A bit of history, A few months ago John Ringo was uninvited as a Guest of honor from conCarolinas. Prior to that Jon del Arroz was uninvited from Bay con in 2017. Being fans of all three this last week I us unsurprised to read that a SJW lady made up more false bs to get Larry Correia uninvited from origins gaming fair.
Larry is also a huge miniature painter and gaming fan, he just took 1st place in a miniature painting contest. On top of that he has designed and written several RPG's based on the MHI universe.
Here is a video explaining some of the asshatery that SJW have done in the last few days.
I had not seen this, as it turns out Larry had submitted a short story for and an anthology to be released at the origins show. They have scrubbed his name off the book in their advertisements. Original
replacement
It apparently took John Ward 3 Months to do his research, IE long enough to book the vendors and sell out the tickets.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DSgrouse,
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010
Could you give us some details on why he was uninvited, for those of us who aren't on Facebook (you have to log in to read that page) and who don't want to sit through a 20 minute video?
Originally posted by RogueJSK: Could you give us some details on why he was uninvited, for those of us who aren't on Facebook (you have to log in to read that page) and who don't want to sit through a 20 minute video?
Sure, well. 3 SJW posted on origins page on mothers day about how he is a racist, homophobic and a rape apologist. None of which is true.
he was disinvited via facebook by John ward then later via email.
David Weber 17 hrs · So, I don't get out on social media much. Some of the current meltdowns pretty much illustrate why I don't. Well, that and the fact that I recognize what a time sink it would turn into if I spent a lot of time out here.
Nonetheless, I thought I'd add my two cents worth on this whole question of disinviting people from conventions.
First, let me say that I think "disinviting" anyone from anything is a bad idea. It's usually the result of caving in to someone's lynch mob mentality, usually couched in the properly hysterical massacre of innocent photons on Facebook and the Twitterverse. And that lynch mob mentality results from total closure of the mental synapses. God forbid that anything like a challenging idea might creep in and unbalance the perfection of their Visualization of the Cosmic All.™ I don't care whether the people pushing for disinviting are from the left or the right — as far as I'm concerned, they are all from Pluto . . . and I wish they'd go back there. Unless you can demonstrate to me that someone actually has — as opposed to has allegedly — physically assaulted someone, preyed upon a minor, or advocated violence, and unless this information became available to the public record only after the invitation was issued, then there is no legitimate or moral basis for revoking an invitation. Leaving aside simple considerations of common courtesy and moral decency, I always thought — in my innocent youth, at any rate — that science fiction was supposed to be about the exchange of ideas. That we were supposed "to go where no one has gone before and explore new worlds and new civilizations." And I was under the impression that it's usually by contacting contrarian ideas that our own understanding grows. That in being open to learning — gasp! Someone give me oxygen! — from new or competing ideas we strengthen our own understanding. In defending our own ideas in a robust debate we both deepen our own understanding of those ideas and test them for flaws.
Apparently, in this brave new age of ours, I was mistaken.
One of the problems, of course, is that "robust debate" and "courteous debate" seem to have become contradictions. I love people who will go at it with me hammer-and-tongs on matters political and even religious, as long as both sides of the debate are willing to give the other side equal "airtime" and to (a) respond courteously to the other's points/arguments and (b) to at least provisionally assume that the other person is at least potentially a decent human being who simply disagrees (possibly just because he's mistaken or even misinformed), and not a malevolent entity from the depths of hell out to destroy all that is good, decent, and true in the universe. I don't care whether the other party to the conversation is a progressive, conservative, socialist, Libertarian, monarchist, or any other "ist," "ive," or "ian" you care to name. I have never in my entire life had a discussion — and I mean a serious discussion — with someone of an opposing political or religious persuasion without learning something. Sometimes, the something in question challenged or even changed my own position. More often, it simply caused me to understand the texture of my own beliefs and where they came from more deeply. At the end of my life, I'd like someone to say — as William Buckley, junior, said about one of his lifetime friends — that they remember me for years of love, friendship, and fiercely honest intellectual debate.
Not so much of that going around these days.
And "disinviting" guests is one more nail in the coffin, which is why it should always be a last resort, not a first response, which is exercised only after new information comes to light demonstrating an actual offense falling under the category I discussed above. If it was already out there in the public record, then you damned well should've known about it before you issued the invitation, so don't come crying to me now because someone else has dug it up. You issued the invitation. Be an adult. Stand by it.
