original Star Trek veterans were very, very, very good sports about being ribbed so thoroughly.

              I used to go regularly to the one Con that I could afford – in Salt Lake City. Yes, there is a deep and abiding pool of weirdness in STL. I’ll always remember the automated tribble, and the guy from Provo-Orem who came always as a Klingon. Never knew what he looked like, for real, until the one time he flummoxed us all and came as a Starfleet officer.

              There was one occasion where he and five of his friends drove up from Provo-Orem to participate in the Ogden Starship Halloween project to go distribute candy to the children’s wards at a local hospital. (The kiddies were too sick to go trickertreating, so … reverse thrusters). I’ve always wondered how many drivers on the I-15 that day looked into their review-mirror, saw they were being overtaken by a minivan full of Klingons and damned-near went off the road in consequence.

              1. That’s funny because I live just south of the Provo-Orem area. I need to start going to cons again.

          4. I’m not sure which exchange is my favorite:
            .
            Guy Fleegman: Yeah, but that’s when I thought I was the crewman that stays on the ship, and something is up there, and it kills me. But now I’m thinking I’m the guy who gets killed by some monster five minutes after we land on the planet.

            Jason Nesmith: You’re not gonna die on the planet, Guy.

            Guy Fleegman: I’m not? Then what’s my last name?

            Jason Nesmith: It’s, uh, uh – -I don’t know.

            Guy Fleegman: Nobody knows. Do you know why? Because my character isn’t important enough for a last name, because I’m gonna die five minutes in.
            .
            or…
            .
            Gwen DeMarco: What is this thing? I mean, it serves no useful purpose for there to be a bunch of chompy, crushy things in the middle of a hallway. No, I mean we shouldn’t have to do this, it makes no logical sense, why is it here?

            Jason Nesmith: ‘Cause it’s on the television show.

            Gwen DeMarco: Well forget it! I’m not doing it! This episode was badly written!

              1. One of my favorites is in the deleted scenes, in which Tech-Sgt Chen first meets the members of the reactor staff and answers their question.

                What do ya think?

                True command presence — He’s got it.

                  1. One of the best (or worst, depending on where you’re standing) questions to ask during an oral test is “Are you sure?”

                2. Weirdness. Spotted Backstom’s Rainn Wilson as Lahnk, the first Thermian to ask Tech Sgt. Chen a question.

  3. Her stupid racist argument seems to derail itself by copious use of profanity that totally upsets any rhythm in her writing.

    But, even if she did take those out, her racism and lying and blame-shifting and lack of coherent reasoning pretty much just reduces her garble to, well, nonsensical mouth-spew.

    1. That was no argument — “a reason or set of reasons given with the aim of persuading others that an action or idea is right or wrong.” — that was a tantrum.

            1. I HATE when that happens! So very very many movie clips to illustrate my points and none of them available to link.

              Arguments, arguments, every where,
              And all the boards did shrink;
              Arguments, arguments, every where,
              Nor any scene to link.

  5. All this constant blather about race and gender might as well be Chinese to me. I was raised on the notion that it was the content of your character and not the color of your skin that mattered. It was like the air I breathed. It wasn’t until the 5th grade when my Mexican, black, east asian friends and I were informed in school that the whites, blacks, Mexicans, and east asians hated each other. Before that we didn’t even realize there WAS a problem. We were all just, … friends, kids who played and went to school together.

    Ever since then I’ve been told more and more that I am the problem, that I am hateful and wrong, that I am the poison that is ruining the world. At first it was hinted at, but in the last few crazy years a growing number of people who hate people like me, hate what I believe, even hate their own culture, keep screaming it from the roof tops. I’ve tried having reasoned debate. I’ve tried using logic and being patient. That tact has gotten I and those like me nowhere. It just seems to wind them up even more.

    Enough. I’m done debating these people, either in real life or on the net. We will roll over them, plow through them. They will squeal like stuck pigs, then they will beg, but they must be ignored. The culture war is not a one way street. History is not mapped out in advanced. Your nightmarish utopia is not inevitable. Finally, finally, you have awoken a giant and filled it with a terrible anger.

    Now, go to bed.

    1. Anent your first paragraph, from the NY Post yesterday:
      Shows like ‘Black-ish’ perpetuate racist stereotypes
      By Andrea Peyser
      [SNIP]
      … read a petition posted on Change.org urging ABC to cancel “Black-ish.’’

      “We find it racist, socially damaging and offensive based on the concept that nonstereotypical black people are less their race than others, that hip hop culture is all blacks are supposed to embrace, and that culture and race are one and the same,’’ the petition reads.

      Or, ask my kid.

      When she attended a private school in Brooklyn, my daughter’s best friend was a black girl. I don’t think that my child, who is white, even noticed the superficial racial differences between her and her pal. That is, until the day that her fourth-grade teacher, a white man, lectured the inseparable girls, in earshot of their parents, telling them that they must never forget that their skins are of different hues.

      I think that he meant well. But as I watched, an expression of utter bewilderment overtook my daughter’s face as her innocence was stripped away.

      1. Teachers like that are a solid reason why this largely horseless society still needs horsewhips. In your place would have had him up against a wall with my fist grasping his collar so fast it would have made his pointed little head spin, and I would have demanded that the headmaster (or whatever) fire his bigoted, stupid ass.

      2. From “South Pacific”

        You’ve got to be taught
        To hate and fear,
        You’ve got to be taught
        From year to year,
        It’s got to be drummed
        In your dear little ear
        You’ve got to be carefully taught.

        You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
        Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
        And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
        You’ve got to be carefully taught.

        You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
        Before you are six or seven or eight,
        To hate all the people your relatives hate,
        You’ve got to be carefully taught!

        —————————–

        There’s people out there who DON’T want the hate to stop – because if it did they’d be out of a job.

        1. The Mother-Lodge

          We ‘adn’t good regalia,
          An’ our Lodge was old an’ bare,
          But we knew the Ancient Landmarks,
          An’ we kep’ ’em to a hair;
          An’ lookin’ on it backwards
          It often strikes me thus,
          There ain’t such things as infidels,
          Excep’, per’aps, it’s us.

          For monthly, after Labour,
          We’d all sit down and smoke
          (We dursn’t give no banquits,
          Lest a Brother’s caste were broke),
          An’ man on man got talkin’
          Religion an’ the rest,
          An’ every man comparin’
          Of the God ‘e knew the best.

      3. Yeah, then I’d have stepped up and opened my mouth and something else would have been stripped.

        Assholes like that are why we can’t have nice things.

    2. You might tell them, “I’m sorry you feel that way. You might want to have someone look at that.”

  6. I’ve made my decision to send in my $40, after hearing one too many people attack the Sad Puppies for being racist, misogynist, and manipulative. Well freep ’em and the weasels they rode in on.
    In the mean time, good authors are cranking out good writing, so I’ve got REVIEWS TO DO!!
    Last night, I posted my review of “The Long Way Home,” by MGC fan Sabrina Chase, and this morning, I posted my review of “Knights in Tarnished Armor”, by MGC member Kate Paulk. They are on my blog, and on Amazon as well.

    2. Just paid for my membership– and yes, I will be reviewing too. In fact I was blocked by Tempest yesterday for letting her know that my money (that of a white woman) spent as well as hers *and* my reviews would carry as much weight as hers regardless of my skin color. I bet that made her seethe.

    3. I sent in my $40 too. I figure the least I can do is counter one of these “No Award” votes.
      .
      I hope Sasquon appreciates all this revenue the Sad Puppies are sending their way.

  7. Notice the stereotyping: WHITE=RICH, NOT WHITE=POOR.

    Like the miserable souls who insist that Affirmative Action is needed because of the wretched inner-city schools and ignore that most of the beneficiaries are middle-class, if not upper middle-class.

    2. They aren’t ignoring it. The beneficiaries are “people like them”. The beneficiaries are SUPPOSED to be “people like them”. Affirmative Action is intended to benefit people, of whatever skin color, who are able and willing to play the Progressive game.

    3. Mary, those inner city schools are run by which administrators, taught by which teachers, in cities run by which party? And aren’t actually teaching and pupils aren’t learning?

      1. You should hear the screeches when someone calls a union teacher on the fact the union is not in existence “for the children” and they are called on using kids as human shields for their incompetence and laziness…..

        The union leaders and their political enablers are the loudest….

