I'd call him a Neanderthal...

[seawasp]

... but I don't want to insult the proud Neanderthal in most of us.

Theodore Beale, known also as Vox Day, ladies and gentlemen. Here's his original post in response to N.K. Jemisin and her Continuum speech.

If you're sensitive to obvious racism, misogyny, and other traits that sound appropriate for someone wearing a white hood while burning a cross, I'd recommend not clicking the first link. I'm an optimist most of the time; I thought attitudes like this were reserved for 70+ Southern guys who were steadfastly refusing to recognize we'd passed the 1950s, let alone entered the 21st century. Instead, I see with great depression that this twit is actually a young punk, 6 years younger than I am.

If I were in the SFWA, I'd be supporting Amal El-Mohtar in her call to have Beale kicked out.

The worst part of this is that a small, but significant, group of people *IN* SFWA (about 10% of the vote) voted for this... being... as an officer, the HIGHEST officer, of the organization. And it is not like his attitudes were secret before all this happened. (that link gives you a purer sample of misogyny, though no direct racism)

I rarely get involved in politics. My political positions don't entirely agree with those on the Right (a large proportion of my fellow Baen authors) or on the Left, and I spent plenty of years on Usenet igniting flamewars; I have grown (mostly) out of enjoying making people foam at the mouth, and actually tend to just leave arguments when I find myself getting emotionally worked up (whether or not I'm "winning" or "losing" or even right or wrong as I view things).

I'm also pretty tolerant of opposing views, even ones espousing things I don't like. I think that basic freedom of speech also includes my responsibility to accept that I don't have a right to NOT be offended, and that people can, and will, and even should, say and believe things I find offensive, within pretty broad limits.

But there ARE limits, and this guy goes past them.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I read that earlier after Kari Sperring mentioned it on her LJ and I was just...flabbergasted isn't quite the word. That, and horrified, I guess,. Maybe I'm naive, but I had some hopes that human beings had evolved past that. What horrified me even more were the comments, the people agreeing with him, the name-calling and trash-talking of awesome people I've met and think highly of.

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

Um, wow.

I knew this individual was a loudmouth and the sort of thing best left under the dark and unpleasant rock under which it lurks, and furthermore adept at both the necessary mental contortions to not only believe the garbage they spout, but to do it so completely that they always believe they are in the right.

But this level of deliberate obtuseness and vicious bile is shocking.

And that's coming from someone that is not infrequently accused of being a cynic.

I feel soiled just from reading that post, I cannot imagine how the people this odious excuse for a human being actually attacked feel, but they have my deepest sympathies.

But there ARE limits, and this guy goes past them.

Way, way past them.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I've clicked on too many Nichol links to be tempted this time. Between you and Jim Hines it makes me rather glad I've never been professionally published and risk meeting this idiot in person.

[alexvdl.livejournal.com]

That he got 42 votes, doesn't mean that he's got ten percent of the SFWA, thank god.

[pythor (from livejournal.com)]

But I enjoyed your usenet flamewars... That's how I discovered your work in the first place.

Although I haven't read much on usenet in years, either.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

If someone wants to read his nastiness without giving his site hits, El-Mohtar's call for expulsion has screencaps.

Scalzi kicked off a movement to match donations to worthy causes: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/06/13/pledge-matching-today-for-the-carl-brandon-society/

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Amal El-Mohtar is a lady with a gender-ambiguous first name, so it's her call, &c.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

He goes way, WAY past - and he makes any organization that keeps him as a member look terrible thereby.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Would you consider Jemsin's comment

Right now there are laws in places like Florida and Texas which are intended to make it essentially legal for white people to just shoot people like me, without consequence, as long as they feel threatened by my presence.

to be accurate?

I bring this up because it totally leapt out at me as one of the first things Beale quoted from Jemsin's statement, and I am pretty sure that no laws have been passed making the legality of self-defense conditional upon the races of the people involved.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

The laws don't say so in as many words, but Florida is probably a reference to Trayvon Martin and Texas a reference to this.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

The Texas decision is utterly unjustifiable, since prostitution is illegal and the courts are not supposed to enforce illegal contracts (or allow the use of force to recover money spent in an illegal transaction). In the Trayvon Martin case, the issue is whether Zimmerman's claim of self-defense against a battery which left clear physical evidence is justifiable, and neither shooter nor victim was white.

