since some puppies are deleting things
- April 13th, 2015
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Hey, looks like some of the Puppies are deleting embarrassing things! Too bad that’s not how the internet works. If you know of more, let me know! I’ll add them to this post.
John C. Wright’s ‘The Perversion of a Legend’, archived on the Wayback Machine. Excerpt:
A children’s show, of all places, is where you decided to place an ad for a sexual aberration; you pervert your story telling skills to the cause of propaganda and political correctness.
You sold your integrity out to the liberal establishment. In a craven fashion you deflect criticism by slandering and condemning any who object to your treason.
You were not content to leave the matter ambiguous, no, but had publicly to announce that you hate your audience, our way of life, our virtues, values, and religion.
[…]
Mr DiMartino and Mr Konietzko: You are disgusting, limp, soulless sacks of filth. You have earned the contempt and hatred of all decent human beings forever, and we will do all we can to smash the filthy phallic idol of sodomy you bow and serve and worship. Contempt, because you struck from behind, cravenly; and hatred, because you serve a cloud of morally-retarded mental smog called Political Correctness, which is another word for hating everything good and bright and decent and sane in life.
I have no hatred in my heart for any man’s politics, policies, or faith, any more than I have hatred for termites; but once they start undermining my house where I live, it is time to exterminate them.
He’s still got his post up about how he regrets not punching Terry Pratchett in the face, though. Don’t worry, John, I’ve saved an archive.
Here’s some commentary Correia and Torgersen probably wish they hadn’t said in a pro-Sad-Puppies* podcast and almost certainly wish somebody hadn’t transcribed (hi), given how much they’re trying to distance themselves from Vox Day now:
In response to a question about their decision to bring in Vox Day to the Puppies effort:
Correia: Last year, given that my goal was to get these people to demonstrate to the world what they’re like, so I was going though, I was looking at shorter work – I really did like the story… I really did like it… my fanbase, they liked it too… so when I was putting together my slate… I started looking at it, said, okay, I like this story, they hate him, they look under the bed for him before they go to sleep at night, and he’s like the devil to them. But […] in the history of art, scumbags have created art. Okay? Otherwise there’s a lot of, you know, Roman Polanski is going to have to give a lot of Academy Awards back, okay?
Correia: Well, here’s the thing, and actually, I know the guy? I don’t think he is [a scumbag], I think what it is is that he a guy who is an internet curmudgeon who likes to pick fights with people, who got in a fight with a racist, and said racist things, in response to somebody who is hurling racist slurs for years. However, one person was from the approved clique and therefore got a pass, and the other guy is, you know, Satan-slash-Hitler, and the end of the world. So I threw him on there because I did [ed: like? knew? unclear] him, I liked the story, oh boy, that was… that caused some controversy…
Correia: But here’s the thing. People who are still bringing that up, it shows that they are not, they don’t, it’s all about politics. So last year I nominated a guy who said things they don’t like. Every year they nominate people who say horrible things about others that aren’t part of their pretty little, part of their clique, that’s fine. They have given awards, they’ve given lifetime achievement awards, to people who are public supporters of NAMBLA. Okay? They, this week they’re going to back for another author who said extremely racist comments, and got called on it, and now they’re trying to explain what she really meant to say.
Correia: So the thing is, for them, it’s not about right or wrong, it’s about part of my tribe or not part of my tribe. So at the same time, yes, I did nominate this guy’s [Vox Day] story, I certainly, who else did I nominate? They ignore everything else on there…
Torgersen: I agree with Larry, in fact, I’ve been talking about this online […] we’ve seen a lot of what I would call activists – and some of them try to be writers, but really they’re activists first – try to come into this genre, supposedly the dangerous genre, if you remember Harlan Ellison’s anthologies that he put out a few years ago… now the genre doesn’t want to be dangerous, the genre wants to be safe. And you have all these people scurrying around calling people names – character assassinations, people get mobbed on blogs, y’know Elizabeth Moon was a a victim of that not to long ago, every year it seems there’s somebody who’s a new victim.
