Good Thing Popular Science is Fair and Objective!
Another obscure Internet journal declares their loyalties and hoists the pink flag of Libel for Social Justice.
http://www.popsci.com/culture-wars-raging-within-science-fiction-fandom
One would think they would be imaginative enough to invent new libels.
The hack, a Mr Mike VanHelder, writes:
Recent nominee John C. Wright is a long-time professional writer, but he is perhaps better known for his views on LGBT activists and allies, who he has called “disgusting, limp, soulless sacks of filth” and other, less-printable slurs (Wright has recently deleted the “sacks of filth” post from his blog, but the Internet never forgets).
Here is the full text of the letter Mr VanHelder fails to quote:
Dear Mr DiMartino and Mr Konietzko,
I admire your creative effort tremendously. I watched your shows, bought your merchandize, and supported and lauded you. I made your work a part of my imagination and a part of my life, and introduced your show to my children.
And this is how you repay loyalty and affection?
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.
From all the fans everywhere worldwide let me say what we are all feeling:
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.
Got that? I insulted two men who richly deserved it, two men turned on by fantasies of lesbian oriental teenagers getting it on, but neither man himself a homosexual.
I insulted them for luring me into trusting them and repaying my trust with a craven, cowardly betrayal, and for the ghastly dishonesty with which they thereafter comported themselves in public.
I insulted them for insulting me.
This, in the minds of the honesty-challenged writer Mr VanHelder, constitutes me calling all lesbians, gays, bisexuals, whateversexuals, and their heterosexual allies and activists by the same names.
But none of these people ever betrayed me, targeted my children, or lied about me. Why would I upbraid them?
The other slurs, as you see, were also strictly printable, containing no swear words nor blasphemies: Unless you think calling someone a termite or an idolater is too shocking for delicate Victorian ears.
While, technically, one can call two hetero men lusting after teen lesbian characters they introduce without warning into a children’s cartoon and sneaking antinomian, and antichristian messages into wholesome family entertainment “LGBT activists and allies” one cannot call such a technicality honest.
Mr VanHelder selected his words carefully enough to create the impression exactly opposite the truth, like the man in the old joke who says his dog does not bite, never mentioning the the dog by his heel is not his.
As for the idea that an author of my standing, working for ten years with the largest and most prestigious publishing house in science fiction, with nomination for a Nebula under my belt, and now a record number of Hugo nominations — that the most famous thing I ever wrote was six words taken out of context in an unpublished letter dated last December to Mr DiMartino and Mr Konietzko is beyond false and beyond ludicrous.
I suppose someone, somewhere, is gullible enough to fall for so transparent a lie, but of what value could deceiving such a helpless naif turn out to be?
Or maybe he means it. Maybe he thinks more people read his column that have ever read my books? If so, that is a delusional thought. Mr VanHelder severely overestimates his power of propaganda, if he thinks his lies are more famous than my stories.
Nor was the post taking Mr Mr DiMartino and Mr Konietzko to task deleted. I merely redirected the link to put in its place my true feeling about homosexuals, so that voles looking for juicy bits of gossip on which to feed their anger and rage would be taken unawares.
I believe, profess, and unambiguously support the view that homosexuals must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.
I believe, profess, and unambiguously support the view that every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.
I believe, profess, and unambiguously support the view that These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.
However, those who think it right and just, a holy crusade, and a way of sticking to The Man, to offer a drunk a drink, and hand him the car keys to drive, and urge him to his destruction, knowing he is afflicted — such a vile, pitiless, foolish and ghastly hypocrites as this are guilty of something far worse than pride, and will answer a far sterner judge than I for the crime. The pity and respect I owe and show homosexuals struggling with their perversion I do not owe to those who undermine that struggle, or belittle it.
I do not hate homosexuals Mr VanHelder. I hate the lies you serve, the falsehoods to whom you bow the knee.
I hate your lies because I love the truth, and hate the injustice of seeing homosexuals and other innocent people hurt by your false narrative. It is not a difficult stance to understand, misrepresent it how you will.
Note that there is no link proffered by Mr VanHelder, no attribution, no facts. Nothing about me at all, in fact. He is describing the horrible strawman Mr Wright, the one eyed one horned flying purple people eater.
Ah, but I am a Little Satan. The Great Satan is Vox Day:
Big winner Vox Day is an outspoken white supremacist and campaigner against women’s education and suffrage, who is on the record as supporting the Taliban’s attempt to assassinate Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousifazi, finding it “scientifically justifiable.”
The fact that the Puppies have courted assistance from the anti-feminist GamerGate movement is another strike against their claims of political neutrality. The extent of the collaboration between the two groups is difficult to quantify….
On it goes in like vein. And they will simply get away with such libels, as have all the others.
This is your press, ladies and gentlemen. They act this way because the indifferent permit it, while the wicked reward it.
Mr VanHelder, with shocking insouciance, insolence, and tone deafness to the irony, concludes with this paragraph:
For most of its history, science fiction fandom was sheltered from the worst aspects of the increasingly polarized political climate. Trufans, safe in their bubble, were wholly unprepared for this kind of culture war. Can traditional science fiction fandom repel the invaders and return to the benign, anarchic status quo, or will they have to adopt the tactics of their enemy in order to survive, losing a part of themselves in the process?
Please write and ask for this man to be fired.
He is a terrible journalist. And since I am a journalist, and since I know whores to be more honest than most journalists, for him to be on the trailing edge of the Bell curve is even more damning.
Mr VanHelder cannot even do his libels credibly. How hard can it be to defame Vox Day? He cannot even do that right.
Here is the contact information for Popular Science magazine:
Popular Science
Letters
2 Park Ave., 9th Floor
New York, NY 10016
And here is the contact form for the Bonnier Corp, their parent company:
Please write and ask for this man to be fired.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