[seawasp]

As kgbooklog says, it's not something explicit. But one can have very nasty intent -- conscious or otherwise -- behind things without in any way explicitly putting it into the thing.

If you already have courts which tend to be disproportionately hard on people of color over whites (and in many areas you do), such laws have the obvious consequence of making it easier for white people to shoot people of color. As there are many people with Vox' demonstrated attitude towards people of color in those areas, it is a not at all unfair postulate that such laws are intended -- consciously or unconsciously -- to facilitate this kind of thing.

Can you PROVE it? No. But there's an awful lot of circumstantial evidence in various quarters. The existence of people like Mr Beale proves that we have yet to get rid of all the attitudes that should have been consigned to history a century ago.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

If you already have courts which tend to be disproportionately hard on people of color over whites (and in many areas you do), such laws have the obvious consequence of making it easier for white people to shoot people of color.

If it's a matter of "white people" shooting "people of color," then this utterly fails to apply to the Zimmerman-Martin shooting, as Zimmerman was a "person of color" shooting another "person of color." To be precise, Zimmerman was half of Latino descent, while Martin was mostly of black descent -- would you say that the police assumed it to be self-defense because Zimmerman was lighter-skinned than Martin? Or do you think that it was because there was evidence Martin both initiated violence in the encounter and carried it to the point of inflicting GBH on Zimmerman and attempting to inlict more? Or some combination of the above?

Would you think it a good idea to reduce the right of self-defense if such right leads to more blacks in absolute terms being shot self-defensively than whites? In absolute terms? In relative terms?

My personal opinion, which is I believe supported by the US Constitution, is that citizens are equal under the law, regardless of race, and thus the right of self-defense should be equal for all citizens. Furthermore, the right of self-defense derives directly from the rights to one's life, liberty and pursuit of happiness: hence it is tyranny to abridge the right of self-defense when properly exercised. A person should never have to choose between letting an agressor hurt him or her, and obeying the law.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Then there was a black woman who tried to use the stand your ground defense when she used a gun to fire a shot into the ceiling to try and scare off her abusive partner. She got 20 years. While the laws aren't meant to discriminate by race or gender, the end results suggest that it is happening.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Then wouldn't the proper remedy be to ensure that the right to stand one's ground is enforced fairly, rather than taking this right away because it is sometimes enforced unfairly?

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Given the choice between allowing excessive force and limiting use of force, I'd take the latter.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

But you would put victims in the position of having to choose between yielding to an assailant, or breaking the law. Furthermore, if the authorities are still racist, but the law is simply abolished, the authorities can still choose to arrest and prosecute on the basis of whether or not an act of self-defense seems legitimate or not, as they did before this right to stand one's ground was made legally-explicit. You would have robbed people of part of their right of self-defense, helping criminals over honest folk, while doing nothing to reduce the racism of the authorities -- which you claim to be the main problem here.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

I'd rather not be shot by some overzealous rent-a-cop wannabe, thank you very much.

Unlike some people, I believe it's better for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to die.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I'd rather not be shot by some overzealous rent-a-cop wannabe, thank you very much.

Then I assume that you would not respond to being watched by one by trying to beat his head into the concrete.

Unlike some people, I believe it's better for the guilty to go free than for the innocent to die.

So, since there is a good argument that Zimmerman acted in self-defense, you would prefer that Zimmerman, whom you think guilty, go free?

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Did he have a deathly allergy to skittles?

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

No, he had a "deathly allergy" to getting his head pounded into the concrete.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes I would.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Since the law was written in a completely race-neutral fashion, how would eliminating the law render the enforcement of civil rights more fair? Keep in mind that the law also protects the right of non-whites to defend themselves without having to first attempt retreat.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

Because it means more pointless violence.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Assuming that you mean that the retention of the law would mean "more pointless violence," on what do you base this assumption? What it means is that it will be safer to initiate violence than before, since now the assailant need not worry as much about resistance by the victim, while the victim will now face charges if he or she tries to resist, even if the attack was legally unprovoked. Since assailants are by definition generally more violent than potential victims, this will lead to more, not less, assaults.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

... on the other hand, I notice that Beale seems to share the delusion that the Stand Your Ground laws are racially-biased, so that's no good defense of his REPLY.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

and if you believe him, he hasnt done or said anything offensive at all, ever.