Second, about the cons that do practice this particular perversion. I won't be going to them in the future, and I don't care whether it was because they disinvited a friend of mine or someone I despise. Mind you, I'm human enough to feel a deeper satisfaction at striking off the name of a con that disinvites somebody I like, but that's really secondary. Cons have a responsibility to decide before they invite someone whether or not that guest is such a moral leper that they don't want him or her (let's be egalitarian here) on the premises. This isn't a decision they're supposed to make after they've invited someone, and if they don't know enough about the guest to make it before they issue the invitation, then they haven't done their own due diligence. Once they've invited a guest and announced it to the world, they have a moral obligation to stand by that invitation. I remember when Archon disinvited Tim Bolgeo. I'd just been to the con as a recent guest of honor and they treated me very well and I'd had a very good time. But I've known Timmy since 1991 and I knew there was exactly zero truth to the allegations leveled against him. So when they caved, disinvited him because of what I knew were lies, I made the decision — which I communicated to the convention at the time — that I would not be returning until they issued a formal apology to him or there was an entirely new con committee. That's been my policy ever since, which causes me considerable pain in the case of ConCarolinas, for a lot of reasons.
Third, about people who feel "unsafe" or "threatened" by announced guests.
Don't go.
It's really simple. An infallible defense against any sort of threat you might experience in that reprehensible individual's presence. And if you feel especially triggered, contact the convention and explain to them that you won't be coming because of a specific guest they've invited. That's always your prerogative. What is not the prerogative of a putatively adult human being is to throw a temper tantrum and demand that the offending guest be removed. Unless you can demonstrate and document a case — and Internet accounts of what a friend of a friend of another friend of an acquaintance had to say about someone is not, God help us, documentation — in which that guest has personally threatened or harmed someone (and emotional distress because they disagree with you doesn't count), then you have no justification at all in demanding that the con make them go away so that you can have a stress-free three-day weekend. You can vote against that guest's ever being re-invited with your pocketbook, if that's what you want to do, but aside from that, put on your grown-up undies and either go or don't go.
Fourth, about cons who disinvite a guest because they are afraid "we can't adequately provide for your security" while while they are there. What the hell business did they have putting together a con in the first place? Security during the event is one of the con's fundamental responsibilities. Now, admittedly, for most of our cons, that's seldom a huge problem, because fans are by and large (there are exceptions, and David, you know I'm talking about you) law-abiding types at least when in the company of our fellow geeks. But it's one of the areas any con has to deal with, and it should damn well do it before issues its invitations. Which means that if a con goes ahead and invite a guest who the con committee believes may be controversial, may actually require the additional security, they arrange for it at the same time they extend the invitation. And if it they discover only after the invitations have been extended and accepted that someone plans on harassing one of their guests (like, say, John Ringo at ConCarolinas), then they go out and they get the additional security. I'm sure e local law enforcement would be happy to work with them if they anticipate a serious issue. And if the issue they anticipate isn't at least serious enough for them to see a need to contact the local LEOs, then it isn't damned well serious enough to justify revoking an invitation.
Fifth, specifically about John and Larry Correia.
I've known John for a lot of years now. He is a cantankerous, stiffnecked, unapologetic, sometimes dismayingly forthright individual. Personally, I think those are virtues. (He also smokes cigars, which I do not think is a virtue, but every rose has its thorn's.) He is perfectly capable of peeling the bark off of his un-minced words, he has little patience with fools, and he does not suffer attack without responding. Having said that, I for one have never seen him initiate combat (verbal or otherwise) on a personal level. I have seen him respond with a devastating retaliatory strike, but that's usually restricted to terminating the patent absurdity and stupidity of the other person's argument with extreme prejudice. I know that he is neither a misogynist nor a racist nor a homophobe nor a practitioner of kinky sex with minors. And I also know that his beloved wife would kick his posterior up between his ears if he were any of the above. In other words, there was exactly no justification at all to the complaints raised against him which led to his craven disinvitation. It was, quite simply, an ideological hit job . . . that worked.