Torgersen: And they don’t even have to necessarily be in the genre? Who was the British guy who was going to be [Jonathan Ross]… I thought that was a great idea… to me, he was going to bring a lot of clout to the Hugos and the Hugos were really going to get a nice spotlight. Well, what happened? Almost immediately, as soon as he was named, as he was going to be the guy, people had a freaking cow. And they were saying, “oh it’s not, he’s gonna make it so I can’t be safe at the Hugos.” Which, okay, I’m sorry, I’m military, a lot of this talk about safe spaces is complete crap and it’s silly and it’s juvenile and it’s infantile, and they won, and they got him taken off. […]
Torgersen: Almost every year there’s some controversy over something somebody’s written where they get accused of having fun wrong. You know, Larry has brought this up many times, in the genre now, you’re having fun wrong, you get accused of cultural appropriation, you get accused of racism, you get accused of sexism, you get accused of trans gender phobia – the activists have really tired their best to make the genre become a game of political correctness. And, most people are running scared. Authors, like Larry said, are terrified of “what can I write?” I see that all the time with new authors now, what can I write, what can I write? […]
Torgersen: We have a lot of people militating in the genre to try to force – for instance, Orson Scott Card got kicked off a comics thing not too long ago because activists were trying to punish him for some things he had said… [ed: that GBLT people should be illegal, and also, being on the board of the National Organisation for Marriage, and anti-marriage-equality political action group] […]
Torgersen: More and more of the genre is becoming obsessed with making political points, making sociological points, the Hugos have become this football for activists and other people who want to make a political point. And it’s like people have forgotten about the whole point of this enterprise, which is adventure, exploration, and if there’s a message, that’s the passenger. […]
eta: There is a report going around that Mr. Correia changed his Reno, Nevada Worldcon report, editing it from a largely positive report to one that better fits the current narrative. This is untrue; there is a recent addendum, wherein he says he was intentionally leaving out the negatives, and that he was “still afraid of” “the TNH crowd,” but the body of the text has not been changed. (Current version, Mar 16, 2015 10:05:33 GMT version in Google’s cache (scroll down). This addendum is accurate as of 9:15am Cascadian/Pacific, 14 April 2015.)
eta2: Multiple people (including commenter Matthew B., below) are pointing to a later version of Mr. Wright’s comments in his Legend of Korra deleted post, wherein he asserts that the “instinctive reaction of men towards fags” is “beating them to death with axhandles and tire-irons.” Here is a screen capture; here is the blog post talking about it at Obsidian Wings. This is in neither archive.org capture, but was reported to be in a January 28, 2015 Google Cache record. This cache is no longer available; the current Google cached version is from April 9th (indicating the page changed at or around then), and the comment in that version is not the same. I am slightly hesitant about posting this because I cannot personally access the (now-expired) cache, but as several people confirmed the quote at the time (see comments at Obsidian Wings) and screencaps were posted (see links), and none of the cacheing we do have contradicts the implication of an edit on or around April 8th or 9th, prior to the whole article’s deletion, I’m going ahead. Also, I have seen almost exactly the same line delivered by a variety of religious fundamentalist sources; I accordingly find it credible.
eta3, I guess? 2015/04/29: John Ringo posted a ranty rant rant about “Understanding SJW Logic” and how it is “destroying science fiction” and ranting about his sister being “a radical gay” and so on. And then he deleted it several hours later. Sorry, John, that’s still not how the Internet works. Here’s the header:

*: This is contested. I took the phrase “Full disclosure: AISFP was included in the 2015 slate” to indicate involvement in selecting the slate, which for me, indicates pro-Puppy support, as did listening to the episode. However, commenters on Twitter have indicated they are not a pro-Puppies podcast in general; see this comment thread below for details.
eta: HELLO EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET, starting with Cory Doctorow and Seanan McGuire readers but then it kind of exploded from there!
I’m actually a geek musician most of the time, despite all these Hugo/Sad Puppies posts as of late. You can listen to our new neo-Celtic fantasy novel soundtrack album by clicking on the play gadget in the upper left. Or you can pick tracks here:
http://music.crimeandtheforcesofevil.com/album/bone-walker
Also, all of my posts on this topic can be found in my Sexism and Racism in Geek Culture masterpost, which is on the left in “Collections.” Or, you know, here.
And welcome! ^_^
eta2: Well, that’s neat – I didn’t even know this style divided comments into pages. At least there’s UI for it, way down at the bottom.