  8. Mary, given that many of the same people ultimately responsible, directly and indirectly, for inner city schools being the toilets are also those calling for AA, ignoring the dirty little details like that should hardly be surprising.

    1. Ugh. That was supposed to be “being toilets”, not “being the toilets”. Stupid fingers getting ahead of my brain. 😛

      1. In the back of your head, you were probably thinking of the alternate wording of, “being the toilets they are”, and your fingers listened to the wrong part of your brain.

        That’s the kind of excuse I usually give, anyway.

  9. Yeah, Im going to to fork over my $40 this week, if only to counteract at least one of the crybabies.

    And who the hell is this K Teapot Bratwurst? A quick look on Amazon co.uk only shows 1 result in an anthology. Total nonentity, must be all this oppression I keep hearing about. After all, cant be anything to do with a lack of talent. Can it?

  10. But…but…but…Ms Bradford employed obscenities and invectives, so her argument must be powerful!!!

    Not! Not one substantive argument to support her position.

      1. John C. Wright may be nonplussed, and for good reason.

        I am thoroughly amused. Thank you oh so very much.

    2. If obscenities and invective means powerful arguments, my arguments can create or destroy worlds.

      1. When I went to school such words were the basis of a George Carlin routine. They were not accepted in essays. Teachers and adults with cooler minds would point out that to resort to the usage to raise the impact of your arguments generally indicated that your argument lacked punch of their own.

        1. In standard English, sure. But in Low Blueshirt, they mean that one is serious about what one is saying. You can’t rely on tone or volume for emphasis because the noise from operating machinery can mask both.

        2. When I was in (private conservative) high school we put on PIPPIN one year. Now there is a line in the play where Charlemagne says, of his gorgeous bitch of a wife, “Sometimes I wonder if the fucking I’m getting is worth the fucking I’m getting.” At least that’s how it is in the broadway recording.

          But we were going to be playing to an audience including a lot of grandmothers. The “Fuck”s had to go.

          Our version? “Sometimes I wonder if the fornicating I’m getting is worth the fornicating I’m getting.”

          Now, mark me down as peculiar, but I think that’s funnier.

          Ever since, it has been my personal belief that a little bit of censorship – of vulgarity, not ideas – is a good thing. It makes people get creative.

          1. In art disciplines are useful, it spurs creativity to, for example, paint a beach scene without using the color blue. But when the goal is to communicate simple is always better.

              1. It means nothing. Those words do make a point but only when hardly ever used. But when they are used as just space fillers like now who knows whether the speaker/writer is angry or bored or maybe just somebody who talks/writes like that all the time, as so many now do.

                So now they mean nothing.

                1. I was going to argue that they suggest something about the person…but then I realized I couldn’t summarize what they meant, I could only point to what their absence suggested.

                  So, yeah, you’re right.

    3. I have seen more effective invective without the obscenity. Her expletive was rather pathetic and her grasp of the pejorative seems shaky.

      1. Deliciously put.

        We have a language which is multicultural. Why does Ms.B. restrict herself to a very limited number of Anglo-Saxon terms?

  11. “Second: Has you’re a** been paying attention to the conversations in this community for the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years on this topic? because, if you haven’t, I invite you to shut your d*** mouth.”

    You know this might almost make sense*, if we were nominating stories from back then. But since all the nominated stories are published in the last year I don’t care if you were born 20 years ago, much less paying attention to “the community.”

    And personally I use the other end of my torso to both read and converse with.

    *Not really, because the Hugos are supposed to be about the stories, not “conversations in the community”, but it comes closer than the rest of her tripe.

    1. Thing is… If you’ve been paying attention like she says you know just how much of a fantasy they’re fighting against. The problem is that people HAVE paid attention for that long and know very well that they are lying.

    2. I suspect the language is an attempt to “sound ghetto,” to affect authenticity and “roots in the ‘hood.” Which is in part why she pulls it off so badly — it isn’t authentic with her.

      It is a shame she doesn’t have a father like Deion Sanders, willing to call her on her pretensions:

      On Thursday morning, Deion Sanders Jr., a sophomore wide receiver at SMU, tweeted this out to his nearly 65,000 followers:

      Deion Sanders Jr ✔ @DeionSandersJr
      Gotta get the hood doughnuts almost every morning. If my doughnuts don’t come in a plain white box, I don’t want them!
      10:32 AM – 2 Apr 2015

      His dad, NFL great Deion Sanders Sr., saw this tweet, and quickly came in to shame his son.

      Deion Sanders ✔ @DeionSanders
      @DeionSandersJr you’re a Huxtable with a million $ trust fund stop the hood stuff! Lololol. Son. #Truth
      10:49 AM – 2 Apr 2015
      http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/deion-sanders-sr-shames-his-son-on-twitter-stop-the-hood-stuff

    3. Assuming your reading ability was adequate at age 10, then anyone under 40 must only speak when spoken to.
      Also, what exactly is ‘this’ community we are talking about? Title IX administrators perhaps?
      On the bright side, I was discussing with my 84 year old Father on our trip to the Dentist today, exactly what a SJW was. He could not believe it. I also told him this was why I told him facebook was evil, not to use it. I copied K Tempest N B-cup’s rant in an email, and told him ‘this is why’.

  12. I gotta give her credit–she’s one of the few people I’ve seen not to insist that the *whole* slate is white males.

    (It’s a limited amount of credit. But given how often people who call themselves reporters can’t bother to even take a glance at anything and notice that maybe “Annie,” “Megan,” or “Toni” are strange names for men.)

    I do get pissed being presumed to support this stuff on account of having an innie. It’s always seemed a rather blatant irony for everyone to have missed entirely: If you’re a white man, you can hold positions you like. If you’re a woman, a POC, or any of a half-dozen other privilege checkboxes, you have to be a liberal, or else false consciousness.

    To heck with that. -_-

    1. Entertainment Weekly managed to notice . AFTER they had posted a libelous article and gotten a ton of comments pointing it out.

    2. I’ve found the quickest way to avoid that presumption was to marry a Marine.

      Though the new presumption is that I’m either A. abused or B. functionally insane. Especially if I gush about our date night at the shooting range. 😉

      1. Oh, I get the “abused” thing too. At least since we got older and when my eyes are out I get my tall, dark sons to drive me to the doctor, instead of my small, retiring husband, people don’t pull me aside and give me pamphlets for women shelters.
        You tell me what sense does it make. Dan is very pale (he probably has some Amerindian in the genes, or more than a little, judging by a genetic issue of our younger son and the fact our sons look more South American than Mediterranean, i.e. a mix of Amerindian and Mediterranean) wears glasses and is extremely polite. My kids are big, taller than both of us (six two and six three) built like brick sh*thouses and glower as a matter of being in the world (they’re both introverts.) BUT Dan was the one they suspected of abusing me. Oh, and we held hands after being married ten years. This, I was told, was a sign of abuse.

        2. ” This, I was told, was a sign of abuse.”

          After ten years? that shows how deeply colonized and in denial you are.

        3. I watched Dan watch protectively over you at Raven Con last year. He may not be large, but I bet that, like a Dachshund bred for fighting Badgers, he would have proved dangerous to anyone who dared threaten you.

          1. I’ve gotten the idea that Dan’s job is to protect assholes from Sarah. [Wink]

        4. I hold hands with my lovely bride after 22 years.

          Abuse? Pfhart. I’ve been abused, and that ain’t it. (Long story, won’t repeat…)

          Come to think of it, I wonder how much of that ‘abuse’ signalling you were apparently putting out was related to your chronic pain they may have been picking up on?

            1. Makes me wish doctors still made house calls. For the non-absurdly-rich. Hospitals, I have it on very good authority, is where folks go to die, not get better.

              Yes, it’s absurd, but way back in the monkey brain that idea is stuck, defending it’s corner with a mighty determination, and won’t come out even for cookies.

              1. “Hospitals, I have it on very good authority, is where folks go to die,”

                In some of the more enlightened* parts of the world (and coming soon to states near you), it is where people go to have their organs harvested.

                *For certain values of enlightened.

                1. Well, to be sure once some of those essential little-piped-and-keyboarded-things inside your body get taken *outside* you’re lighter by mass than you were…

        5. “Oh, and we held hands after being married ten years. This, I was told, was a sign of abuse.”

          What does it mean if you’re still doing it after 40 years of marriage? Are we in trouble?

