- Ilana Mercer on freedom of association. And dialoging with a Neo-Nazi.
- Related: Kevin D. Williamson on the war on the private mind.
- Back in the day, science fiction was a realm where freedom of ideas prevailed. Prevailed by definition, I assumed, because how can you speculate about alternate futures and realities without the freedom to think unbound thoughts? I’m still having trouble understanding how political correctness has consumed SF.
- Self control in a world that promotes self indulgence. This is about primal eating, but has implications way beyond that. (H/T PT)
- Chris Christie has pardoned Shaneen Allen. (Updated to direct to Nicki Kenyon’s new post at The Zelman Partisans.)
Mr. Williamson has a blind spot… “The people who have hijacked the name “liberal” — the étatists…”
Hate to tell him, but étatists also hijacked the name “conservative”.
If you believe governing to be a legitimate human endeavor, you are an étatist. “Liberal”/”conservative”- just a distraction meant to confuse people.
Kent’s right. Other than that, Williamson and Mercer are on target. With the Civil Rights Act we went from a regime in which it was against the law to associate with certain people, to a regime in which it was against the law NOT to. Never did the ruling bastards concede that maybe we should decide on our own.
I guess I don’t get Hoyt’s complaint though. Why fake it? Why avoid using Baen? Because you are going to lose some income? Oh well! If you want to make a buck, there are a lot easier ways than hiding your principles in shame. Well, at least she got over her fear eventually. That is the main task.
I’m glad Shaneen’s torture is over. Praise the rulers for keeping it to a mere year and a half.
Kent might be right, but I would point out that in his essay Williamson never used the word “conservative” (at least, I didn’t find it). And in any event, modern usage of the word “conservative” is far closer to its historical meaning than is “liberal” to its.
But why does he use a silly word like “étatists”? It’s merely French for “statists”, which is perfectly well understood by English speakers. Does he think that using a fancy foreign word makes him appear more erudite? (It doesn’t to me.) Is he intending that the word have a subtly different meaning than its English version? (If so I am unaware of it, and he never bothers to offer a definition.) To me it comes across as foolish pomposity, and it detracts from his argument.
A side comment on Shaneen: I agree that it is good that her ordeal is finally over. I also agree that both the NJ law and its specific application here are idiotic. (Indeed, that word can be applied to much of NJ; I’m glad I no longer live there.) But I have never accepted her assertion that “she wasn’t aware that her legally-purchased, legally-concealed firearm was not legal to carry in New Jersey.” She is from Philadelphia (which, for those of you unfamiliar with the area, is directly across the Delaware River from New Jersey). Anyone taking a concealed weapons class in PA (which I believe she did, and indeed as I recall is mandatory before getting a CWP in PA) would certainly have been told that she couldn’t carry the gun two miles across the river. It’s not like she was coming over from Montana or someplace far away; she had to know the rule in a closely adjoining state. So she either forgot the rule, or simply wasn’t paying attention in class. And thus she is either lying or stupid. She certainly didn’t deserve to go to prison, but getting into a spot of legal trouble over it doesn’t get much sympathy from me.
To the extent I pay attention, I’ve read of various idiocies in the SF/Fantasy publishing world. Such things turn up here and there among the typical blog and news reading I do. I suppose, given the way that PC thinking has come into the general population, it isn’t surprised to see it leaking into the world of SF writing too. But given the success of certain authors, perhaps ‘consumed’ is a bit strong. Michael Z. Williamson comes to mind — published by Baen. Larry Correia? I’m not doubting Hoyt’s account of blackballing based on political leanings, just curious at how widespread it actually is.
jed — Have you been following Larry Correia’s accounts of the “Sad Puppies” campaign to get non-PC writers nominated for Hugo Awards? It’s a horror show. It’s also the first thing that alerted me to what’s going on in SF. (I used to be a huge SF reader, but not so much any more.)
You should hear the freaking and shrieking of SF’s social justice warriors.
No, I haven’t been following Correia. He’s one of those people about whom I think, “I really ought to be reading …”. I’ve developed a really low tolerance for rectal-cranial inversions, and so I’m just plain avoiding all manner of things. Case in point, I hang out in a MOO quite a lot, and lately there’s been a bunch of talk about Indiana. My comments to the effect that genuine freedom would involve private entities making their own decisions about whom to associate with were mostly ridiculed, to the extent they weren’t ignored completely. So I just tuned it out.
Various goings-on in the world of Sci-Fi, I hear bits. Read a couple pretty good take-downs of Scalzi (too bad, I like his books), and things here and there about “representation” among SciFi material of other than white male authors and characters. We’re a plague upon the earth, you know. 😉
I was never a huge SF reader, though I’ve read quite a bit. Among the “stuff” I’m still storing are several boxes of SF – mostly old stuff; A E van Vogt e.g. and many many volumes of Darkover.
A very quick scan-back at MHN got me to a backgrounder on SFWA / Hugo / SJW stuff.
I still just don’t understand the whole thought process.
If my loved one and I were planning something as intimate and important as a wedding, why would we sit down and say, “Let’s find folks who hate what we’re doing and force them to take our money for making our wedding cake?”
And if we did, why would we eat the cake?
Baen is the only major publisher that will touch libertarian and conservative SF/F authors. They are pariahs elsewhere.
On one hand I love the “Sad Puppies” campaign. OTOH it is gaming(*) the Hugo awards. I know they are, with few exceptions, just popularity contests (see the many times Dr. Who episodes have won), but it still makes me uneasy.
What I truly hate is how this PC/SJ crap has extended into the SF/F and computer hacker cultures. It really makes me sick. I no longer go to either type of convention but still have many friends that do. The stories they tell are enough to turn my stomach. The two really tolerant and open cultures that I knew and that I called home, have been subverted. Very sad.
Perhaps something like “Sad Puppies” is a step to winning them back.
(*) gaming in the sense of following all the rules but not the intent. I know this is a debatable statement.