I certainly can't demonstrate the connection between the success against John and the eerily similar attack on Larry at Origins. That doesn't mean that I don't personally suspect that the two are connected. Hyenas grow bolder when they successfully pull down one target, after all. I haven't known Larry as long as I've known John, but I know that Sharon and I like him and Bridget a lot, that I've had some very free ranging conversations with him, and that if there is a misogynistic bone in his body (which, admittedly, is a rather large body) neither Sharon nor I have ever seen a sign of it. (Wait! He's a Mormon! Obviously that means he's misogynistic . . . at least in some particularly narrowminded, bigoted quarters. But I digress.) Like John, Larry doesn't really have a reverse gear, intellectually speaking. Neither one of them is backing up just because someone disagrees with him or finds his audacity in daring to challenge their own intellectual or ideological blinkers a threat. Their attitude (and mine, truth in advertising) is that if the water is too cold for you, you should stay the hell out of the swimming pool. Meanwhile, we're up for a good game of water polo.
Clearly, however, there is a lynch mob mentality out there that doesn't really care about things like honesty, mental integrity, respect for opposing viewpoints, or freedom of thought. And, equally clearly, like the hyenas they resemble (I am speaking purely metaphorically, of course; I would never insult someone by suggesting they really are hyenas), they are further emboldened every time the pack pulls someone down successfully.
So, for whatever it's worth, Sharon and I are officially signing on to John's proposed counter strategy (which, after all, we were already pursuing on our own). Any con which disinvites a guest for any reason other than demonstrated misbehavior on that guest's part (such misbehavior to include threats of violence but not simply threats to someone else's complacency) will go on to our list ("Oh, we have a little list! We have a little list!") of conventions at which we will be forever missed. I don't like blacklisting, as a usual thing, and I certainly don't subscribe to it where individuals are concerned. This is really the only weapon pros have in this situation, though. John's right; the cons need guests more than we need them. Sharon and I don't go to cons to sell books. We don't go because we think it's necessary for professional recognition. We go because we love our fans and this lets us spend time with them. That's it. The total reason for the David and Sharon Traveling Roadshow is our fans. We really don't like giving up opportunities to spend that time with them, but we can't in good conscience support a convention which is so cowardly, so contemptible, that it doesn't stand by its original guest list simply because of an unsubstantiated, baseless, libelous mass hysteria on social media. That's not even contemptible, people; it's beneath contempt.
I'm sure we've infuriated at least some people by accurately and honestly characterizing their efforts to enforce their version of groupthink and the intellectual fascism that calls in the storm troopers of social media to dehumanize decent and honorable human beings who happen to disagree with them.
You know what?
We're fine with that.
Jim Butcher
John Ringo
quote:
John Ringo May 16 at 11:32am · So Larry Correia's invite as GOH to Origins got rescinded because he's 'racist', 'homophobe', 'has sex with manatees' etc.
This is a strong suggestion to any decent author, especially all Baen authors.
If invited to a con, especially as a 'special guest', require the following in your contract:
Pre-paid travel. (Non-refundable, reserved for your use and one guest.) Pre-paid room. (Non-refundable, reserved for your use and one guest.) A cash guarantee of non-cancellation on their part.
Show them links to what happened to myself and Larry.
If they cave to the SJW mobs, make it cost them.
If they refuse, they're probably setting you up. (This, very much, looked like a set-up to boost visibility. ConCarolinas is slightly different.) Tell them that based upon recent history you have to assume they're setting you up if they have issues with such basic items and ask them not to contact you again.
Any convention that for any reason plays this game of 'we have to rescind your invitation' (Origins, ConCarolinas, ArchCon) refuse to attend and ask other authors to refuse to attend. Not for any reason. Not because it's 'local', not because it's 'convenient'. Not because 'I've always gone to X con!'
Start choking them off of the revenue stream created by our attendance.
Just. Say. No.
As authors, we really don't need conventions anymore. You get more sales through posts online and engaging in social media (for as long as Twitter and Facebook will allows us to do so) than going to all the conventions in the world. The cons are mostly for your fans and if the cons want to play this game, the fans need to make it clear they're not going.
The exceptions to this are LibertyCon and Dragon Con. They're both professionally run cons run by professional people who don't play the SJW game. They're TRULY apolitical. ( FenCon Convention seems to still be playing it down the middle as well.)
With every other convention, assume you're being set-up at this point and don't be played for a sucker.
Oh, yeah, and as fans and lovers of liberty, never, ever attend Origins again if you ever have. Or ConCarolinas. (Sorry, Jada.) Or ArchCon. Or WorldCon.