          3. Looking around the base exchange, probably.

            (It’s adorable– at least a third of the couples folks not in uniform are either holding hands or have their arms linked.)

            It makes sense if you remember that by some folks’ metric, if the woman gives up absolutely anything, she’s oppressed, and if a guy gets his way at any time (even if his wife didn’t care) he’s controlling.
            Oh, and what a woman wants or gives up isn’t decided by what she actually wants, it’s what she’s supposed to want….

        1. Magazines. Fill your own magazines.

          Unless you’re shooting a Garand, and that could be considered abuse.

          1. Shooting a Garand is a pleasure. Reloading one is something done with great care and deliberation.

              1. Attention to detail relieves one of this painful experience. In all the years I have owned one, I have yet to fall victim to it.

              2. …Isn’t a problem if you take your time and think about what you’re doing. Make sure something other than the catch is holding the operating rod in place before you insert the clip. Then make sure your thumb is out of the way before releasing the operating rod.

            2. Compared to modern military arms the Garand is abuse. Sort of like giving a 120 pound femme (of either sex) a HK-91.

                    1. yeah, his BARs were a bit rough to shoot compared to a normal one. Bonny was able to haul one around and she was not a large person

    3. I long ago learned that while a given name may indicate the sex of a person it is not a guarantee. I know of girls named Christopher, and one named Greg.

        2. Three of the five most prominent “Leslie”s in Hollywood have been male:
          Leslie Howard
          Leslie Nielsen
          Leslie Moonves

          I only mention Leslie Caron and Lesley Ann Warren as excuse for the linked clip.

          1. We should encourage more people to read that steaming hot bitch of a writer, Leslie Charteris. Great knockers, which is what you’re lookin’ for in a writer, ennit?

            Speaking of which, anybody know what this movie might be? Indications are it is Birds of Prey with what must be Martin Landau’s young doppleganger.

            1. I believe that your doppelganger is Boyan Milushev — playing the character Nick Milev in Birds of Prey. He also shares the writing credits for the movie with James J. Mellon, Tracy Hall Adams and Lynette Prucha.

          2. Surely, you can’t be serious.

            (…and if the YouTube I can’t view because I’m at work is from Airplane! I’m going to be annoyed with myself.)

        4. Alice, Marion….

          A lot of “Men’s” names became “Women’s” names because of the tradition of naming a daughter for the family name of one of her female ancestors. (So a lady who was Miss Patrick will have a Patrick daughter, or a grandmother who was a Miss Kelly will have a Kelly grandaughter.)

          2. Add in a still-fairly-recent “last name is father’s/grandfather’s given name” type traditions– my family’s only two generations from all the kids being “Mc-X” and the head of the family being known only as “X”, basically only died out because it’s a pain in the rump since Social Security– and there’s a lot of name turnover.

            Add in female-names-that-are-male-nicknames and it’s even broader.

          3. Clark Kent’s adoptive mother’s name was Martha Clark. So evidence of this being a widely acknowledged and accepted practice is established.

            1. My family appears to have created a tradition of naming children after Presidents (not any of the females, as far as I understand). There are a bunch of George Washington Blackburns especially when you get back 150 years or more.

              2. That tradition poses certain problems that I can foresee. Likely there are no Richard Milhous, James Earl, Billy Jeff or Barack Blackburns, to select from recent vintages?

                1. It doesn’t seem to have been popular in the 20th or 21st centuries, as far as I can recall, though I haven’t taken a good look at the genealogy trees in a while.

        5. One of the books I inherited from my mother has the title, “Vivian and His Friends.” I may get around to reading it some day.

      2. I rejoice in great-aunts named, legally, Matt, John, and Earl. Not a modern-day fad. Just … OK, the Odd gene is dominant in my family. Or the Stubborn. (Great-great-gramma would pick out the name, convinced the baby was a boy, and…did not adjust when events proved otherwise.)

        2. My grandmother was named William, after her father. After 4 girls, he gave up on having a son, so graced her with his name. Friends called her either Willy or Bill.

          1. Sorry, but the song wormed in after I mis-scanned, it’s just one of those days-

            She wouldn’t have a Willy or a Bill
            I’m her eight old man named Hen-er-ry,
            Henry the eight I am, I am,
            Henry the eight I am.

    4. I get incredibly pissed on account of having an innie, being from a Latin country and having an MA in language and literature. There is a reason they hate me. And yes, exactly, they’re the ones shoving us in boxes.

      1. Little boxes of the intellect
        And they all think just the same

        There’s a brown one and a black one
        And a red one and a yellow one
        And they’re all filled up with ticky tacky
        And they all think just the same

  13. so the special affirmative action snowflake cannot afford $40 for a membership to qualify to vote. maybe if she wrote something enjoyable and SALABLE she might be able to

    1. What’s funny is these complaints come on the heels of complaints about others (like larry) paying for people’s votes. Which is nonsense.

      But it sure sounds like a precursor to one of them doing it, doesn’t it?

      1. Sigh – membership fees for a professional association is a professional expense. These expenses can be documented and used on your income tax return. I presume the special snowflake SJWs are thinking of their writing careers as a business, but maybe not …

  14. *sits up on hind legs, applauds Rhain* Thank you. First for reading that screed, and second for rebutting it so firmly. I’m not certain if I’m more saddened or amused by people like KTB who only see the world as boxes to be filled with items of the “right sort,” be the “right sort” people of certain belief systems, or ancestry, or cultural backgrounds, or plumbing. At this point probably saddened, because how many kids read sci-fi or fantasy, get told “that’s white people stuff” and decide that they must have been wrong to like it? Or who read message-fiction and decide to chunk the whole genre?

  15. K. Tempest Bradford is the problem. Instead of writing good stuff, she spends her day writing screeds like this, telling people doesn’t agree with to screw off.

    She’s the reason a certain article was published last night, though I can’t say whether she was directly involved or just indirectly responsible.

    That’s why I wrote this.

    http://tlknighton.com/?p=7023

    1. Nice! I’d say the sheep have looked up. Including myself in “sheep” by the way.

      The only thing Brunner got wrong was which side of the political spectrum was the one causing the problem. Obama is Prexy.

        1. He got reelected in the right year. Heinlein just got the religion wrong — he thought it would be some variation of Christianity, not Marxism.

          1. Marxism is a variation of Christianity, a corrupted and debased one, as Orcs are to Elves.

  16. “And so help me God, people like me are going to break it into irrecoverable pieces.”

    Oh hell yes. Wait until The Tempestuous One sees what we do to her next year.

    Tempest’s problem is that she genuinely thinks she’s at the head of a vast social movement. What she doesn’t get is that all of that power her tiny clique has had over SF/F is because the rest of us weren’t really paying attention.

    Well Tempest baby, now we are. You pissed me off SO bad that I paid $40 to join your club. I’m not going away.

    And every cry of RAAAAAACIST!!!! is like music to my ears. It means me just being present is driving you nuts. That was my goal. Job done.

    Next year I piss in your cornflakes. That’s going to be fun.

    1. “And so help me God, people like me are going to break it into irrecoverable pieces.”

      You know, maybe Tinpot should look at how Solomon would respond to that statement before she claims ownership of the Hugos.

    2. Same, previously I had just bought the books recommended by Sad Puppies but these nitwits are starting to annoy me, I think I’ll make them suffer.

  17. “Shut up,” they explained.

    And I know some of you have a hard time with that concept. I don’t care. You’ve had plenty of time to figure it out. I’m real tired of your inability to understand these things.

    “What we have here, is a failure to communicate.” Which is, in the way I was taught to write, on the speaker/writer. Blaming the audience for their inability to appreciate one’s brilliance is the refuge of the hack. Go back to your leaky garret and revise another draft.

    1. Actually with Tempest its more like “SHUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!!” Because that’s her all over.

      But its our fault, y’know. We’re triggering.

      1. Judging by revealed temperament and linguistic habits, more like “SHUUUUUT the F!!! UUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!!”

        Because inserting playground profanity adds impact to an argument.

    2. It’s not a failure to communicate. In fact, since we’re not racists nor homophobes nor misogynists and in general expect to associate with people likely to frighten the mundanes, and since the authors among the puppies write books with diverse casts, and since many of us grew up the Other and know how that feels, and many of us have lived in and had to learn other cultures and since many of us understand the fear and subtle gate keeping in the genre, and since our stated goal is to bring more people to the genre and we’d like everyone to feel that a “con” is accessible and welcoming… I think that everyone *understands* trying to enter a field where you’re not sure of your reception.