25 comments on Livejournal, 41 comments on a Facebook repost, 3 comments (in 76 notes) on Tumblr.
Concerning Mr Pratchett, I believe human life is sacred, and all civilized men owe the back of their hand to a barbarian who says otherwise, whether he is a witty writer of lighthearted fiction or not.
I have no objection to your storing a record of my comment concerning a man who promotes the abomination called euthanasia. It is murdering depressed people who are sick.
Concerning Mr DiMartino and Mr Konietzko, I hold sex and marriage to be sacred, not to be demeaned by unchaste or unnatural lusts.
Not to worry, my column condemning them is also preserved, not deleted, and I will republish it in due time.
Sorry if your halfhearted attempt to throw me in to a bad light encounters interruptions. You only want to know what I think and believe on a topic when it matches your dishonest and simpleminded narrative. That is why you edited your version here.
I am under no obligation to assist you in your libels. You go to such angular and absurd efforts to portray me in an unfavorable light: why not portray me as I am?
It will not require you to keep track of as many lies, nor to post links your readers might surprise you by following.
Oh, hi, John. Gosh, I thought if you deleted something that might mean it was for a reason. Guess not!
It’s generally considered bad form to repost an entire blog post – outside fair use and all that – so I reblogged just part of it, while linking to the archive in its entirety. I encourage my readers to go check out the complete archive, here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20141229160245/http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/12/the-perversion-of-a-legend/
Where they can find some really, really interesting comments at the bottom, too.
Pro tip: don’t cry context if the context does not help.
Seems to me, John, you’re doing a fine job of portraying yourself just the way you are without others needing to help.
Oh, the huge mendacity!
Erm, science fiction has *always* made political or sociological points. After all, what’s the /point/ of worldbuilding an entire future society if you can’t hold up a funhouse mirror to some aspects of the world as it is, or describe how the world /could be/ ?
It sounds suspiciously to me that Correia is complaining that recently, he’s seeing more and more points /that he doesn’t like/, because when someone says something he agrees with it doesn’t strike him as “a political point”.
As to Mr. Wright and his repeated reprehensible comments earlier in this thread, I can only say that he is perfectly entitled to his opinion and the right to shout it from the rooftops… Just as we are allowed to call him an ethically challenged, morally myopic and utterly callous excuse for a human being for holding them.
Mr Wright, thank you for making your opinion so perfectly clear; any less and people might feel persuaded to give you the benefit of the doubt, or assume you simply spoke hyperbole.
Rens: I know, right? I mean, that’s kind of been… a lot of… the point? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like some adventure fiction myself.
But what I rather suspect is happening with Torgersen in particular here is that he doesn’t want social-political content he _particularly notices_, which I suspect is the same as social-political content he disagrees with, as you say. This is pretty common – if it’s what you’re used to and surrounded by, it’s functionally not there, like water for fish. But if it’s something you don’t agree with, suddenly SOMEONE IS INSERTING POLITICS!!1! and, well, here we go.
Surprised not to see Wright’s now-disappeared remark that “the instinctive reaction of men towards fags” is “beating them to death with axhandles and tire-irons.” I’m on my phone now, but the details were preserved in a post at obsidianwings.blogs.com.
Matthew: That’s not in either version of the cache I have (via archive.org), and the current Google Cache is from April 9th, not January, which kind of indicates that may be when it was changed. I’ve added it above, but with all that called out as qualifications, since I did not see it first hand.
Since Correia said pretty much exactly the same thing in his response to GRRM’s response to him, I doubt he’s objecting much to that podcast being online or your having transcribed it.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/14/george-r-r-martin-responds
Yep, I put one story from Vox Day on the ballot for SP2. I read it earlier that year, and personally, I enjoyed it, but then again, my perceptions weren’t colored by all of you guy’s hatey-hate and judging books by their covers. I also had it on my sidebar for a month, so many of my fans read it.
When it came time to put my SP2 slate together (which was such a nefarious master plan that it consisted of me saying, hmmm… what did I like this year, and then posting it on my blog) I remembered that story. I was also trying to get people motivated to get involved in the Hugo process, and I knew he had a lot of blog traffic. Not to mention that one of my stated goals was to demonstrate that SJWs would have a massive freak out if somebody with the wrong politics got on. So on the slate it went. I nominated Vox Day because Satan didn’t have any eligible works that period.