      The problem isn’t a lack of understanding, it’s that absolutely nothing that the SJW types do has any hope of accomplishing anything but making science fiction more ghetto-like (Jewish reference, not POC, thanks), more marginalized, and less relevant.

      Pretending that the point of disagreement is way down at the “you’re all racists” level means that no one EVER has to question the efficacy of the gawd awful destructive actions that SJW insist upon to prove whoever-it-is isn’t racist.

      I gave up back with the confluence of race-fail and white-privilege because people who continue… if you just *listen* you’ll understand and agree that this wholly destructive and harmful philosophy is true, and then you’ll be counted among the good people instead of the bad people. And nothing has changed in the last few years, it’s just gotten worse. The people who absolutely refuse to listen are those who simply refuse to HEAR YOU when you say, yes, I understand, but this thing you’re insisting that I do and insisting that I publicly confess has NO “success condition” and NO method or mechanism for reaching a “success condition” and moreover, rather than simply not helping it’s going to make everything worse for the people you’re claiming to want to help.

      And before long they give up, explain that you’re the one unwilling to listen, and simply proclaim you a racist.

      1. It is one of the inflexible tropes of the SJW (and Proglodyte in general) communities that they are incapable of comprehending that somebody might both understand the problem and disagree with their solution for it.

        This is why they will argue, for example, that opposition to the Head Start could not possibly be premised on the fact that the program DOES NOT WORK. It must be driven by racism or indifference to the struggles of the poor under-privileged or greed — wanting to spend your earnings on yourself instead of wastrel government bureaucrats those who need it more than you do.

        The fact that they so often seem to come up with solutions (more control of the economy by bureaucrats, higher taxes) and then discover problems to need those solutions is something to which they seem entirely blind.

  18. “K Tempest Bradford ‏@tinytempest · 12m12 minutes ago
    Interesting. There are 4 and 20 hundred people writing about this sad puppies business but Sarah Hoyt is writing posts about *me*.”

    Get your facts straight, Tempest.

    1. Were literacy her strong suit, we’d probably appreciate her fiction more. And understand her pov better. Ah, well.

        2. Oh, and she called Brad’s post this morning – the one where he’s talking about how he’s not a racist and how much it bothers him to be called such by Entertainment Weekly – “hate speech” apparently.

          1. Well, when one struggles with English to the point where “oh, bugger off, won’t you?” is taken as a viable rape threat, these sort of misunderstandings happen. We have to give allowances to those sorts of folks.

            1. I’m still trying to figure out how someone who has apparently had stuff published as long ago as 2000 has managed to not actually do much of anything in all that time.

              It’s almost like she’s just as talentless as many of us suspect.

            2. I imagine my habit of inviting people who annoy my to “f*** along now” is equally problematic.

            1. Well, sure: if it weren’t for victimhood the only way to address her artistic failure as a writer would be to work on improving developing skills.

            2. *delurk*

              Ok, I’ve gotta ask, could you please put a definition of victimhood pony up on urban dictionary please? 😉

              *relurk*

              2. I saw Polly in a porny down at the dirty flicks
                I saw Polly in a porny I didn’t know she knew them tricks
                What I seen nearly struck me blind I never knew she was the theatrically inclined
                I saw Polly in a porny with a pony and I’ve nearly blowed my mind
                Was she gallopin’ (no no no) oh was she trottin’ (no no no)
                Oh was she riding across the country with some tall dark handsome person
                Oh was she wearin’ her cowboy hat haha well not exactly that
                But at least I recall she had her spurs on
                I love ol’ Polly in a porny I keep on going back
                Yeah in the very last row I’m singin’ low with my coat bouncin’ in my lap ooh
                I spend each dime I can afford I swear she’s gonna win an academy award
                I saw Polly in a porny with a pony and the pony seemed a little bored.

                HT: Shel Silverstein
                Emphasis added.

          3. It is hate speech — they hate it when we speak up.

            It is the equivalent of a three-year-old whining we don’t love her when we forbid engulfing her Easter basket’s contents in one sitting.

    4. So she is denying Rhiain’s ownership of her voice? How is that diverse? Sounds like the same old oppression of a non-white woman practiced by the houseblanks.

      OTOH, it a) is much easier than logically responding (yeah, I know: Logic is a tool of the patriarchy) and b) makes this all about the Princess, still stamping her tiny feet and waving her wittle fists about demanding to suckle further from her favorite teat, that of victimization.

      1. …makes this all about the Princess, still stamping her tiny feet…

        If she was stamping her feet under the proper circumstances she would be heroic. Just ask any reader of The Princess and the Goblins.

          1. “If she tugs that braid one more time…”
            (reads next paragraph.)
            AGGHHH! Where’d I put the scissors?!

        1. The wallaby slowly glances down …

          Her feet are metaphorically tiny, else she couldn’t continue spewing so much nonsense with them in her mouth.

        2. I’m sure Wendell has far better taste in womenatee. You keep insulting Wendell like that and Larry’s going to get mad.

      3. Yes, she’s denying Rhiain’s ownership of her voice. In face, she’s erasing her entirely.

        3. But Rhiain doesn’t own her voice. That’s merely false consciousness speaking. Or colonization. Or some other convenient excuse.

      4. “So she is denying Rhiain’s ownership of her voice? How is that diverse?”

        It’s not, and it’s not even rare. See the “internalizing bigotry/patriarchy/etc” argument advanced by SJWs everywhere when someone who’s not a white, heterosexual male says “nope, not being oppressed like you claim I am”.

        (There’s an image that applies, but I’m not sure how the server handles image links or about how the host feels about such links being posted.)

      2. “Twatwaffle”

        Sarah! I was getting ready to eat lunch when you inflicted that visual on me. I seem to have lost my appetite.

    6. I am having a polite yet terse Twitter convo with her right now. We Canadians have weaponized politeness. 🙂

      1. That was fruitless.

        It’s true: arguing with people online doesn’t accomplish much.

        2. Remember that the lurker-to-poster ratio is frequently quite high. You will help the innocents who happen on the original.

      2. Indeed. And it can be the monomolecular razor’s edge delivered in melee, or the full nuclear from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure. 🙂

  19. I’m really getting tired of Tempest-in-a-Chamberpot. I would start a read only cis straight Christian white men for a year campaign just to spite her but I would have to not read too many really good writers who don’t fit that narrow stereotype.

    And this stuff about white men having money to spare? If that’s true, then there’s a honky somewhere who’s getting more than his share, and this white man wants reparations.

    1. You and me both, brother. You and me both.

      Also, for the record, word must not have made it out. My book’s been out since August, and hasn’t been a bestseller really. I thought the Patriarchy Club was supposed to make that happen because, you know, white male.

      1. I apologize for not practicing proper oppression of Tempest. Just bought it. I’ll work it in ASAP and post a review.

        1. Oh, well…uh…thanks. 😀

          Clearly, that now makes you more of a racist sh*tlord or something.

          Obviously, I approve and thank you for your patronage. 😀

        2. *glances down just to triple check* Dang, missed that one. If I get a costume kinda like C. Heston had in _The Ten Commandments_ can I get an honorary patriarch card?

          2. We’re all dishonorary White Cis-Males for not supporting the anti-Sad Puppy measures.

            1. Usually only works as a minor relaxant, rather than a major one– the much mocked “take the edge off” thing.

              I’ve gotten some great sleep because a beer or two was *just* enough to get me over the little bumps in the way. (basically in situations where taking an asprin a few hours earlier would do the same thing)

  20. Rhiain,

    Have you published anything? I’d like to read your work.

    Thanks,

    Keith

    1. as soon as house sells, I’m going to start paying the guests on this blog, and I want Rhiain here regularly (it’s part of a sneaky plan to get me more time to write, but d*mn she’s good.)

  21. I wonder how many GGs are now sitting around thinking “You mean for less than the cost of 1 game I can not only have a say in what wins the Hugo awards but I can also piss off SJW’s?”

    I wonder how Tinpot will respond when the 2100 nominating votes are swamped by 5000 ballot votes?

    1. They’re this angry about us getting nominated. Imagine if some of is *won*.

      I know someone who had quote in their sig about there never having been a riot at a SF convention. I wonder how much longer that’s going to be true.

      2. Prediction:
        AT Hugo ceremony the SJWs will do something stupid, like turn their backs to the podium, if a SP wins a Hugo.

        1. It won’t be something that mature. Best case they’ll walk out, most likely they’ll pull some kind of protest/direct action crap.

      3. They plainly were not at Trekcon 72 in the Commodore back in NY when Leonard showed up. Ever seen the movie “Zulu”?

        1. Of course they weren’t. See, Trek fans, and star wars fans, aren’t ‘real’ SF fans.

      1. There are also people signing up to vote for Noah Ward. Let us not count our chickens before they hatch.

        Especially since we know one brooding hen will have chicks. Either some of the slate wins, or we can point out their scorched-earth tactics.

      2. The good news is that the “No Award” campaign and the ballot results will tell us exactly how big the tumor is. I expect that it isn’t as large as they think.

        I wonder what they’ll say next year when Kate lays out 10 suggestions and 5,000 GG’s sign up to nominate.

      3. Yeah, but they probably aren’t real fans. Next year the Hugos will likely have to require an “SF Literacy” test to qualify voters in addition to their present poll tax.

          1. Then you haven’t fully imagined what their definition of SF Literacy would be.

            For one thing, it would require a short essay denouncing RAH as militaristic and advocating oppression of females (among other sins.)

      4. Put it up again and you’ll get 101. I’m as tired of this crap as anyone else. Besides, $40 for the reading material would be a bargain on the order of a Kindle Unlimited subscription…

          2. Gosh dang this work firewall all to heck. Can’t get there… 😦

            Tonight, however, I’m signing up.

          3. Got it. Couldn’t do it through the firewall here at work, but I could on my phone.

            Last con I went to was in Atlanta in ’86, where things like cell phones were pretty much playthings for the rich and the idea you could connect to a worldwide network to do something so prosaic as buying a con membership would have been sheer SF.

            I love living in the future!

            1. Work firewall, phone data works; check. A pain to do it on the small screen, but I’d probably not get around to it (again) if I waited until I got home.
              By the way, how long does it take for the books to be sent – I wanna read and vote!

          4. Signing up for the 2015 or 2016 (MidAmeriCon) lets you vote in this years awards, correct?

            1. Only the supporting or attending members of a given year’s con can vote. So signing up for 2015 lets you vote this year, signing up for 2016 lets you vote next year.

              The complicated thing is that members of a con can *nominate* for that year’s award *and* the next year’s award.

              So: sign up for 2015, you can vote in 2015 and nominate in 2015 (except the deadline has passed) and 2016. sign up for 2016 and you can vote in 2016 and nominate in 2016 and 2017.

          5. De-lurking to ask – if I want to vote this year and attend in 2016 (living near KC) – I would get a supporting for sasquan and convert to attending next year?

          6. I may sign up. If the voting ends in June or July I might even have time to go through the material.

            1. …..aaaaand the online registration’s spambot protection image is blocked at work so I’ll have to wait a bit.

        3. I just signed up, and filled in the organization field with Sad Puppies Kennel Club. Was that too obvious? 😎

          1. For the same reason snakes fangs face inward – trying to exit just gets them planted deeper. Mind the stobor! 🙂

  23. Waitamin — the Hugos are about Di-effing-versity? I thought they were about well written stories!!!!

    I feel such a fool.

    They need to adjust their marketing and promotional materials before the Truthyness In Advertising crowd swarms them.

    1. Previously posted in response to Dr. Mauser’s WP bolg on the subject:

      To people who are true believers the politics, race, ethnicity, and what-have-you of the author is presumed to effect whether they have something worth saying. Moreover the story must be seen to further the cause to be of any value, because the cause is the only thing that has value to them.

      To extend: The cause is the sole measure of value to them. Their message is their all-in-all — and, to them, it must be reflected in the slate that is chosen and the awards given.

      1. In case you missed it, I edited it to adds this:

        ETA: Some people accuse the SP list of being all of the usual “-ists”. “We were making great strides last year to use the Hugos to promote Female/trans/POC writers! How can they oppose this?”

        How? The Hugo is supposed to be for the Best Novel/Novella/Novelette/Short Story/etc. not the Best Novel/Novella/Novelette/Short Story/etc. by a Female Genderqueer writer of Color. If you WANT to have an award for that, attend the business meetings a couple of years and get them to add one. It could be analogous to the Campbell award, since that one is directed at an Author. The Hugo is for the WORK, not the creator. And if you really want equality, you have to TREAT the works equally.

        Let me re-emphasize that. The Hugo is not about the authors, it’s about the works. Make it about the authors and you’re doing it wrong.

    2. He he.

      I’ll play devil’s advocate here – but I’m not sure ms tempestuous will appreciate it when I’m done.

      You see… DIVERSITY is a good thing.

      But to undetstand why, one must first look at the concept of “anti fragility” as described by Taleb (?) – though glimmers of this pop up in chaos theory, and elsewhere.

      Diversity of ideas, models, paradigms, and tools with which to address any situation, in order to increase the opportunities or decisions that can lead to a “win”. ESR once wrote on how he wins power grid and similar games by making sure his choices allow him the highest number of options that will work to his benefit.

      The problem for SJW’s is that they take this truth, and in stating that diversity is good assume that somehow having a diverse number of arbitrary and IRRELEVANT markers is actually diversity in the “strength through” sense.

      So yes – diversity is good – but the way they calculate and measure diversity instead brings about cultural conflicts, factionalizes organizations reducing cultural unity and unity of goal/purpose, and does not actually bring about the most people with the most different IDEAS, SOLUTIONS, and TOOLS.

      Their monoculture with no variance allowed means you cripple the possibility of alternate solutions. It may work GREAT as long as things are nice and predictable, but utterly falls apart when faced with the unexpected. It’s a memetic version of single-gene plant types, like the breed of bananas that went extinct mid last century.

      2. Yeah – but they don’t mean intellectual diversity, doncha know. Probably don’t actually know what that means…

        1. No, you’ll have to go through a marathon viewing session of Gargoyles.

  25. So tired of the “well, you’re not authentic like me because you don’t think right” very predictable response to this.

    No, not waiting for an actual comment here, since some idiot managed to get Entertainment Weekly involved in a setup so false that legal action would be reasonable.

            1. Different libel laws in other countries. The American colonies broke new ground in the Zenger Trial by holding truth as a defense against libel. Much of the rest of the world does not join in that finding (and parts of the US are backsliding.)

              In the US, much would hinge upon whether the petitioners are “public figures” under the law and whether the defendant acted with “reckless disregard” and contrary to contemporary standards of journalism. Regretably, contemporary standards of journalism seem to hold that any libel, slander, calumny or defamation of conservatives non-Proglodytes can be accepted because of wight* privilege.

              *not a typo

              1. *throws hands in the air* Well, there was obviously a reason my fore-kin got on the boat. (Aside from the guys with the rope and the tall trees, I mean.)

      3. I might not be a lawyer but from years of reading Insty… any legal action will probably involve a legal request for things like… did the author get a priming email from anyone in particular that outlined the lies… right?

        1. I’ve been party to a libel suit before (receiving end because of a story my blog partner wrote).

          There was no such question asked during our case, and there was no such email sent. We DID get a certified letter ordering us to remove all mentions of the gubernatorial candidate he crossed the line with from all online media, both the blog and our personal Twitter accounts, prior to a lawsuit being filed.

          I know what Biedenharn and EW are about to go through. It will not be over quickly. They will not enjoy it.

          And yes, I paraphrased that scene from 300 for very, very good reasons.

      4. Good. This is the lesson taught us by the Proglodytes and their Jihadi allies: He who lives by the Court shall die by the Court.

  26. I am by nature a quiet reader who never comments. I have been reading SF since 4th grade. I am 67! I have finally had enough of this trash and sent in my $40 so I can vote. I have always been partial to military SF as well as civil war books and other such stuff. I guess the old man is going to have to get involved.

    Ever since I started following this web site, life has gotten more interesting!

      2. Whether ’tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
        The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
        Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
        And by opposing, end them?

      3. This is what a preference cascade looks like. The jackasses should be glad it involves ballots.

    2. Yup. Gonna vote, gonna read, gonna review.
      Just reviewed Kate Paulk’s ConFur on my blog and on Amazon. Any point your vision starts graying out as you read Hugo Honks, then go read something good.