I can’t say what’s in his mind, other than what he’s said. I _can_ say that _before_ this went up and got shared around (and that started a few days ago, days before his GRRM response, and even before my longer transcription; I had linked to it in a prior post on the 11th, one which got a boatload of traffic, including from GRRM’s LJ), Correia wasn’t acknowledging that in post-blowup discussions. In fact, both he and Torgersen (Torgersen in particular) had and have been distancing themselves from Vox Day, working very hard to imply that his involvement had nothing to do with them, and talking up the line that Sad Puppies was way less about politics, and way more about Good SF. (At least, outside friendly confines; inside those, it was all stick-it-to-the-SJWs, which was rather the point of going back to bring some of that a little more visibility.)
We now have confirmed (and he has admitted, now that it’s very, very public) that he was throwing bombs quite intentionally, that nominations were meaningfully if not primarily politically motivated, and that he’s the sort quite willing to work politically (as this was, indeed, a political campaign) with virulent misogynists and vicious racists. The attempts to distance are spin, a lie which failed to cover up the direct links between the various Puppies.
And if he’s decided that he’s not only okay with that, but is okay with just saying it, then that’s good; we know where we all stand, and that’s always important.
I have a screencap for Wright’s entire, original “perversion of a legend” post plus comments, taken from Google’s webcache as of January 28. If anyone a) thinks it would help, and b) knows a good place to put it (the damn thing is 4 Mb) that won’t easily suffer a DOS or similar attack, tell me!
I would certainly be interested in that, particularly if it still has the Google Webcache wrapper, but just as much either way. And should it become necessary, I do in fact have resources. (Guild of Calamitous Intent membership does have its advantages.)
Well, John C. Wright has helpfully re-posted the entire thing. The context is helpful for those of honest mind:
http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/04/good-thing-popular-science-is-fair-and-objective/
No, it’s really not “helpful,” at least in terms of any sort of statement about _my_ honesty in my quote. That’s the hilarious thing; both you and Mr. Wright have come here claiming (in his case) or implying (in your case) that somehow I have lied via omission of context when not only did I provide context (within the limits of fair use), but I linked to the entire cached post for further confirmation. And I have urged people to read it.
Mr. Wright himself in fact accused me of libel _after confirming my quotation of his material_, basically doubling-down _and_ crying libel. I _still_ find this utterly hilarious. (Unlike his contempt for LGBT people like myself, which I don’t find funny at all.)
But by all means, readers, please do go read Mr. Wright’s latest. I will be linking to it in the morning myself. I’m quite positive it will cast no doubts on _my_ quotation of and link to the cached version of his original blog.
I do note, however, that he has _not_ reposted the comments section wherein he described violence as the natural reaction of heterosexual men to gay men; perhaps that’s too embarrassing.
One of the best features of the Internet is that its Memory Hole is defective.
It’s going around, I guess. He’s calling me out for the same thing for my PopSci article — which is weird, because he’s an attorney and he should know what libel actually is and isn’t, and quoting his exact words… isn’t.
Wow, this is hilarious – because I just talked about that in today’s post. Vox Day is after you for libel, too.
http://crimeandtheforcesofevil.com/blog/2015/04/some-evolving-strategies
Hey, so, oh so many new visitors – hi! We’re throwing blog sale on our music just for you.
http://crimeandtheforcesofevil.com/blog/2015/04/secret-blog-sale
because somebody has to…
OH JOHN RINGO NO
I don’t get it.
“Oh John Ringo No” Was the catch phrase of David Hines’ review of Ringo’s Paladin of Shadow Series. It was issued whenever a particularly boneheaded thing happened in the books.
For anyone still confused: An entertaining review of a horrible series of novels from the depths of John Ringo’s Id.
http://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html
I’m pretty sure that Vox used to have a F.A.Q section on his site that explained his views on race, including that african people and their decedents weren’t far enough removed from their tribal roots to be civilized. (I’m paraphrasing) Since this most recent puppy campaign I haven’t been able to find his FAQ section at all.
There is a later version of the page on the webarchive which includes the “tire-irons” comment
https://web.archive.org/web/20150101023236/http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/12/the-perversion-of-a-legend