  27. “This is a class issue, a race issue, a gender issue.”
    So, she is explicitly a racist and a sexist, in that she obviously despises white men.
    She also is apparently not American, and doesn’t understand that the USA is a classless society. We don’t have a nobility and a monarchy. We’re all equal here. We fought a couple-three wars to prove that point.

    It seems to me that her major problems stem from America being a classless society. “All men are created equal,” and all that. Perhaps she views this as a deficiency to be corrected, and not as the major feature of our system of government? To paraphrase Sir Pterry, Class is special privilege and private law. It is the opposite of “With Liberty and Justice for All,” just as “Social Justice” is the opposite of individual justice.

    Of course, after instituting a monarchy, she would never have the temerity to insist that she be included among the ruling classes, so she can tell us peasants how to properly have fun…

    1. She’s an SJW.

      EVERYTHING for an SJW is about class. And if there isn’t a clear division, she’ll institute classes to her thinking, because she deserves to be ‘Upper Class’ with all the ‘Lower Class’ waiting on her lofty thinking…

      1. Fraid I’ll have to side with Rodney Dangerfield on this one: “Call me up sometime, when you got no class.”

    2. Forgive me, but we are not a classless society. As long as government agents have imunity (qualified and/or absolute) to both civil and criminal law, we have classes enshrined in judicial precedence.

      1. It’s a problem, but solvable in the long run. As I understand it, most such immunities are judicial tradition, not enshrined in law. So, legally at least, we are mostly classless; we “merely” need to make practice correspond more closely to the law.

        1. We could quibble around the edges of this forever. Government agents have immunity (theorhetorically) only in performance of their official duties. Thus a soldier following a legitimate order to shoot someone cannot be charged with murder. Because they are acting in accordance with law the corrective is directed to the law, not the actor.

          This is because to hold otherwise would be an absurdity, requiring the law contradict itself.

          Thus we have strict penalties for those committing wrongs acting under color of the law, those corrupting the law for their private benefit and other such violations of their duty to act as representative of the law.

          The reality, as is so often true, tends to be a trifle at variance with this theory.

      2. Government agents aren’t born into that position. Despite what it looks like, government positions aren’t hereditary. Here in the USA, your birth status has little bearing on your fate as an adult. Hell, I’m a bastard child of an unwed teenager, given up for adoption, raised in hungry poverty, and now I’m one of those wicked federal employees, after resigning in disgust from the military. Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.

        Not that I don’t agree with your basic point. I defer to Sir Robert Peel on that issue.

  28. And I know some of you have a hard time with that concept. I don’t care. You’ve had plenty of time to figure it out. I’m real tired of your inability to understand these things.

    Hard time with what concept, Tempest? What don’t people understand?

    Are we missing how the past contributions of fantastic authors meeting your criteria are dismissed and ignored so you can feel special in the moment?

    I’m tired too, Tempest. Tired of your bigotry and tired of your scolding. You’ve not been appointed the social conscience. You’re not leading a great movement. You’re riding a bitter schtick to a modicum of fame.

    Bigot and scold, Tempest, there’s the sum.

        1. I was going to offer to trade you a slice of my no-bake ButterShots cheesecake for a couple of those snickerdoodles until you went and slobbered over all of them. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to suffer through eating it all myself.

          1. Mm? I can dry a few off…

            These two! These aren’t — uh *scrubs cookies furtively on shirt* — see? These aren’t bad at all!

            Oh. Um. Sorry about the crumb spray…

          3. Hmmm… Buttershots… in cheesecake…

            That would throw off the balance of my cheesecake recipe (which IS baked), but I will have to look at how to modify it…

            Sorry, but I can’t do that until I head down to the other house to work on it, and then i can bring it back here.

            1. That’s buttershots, but the recipes listed there are all for drinks (buttery nipples are particularly good if you like a sweet creamy drink) no recipe for cheesecake.

    2. Yes, Tempest dear. You bratty children have had you little Consciousness Raising™ party, but it’s over. It lasted far too long, and made a mess that the rest of us are going to have to clean up after. We’ve listened to your temper tantrums and your declarations that you didn’t ask to be born, and so on. You think you are startlingly original, but I’m sure Sumerian children made much the same complaints. Poor, poor, pitiful you; born into a place and time where you are unlikely to be sold into slavery, likely to be given an education, and probably won’t die of childbed fever or starve.

      *spit*

      Now, do sit down, dear. The time for childish melodrama is over. The adults are talking. And while I don’t hold that children should be seen and not heard, they would be well advised not to annoy their betters.

      You know, it isn’t easy to be as insulting to her and her ilk as she was to us. How’d I do?

      1. Quite splendidly. It is time for the Adults to take the reins back, and banish these tantrum-throwing SJWs to their safe rooms with no supper.

      2. To quote Brigham Young: “Crying children are like good intentions; they should be carried out.”

  29. Pingback: K Tempest Bradford on Sexual Congress and Salvific Grace | John C. Wright's Journal

  30. Y’know, for people working in the “literature of ideas”, the SJ writers sure are afraid of the “wrong” ideas.

    1. It does seem that way, doesn’t it?

      Kind of makes you wonder just why that is… could it be they hate the idea that they may not be so ‘special’ after all? That they’re not somehow automatically entitled to run roughshod over all the rest of us?

      They’d better rethink their ideas – a lot of people have basically ignored them as long as they weren’t doing much damage, but the stench is now noticeable and I think we’re about at a reckoning. They’re used to going along without any pushback, but as Gamergate showed, the SJW doesn’t have anywhere as much power or influence as they were telling themselves they did.

  31. I don’t think that the “no straight white males” goes far enough. I challenge everyone to only read books by middle-aged Jewish bisexuals who live in the Midwest and have a background in locksmithing. That’s a seriously underrepresented group.

          2. Irish/French-Canadian/Italian women from Connecticut. (Look! That makes me Not White! Irish were denied naturalization on the grounds they were Not White, and courts have held that being Italian is no proof you aren’t black.)

            1. I’m trying to find some group in my family history that *hasn’t* been “marginalized,” denied rights, or other generalized nastiness. So far, no luck.

              To be fair, though, all of those *also* did their fair amount of nastiness when they could get away with it, too. Ain’t no reason to be considering myself above anyone (unlike Miss Tempest inna Peanut Shell) for either reason.

              And I’m not white, either. I’m sort of biege, sometimes reddish brown. *grin*

      2. I laugh because I’m angry. I’m angry because trust fund babies and overeducated fools who make twice what I make for teaching three hours of Gender Studies a week think that I am so stupid that I’ll applaud them for attacking people “on my behalf.”

        I’m with you on this–I am not their shield, and even less am I their weapon. The SJWs don’t speak for me, they aren’t helping me, and I refuse to be used as a justification for their hatred.

  32. It came to me this morning, while reading a post on REASON, that the LIRPs and SJWs are psychopathic, in a sense. They don’t really believe that anybody who isn’t fundamentally like them is real. And since we are not real, we have no rights they are obliged to respect. They are free to lie about us, because what can it possibly matter?. They are free to deny us agency, base after all it isn’t as if we could really exercise it.

    *shudder*

    Before I live under the rule of these swine I will indeed “Raise the black flag and start cutting throats”.

  33. Amen! Also, yes, there are people who have been paying attention to the conversations over the past few years. However, they haven’t necessarily come to the conclusion Bradford seems to be anticipating.

    And yes, there are people who are tired of people’s inability to “understand these things.” But, again, not necessarily in the direction she hopes. I should know. I’m one of them. After all, when we aren’t in the position to interact with people face to face, we can only form our opinions by the words they speak.

  34. Preach it, sister! –Actually, you know, I’m not worthy to call you my sister; I haven’t shown half the courage and gumption you have. Preach it, milady.

  35. Jay Nordlinger, at the National Review Online gangblog, The Corner, posts a letter of relevance:

    Jay,

    After college and ROTC, I spent four years as a junior officer at Little Rock Air Force Base, where I was assigned to the Directorate of Personnel. In around 1965, I was in charge of the section responsible for maintaining personnel records on all the officers and enlisted people on base (among other tasks).

    Word came from on high that all records — many sheets of paper in cardboard folders — were to be purged of anything that mentioned the race of the service member. This meant a number of weeks with sergeants and senior airmen in the section sitting at tables with stacks of record folders and black felt-tip pens, carefully lining through the offending references. (Even before this, the military was possibly the most colorblind segment of American society, but our task was to make it even more so.)

    I left active duty in July 1967 and less than a year later embarked on my European Adventure. I came back in June 1977 (with a Dutch wife and a 15-month-old daughter, but that’s another story). I was surprised to find that the colorblindness we had begun striving for ten years earlier was being replaced by a growing (and increasingly militant) color-awareness.

    Sometimes I’m glad that I am a septuagenarian and will be spared seeing where this will probably lead in another few decades.
    http://www.nationalreview.com/node/416526/print

  36. I have to say I giggled at the K. Teapot Bratwurst comment! Does anyone have a link to where I can pays my $40 and vote. If nothing else, I want to vote for Jim Butcher’s Skin Game because that book just rocked!

  37. Contrary to what people like Tempest thinks, I’m not pissed. I don’t hate her.

    I dislike getting pigeonholed as somebody who lacks privilege just because my skin color is something other than white.

    I will also say that if other non-whites want to stay on this schtick about lacking privilege or whatever because they think it’s going to gain them something, fine. Whatever floats your boat. Just don’t speak for me.

    I have my own voice.

    1. Rhiain – gotta say, your reply rocked!
      What might gall Tempest, et al, the most is that many of us don’t hate them — we pity them.

      1. Thanks, Alan. I don’t pity them, though – they don’t deserve any. They probably don’t want any, either. I’m okay with that.

    2. Rhiain, thank you for speaking up.

      I disagree with your comment: “I will also say that if other non-whites want to stay on this schtick about lacking privilege or whatever because they think it’s going to gain them something, fine. ” By doing that, they are encouraging racial discrimination. That is not fine.

      Sure, I’m blond, but I’ve got six kids who are mixed. Because they’re considered black, they aren’t supposed to be smart. They aren’t supposed to be capable of success, except in athletics, without getting special considerations because of their skin color. I’m tired of this nonsense. I’m tired of my husband being considered an affirmative action hire and having to do three times the work of his white colleagues to prove he’s capable. It’s quiet, sneaky, legal racism, encouraged and supported by those who should most despise racism of any sort, and I’m sick of it.

      1. “They aren’t supposed to be capable of success, except in athletics …”

        Now, you know that isn’t true. They are also expected to be good singers & dancers.

        1. Res: Not if it’s classical, which is what my kids do. Because apparently Paul Robeson didn’t exist in their narrative.

          Okay, so we’re snobs. At least we admit it.

          1. My parents retired to Princeton NJ (father was an alumnus, so could pay a small fee and have library access, not a small consideration for a scholar), and were annoyed by the Princeton Council For The Arts building which was dedicated to the memory of Paul Robeson, who they considered to be a nitwit Socialist apologist for Stalin. I pointed out that the building in question was pretty much the ugliest example of post-modern architecture on the East Coast, and in serious competition to be the ugliest building in non-delapidated condition (its only real competition that I know of being the Eisenhower Executive Office Building). As such, combined with the truly hideous bust of the man that (dis)graces the site, it seemed more of a penance for Robeson than an honor.

            1. I didn’t know Robeson was a socialist. He had a great voice and was well educated, had a law degree from Columbia, I think it was.

              So, a lawyer in that era, not really a surprise he was a socialist.

              1. He visited the USSR, assured at least one of Stalin’s victims that he would spread the news, and kept silent.

                To be just, he did confess to this before he died.

      2. “By doing that, they are encouraging racial discrimination. That is not fine.”

        No, it’s not fine. But the ones who should be held responsible for this kind of racial discrimination are those who perpetrate it.

        I’m a Samoan/Filipina mix (3/4 one and 1/4 other) and I’m married to a white guy. When this white, male privilege narrative started to appear everywhere, I laughed because I didn’t think anybody who actually believed that crap could be serious. I make more money than he does, for crying out loud. How can he be the one who has all the privilege in this relationship?

        And the more persistent this narrative becomes, the less funny it gets.

        So I understand where you’re coming from, and I hope that comes across in my comment. But I’m not a non-white person who believes in whining about what others have that I lack to get somewhere in life. Sounds like your husband is a hard worker, and he should get recognized as such.

        “It’s quiet, sneaky, legal racism, encouraged and supported by those who should most despise racism of any sort, and I’m sick of it.”

        Understood and amen, sister.

        1. Absolutely. We’re on the same side. I just want to hold the whiners responsible for the harm they’re doing to people who’ve nothing to do with them, and I really don’t appreciate them trying to co-opt my kids.

  38. Second: Has you’re a** been paying attention

    That would be “Had your a** been paying attention” you illiterate troll

    And in the past few years more and more people who care about diversity in SFF have been making an effort to join the WorldCon voting ranks.

    …

    THIS IS WHY SAD PUPPIES EXISTS. Not because some people just happened to decide, but because the mostly white mostly male contingent of whiny a**holes saw that there was a shift happening toward a more diverse Hugo slate and away from their ilk and decided to work against it. And bring in people fro outside of the community to help them.

    You brought in more people to screw up the Hugos with politicized voting, so we brought in more people to restore voting based on quality.

    If your club bringing people in is allowed, so is ours. Logic. Justice. Deal with them.

    This is a class issue, a race issue, a gender issue.

    No, you racist troll, it’s a quality issue.

    “trying her best to persuade fellow scifi fans that promoting a more diverse platform in the name of equality should be done by excluding certain people because of their skin color and sex.”

    Yep, that would be the illogic. Glad we’re on the same team. 🙂

  41. I have ancestors that are Indian, I refuse to call them Native American, most of the people on this blog are Native American, with a few exceptions like Chupik and Sarah and Kate (who is a Naturalized American), we are Native to America, it is where we are born. Of course I can’t tell you exactly how much Indian I have in me, because my ancestors weren’t sitting around with their hand out, whining about how they got a raw deal from the “white man.” They actually got off their duff and worked for what they wanted, they didn’t think the color of their skin entitled them to anything, so they didn’t keep track of the exact recipe of how much of what tint was mixed in.

    I’ve got a bunch of ancestors that were Irish to, so you’ll get no sympathy from me when you whine about how you are treated as second class citizens and discriminated against because of who your ancestors were. There are no second class citizens in the US today, you can’t even refuse to bake a cake for someone (unless of course that cake has Christian bible verses on it) much less discriminate in hiring or firing someone. When my ancestors stepped off the boat “No Irish need apply” was a common sign in employers windows, and if they did hire Irish, they paid less and got the crap jobs no one else was willing to do. You know what, my ancestors didn’t sit down and cry about it, wailing like a baby looking for attention. They put their back into and worked hard enough to damn well earn the respect they thought they deserved. And if all they could get was the worst, lowest paying jobs, well they worked at them hard enough to convince their employers that they were worth more than that ‘higher class’ worker who was getting paid more to do half as much, and if their employer was too much of a bigot to see that, well chances are his competition wasn’t, and they would hire the hard workers away from him and replace their own lazy workers. Because they could produce more with harder workers and take part of his market share.

    So yeah, I’ve got about as much patience with listening to some glittery prog whine as I do with that mosquito buzzing in my ear.

    1. Of course I can’t tell you exactly how much Indian I have in me, because my ancestors weren’t sitting around with their hand out, whining about how they got a raw deal from the “white man.”

      Truth.

      We’ve got photographic proof of a great grandmother…who we have no idea how Indian she was, because that side of the family was too busy trying to be good people to fuss about theoretical blood content. (Their sons are the ones who’d go to KKK recruitment meetings because of all the free food, which I wish I could’ve seen.)

      When the photos fade enough, and if folks are wearing the same clothes, it’s really hard to tell various groups apart.

      1. But if we don’t make psuediversity an item, used to grade comparative quality diversity of such things as law school faculty, how are brainless hacks lick Lizzie Warren going to get a step up?

        Demanding they compete on a level playing field is simply locking in Honky Privilege.

  42. Second: Has you’re a** been paying attention to the conversations in this community for the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years on this topic? because, if you haven’t, I invite you to shut your d*** mouth.

    Actually, some of us _have_ been paying attention for the past 30 years. So… No, I will not shut my damned mouth, because you have no right to ask me to. None. Zero. Zilch. Not a tiny bit. I’ve earned just as much of a right to speak and be heard on the subject. Sorry if that ‘splodeys your precious worldview, but _you don’t get to silence those whose opinions you don’t like_.

    And in the past few years more and more people who care about diversity in SFF have been making an effort to join the WorldCon voting ranks.

    No. The WC voting pool has _always_ been diverse…within the universe of people who actually choose to vote. if you stopped, got your head out of your ass, and looked at the demographics of Worldcons, you’d find them richly populated with both genders, with all races, gay, straight, bi, you name it. But.. that would require you to set down your victimhood and _look_.

    But again, the mostly white mostly men who are involved in Sad Puppies and the mostly white, mostly men brought in from gamer gate have money to spare (this is often a result of said whiteness and maleness). For them $50 is no big deal. For others it is not.

    Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus, do you know _nothing_ about fandom? For virtually all of fandom – white, black, yellow, plaid, or purple, gay, straight, or bi, male or female – $$ is _always_ a problem. There’s a smallish subset (moreso since the rise of the geeks) who don’t have as much of an issue. But… Fans are, by and large, broke. Across all race, gender, etc. lines. Why? Because they’re so damned busy being fans, they spend so much time living in their heads and spending all their spare cash on fannish “stuff”, that there’s not a lot left to build a better income/standard of living with.

  43. and just because the wolf can’t resist being crass…
    “First: F*** you.”

    yeah about that. Nooo…you childish twit…not even with a porn stars dick

  44. Pingback: Afternoon too late for coffee 2015-04-07 – Their rage we puppies can endure | Mangy Dog
  46. Pingback: Da Tech Guy Blog » Blog Archive » I like Sarah Hoyt When She’s Angry

  47. They have REALLY gone too far and stepped in it this time. I’m seeing anger and vituperation on this like I’ve never seen before — and it’s pointed AT THE GATEKEEPERS!

    richardmcenroe, it’s more like this:

    1. I liked #Not Your Shield enough to co-opt it from the GG-ers. Hope they don’t mind. (Besides, it’s more PG…)

      1. I liked the title. I was just thinking as a twitter tag. Use a picture of a cat riding wendell. #NotyouPu##y for the more polite minded bunch. Points out how sex obsessed they are, while also triggering their puritanical streak. And since they have already taken to calling themselves the happy kitties…
        Ehh. What do i know, I’m don’t twit anyway. Just a suggestion.

      2. #Not Your Sock Puppet

        #Not Your Socialism, Not Your Justice, Not Your War

        #Not Your Escutcheon
        #Not Your Buckler
        #Not Your Ward

            1. How’s about simply “Not Yours” – short and sweet?

              Tactically though, using “Not Your Shield” and thus implicitly throwing in with gamergate is brilliant. Those people play to win and these truly are battles in the same war.

              We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.

                    3. “Winston, if you were my husband, I should flavour your coffee with arsenic.”

                      “Madam, if I were your husband, I’D DRINK IT!”

                2. I know some gamers who are not particularly readers. I blame the schools, which do a great job of teaching people not to want to read.

                  1. My sister had to provide incentives for my nephew to start reading in addition to gaming. I hope it’s taken root.

  50. Right now, Arthur Chu is ranting about #NotYourShield:

    “Arthur Chu @arthur_affect
    · 21m 21 minutes ago
    ATTENTION EVERYONE Brad Torgerson’s wife & daughter being used as “I can’t be racist” human shields in contravention of the rules of war”

    What a classy guy, huh?

    1. Does that mean A Chu expects physical attacks on Torgerson, thus his use of them as shields constitutes endangerment, or does it mean A Chu is a blithering idiot incapable of comprehending the actual purpose of the laws of war nor the concept of metaphor?

      All of the above is always an acceptable answer in such instances.

      Somehow I suspect a review of his older comments would discover he expressed the opinion during the wars against Saddam that the Baghdad Butcher’s use of human shields placed the onus on George bush to preserve them from harm. More recently, I bet you could find him blaming the Israel Defense Forces for casualties among civilians used by Hamas as meat shields. Heck, he probably blames the IDF for Palestinian casualties inflicted by the Palestinians, whether through shooting dissenters to create larger body counts to blame on Israel or from Hamas launched missiles falling short of their targets.

      With such clowns as these it is always worth looking to the man behind the curtain.

      1. This attack made me madder than just about anything so far. And it takes a lot to make me mad.

        1. He also brings the Wright’s adopted daughter into this. Seeing red.

          1. Blaming others for what your own freely chosen behavior… typical.

            Still… the guy better watch out. He’s on record as saying that blacks can be racist too. And that is major bad-think. And Arthur is a man, right? And Asians are only POC on a case-by-case basis. Most of the time they’re white. He might wake up and find that he’s lost his status.

            1. Arthur Chu? GG’s got some interesting quotes of his. Real scumbag. Not too bright either.

            2. I’m willing to bet he means it very differently than we would. Something like anti-black black racists, and misogynistic women.

              Which is why Twitter isn’t the place to make statements like that.

              Oops. 😀

            3. Of course. Blacks can think that blacks can get education and careers without affirmative action — and even point out that they have a history of it.

      2. Well, Chu goes on to explain that black people can be racist… which certainly implies an attack on Brad’s wife.

        I think it might be a little bit of the same thinking that demands that authors be warned that they’re going to be recommended for an award… because Chu and those of the same mindset WILL attack them.

        Same here… Brad brought his wife and daughter into it… Chu WILL attack them, and others of the same mindset WILL attack them… thus it’s all Brad’s fault.

        1. Chu is nothing more than an opportunist, stirring up trouble and diverting attention from his own gamesmanship.

          Sure be a shame if anybody started targeting Eliza Blair, asking whether she agrees with personal attacks on people’s families.

  51. “True, but like a purist libertarian of the Cato breed, he is liberal on social issues, which puts him far away from the Wrights and Beales (and the Heinleins and Cards) of the SF world.”

    Noah Smith
    Speaking about Vernor Vinge and explaining why he is not a rightwing nutcase.

    One has to wonder what liberal on social issues entails, if Heinlein is considered socially conservative.

      1. He was also pro-gun, which is a bigger no-no than being anti-socialist.

        Sarah, haven’t you read Fear No Evil? That entire novel is a thought experiment on a socially conservative future utopia.

            1. I presume that this is an indication that your prior statement was tongue-in-cheek? Because my detector for that doesn’t work well in text mode.

              Because if having a secretary that is willing to come to work dressed in body paint is a socially conservative story, then I need to spend a lot of time with a dictionary.

              1. I think you need to refer to the picture of the fellow with the piercings the other day. Tongue poked through hole in cheek, licking ear.

              2. Personally I thought having a notepad on your door in order to tell your spouse to come back later, you were getting busy with someone else right now; or alternately, that they were welcome to join in if they desired; was the very definition of socially conservative.

                Oh, OK, I’ll add the /sarc/ tag this time.

                2. It is only socially conservative if you also include a picture of that “someone else” to enable spouse’s informed consent. Adding a short description of planned activities — e.g., I will have Tom Cruise tied to a chair and anticipate spanking him — is gracious but not strictly necessary.

                    1. Umm, just a theoretical question; exactly what position is he tied to the chair in, that you are physically able to spank him?

                    4. Purely an engineering puzzle, right? The sort of thing you reflexively solve before you’ve even realized you were thinking about it.

                  1. I’ve never read To Sail Beyond The Sunset, so Heinlein might have recycled the scenario, but that isn’t where I got it from.

                    2. Erm. Not the greatest Heinlein. Does include some brain-bleach scenes. But if you’ve already read The Number of the Beast, this includes the flipside of many scenes you’ve already read. (And yeah, Lazarus’ mom is just as bad and good as he is, so if you want more of the same, you get it.)

                    3. Sorry, when Lazarus enters a book, I tend to set the book down at that point and never read any farther. Because those that I have went ahead and finished, the story ended at the point Lazarus entered the scene.

                    4. And yes, Number of the Beast is one where I struggled on past Lazarus to the end of the book. Up until then it was a pretty good book.

    2. Fiscally conservative, probably. Militarily conservative, definitely. Socially conservative? Heck, no.

      Of course, these are people who think all libertarians are super-conservatives.

  52. Ms. Hoyt, you aren’t Heinlein. RAH thundered from the top of a mountain. You draw steel in the warrens, risking all fighting an illegitimate Authority. With all due respect to RAH, yours is the greater courage. Thank you!

  53. All this noise coming from the CHORFs tells me one thing: Rounds are falling on the target, fire for effect.

  54. Pingback: Amen, Sista! | The Liberty Zone

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