We need a list. They never will be missed. No they never will be missed.
This has to stop and it won't until we take a stand. For those of you reading this who are 'liberals', please look at the history of how this is going and wonder how long it will take for YOU to end up against the wall. Think they're going to stop with me and Larry? Think again.
Boycott, divest, sanction.
It's time to strike back. We don't need cons. Cons need us. Time for them to figure that out. Michael Z. Williamson, Chuck Gannon, Toni Weisskopf, Jae B. Wells, Amanda S. Green, David B. Coe, Faith Hunter, Larry Correia, Michael Stackpole, Timothy Zahn, James Minz, Baen Books, Sharon Rice-Weber, Larry Correia, Bridget Litchford Correia
Brad Torgerson
quote:
Brad Torgersen Damn. David Weber just slam dunked the entire fracas in one perfectly brilliant post. My hat is off to the man. Seriously, if the Cultural Marxists can't understand how badly they've overstepped, after reading David's careful thoughts, they are not just malicious, but brain-dead to boot. https://www.facebook.com/david...sts/1922877941079166
Stephen Simmons
quote:
Brad Torgersen, my introduction to Larry Correia:
At LibertyCon four years ago, Larry was GOH. I had just finished up a *brilliant* panel on Space Opera with Sarah A. Hoyt, David Drake, and a couple other folks with sales FAR in excess of my own, and my next hour was a discussion entitled "Had SF Proposed A Better Government Than The US Already Has?", in the same room. So, I sat tight where I was, at the extreme stage-right end of the table, waiting for the changeover.
Suddenly, i was in shadow. I turned and looked up ... And UP ... to see Larry looming over me. He asked, cheerfully, "You're sitting to my right. On a political panel. Are you sure that's where you want to be?"
It was a fun day.
M.A.Rothman
quote:
So, I have a friend who is a rather outspoken libertarian and gun person (no, not talking about myself, though it might sound like it.)
Anyway, he’s of Portuguese descent and largely IMHO because the left hates him, they claim he isn’t Hispanic or a “person of color.”
If you were from Brazil (who speak a bastardized Portuguese) you do count, or so says the left.
Frankly, I don’t care what those idiots think, but I was fascinated by the justification.
Evidently people from Portugal or Spain don’t count because they were oppressors, so-called colonizers, and the folks south of the Border are victims or the oppressed and therefore count when it comes to the Social Justice BINGO.
Well, if that’s the case - I could make a very strong case for Jews, I being one of them, as the oppressed.
Hell, we’ve been oppressed for thousands of years. This message has been edited. Last edited by: DSgrouse,
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010
Originally posted by RogueJSK: Could you give us some details on why he was uninvited, for those of us who aren't on Facebook (you have to log in to read that page) and who don't want to sit through a 20 minute video?
The simple brief is that social justice warriors (LIBERALS) are removing voices in any genre, twitter / google / science fiction / video games / politics - that they don't agree with. Its control they want, complete control.
This particular situaton involves an author who is strongly pro-gun, & is un-apologetic of it. The organization inivited his participation, promoted an event with him as guest of honor, he was smeared by 'safe space' accusations & promptly uninvited.
Which was widely communicated to attendees via social media in order to identify the conference leadeship's social values to the liberal mob. (Widely known as 'virtue signaling')
<>< America, Land of the Free - because of the Brave
Well, it seems that the lady who was the original complainant, Whose's loved one was supposedly hurt by larry correia, let slip who he is. It turns out he is the sone of a billionaire.
quote:
"> Larry Correia 9 hrs · So, if I am hearing this right, the guy I fisked with the illogical angsty article about how GenCon is racist, whose fiancé screeched to get me kicked out of Origins... is the SON OF A BILLIONAIRE.
HA! If that’s accurate, that perspective makes reading this article even funnier. No wonder that petty shit bugged him so much. He’s used to being pampered.
So the farm boy, who grew up dirt poor, with an illiterate father, and who worked his way through his state cow college, used super hurty words which super upset a guy who went to the same private school as Peter Dinklage, so much that his fiancé felt “unsafe” FOUR YEARS LATER.
Well, shit. Hire some goons or something. You’ve got piles of money.
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010
Originally posted by parabellum: If the shoe fits...
Okay
And if you're going to take this personally, I can't do anything about that.
The revelation of the source of this silly non-issue illustrates my point- some rich man's son, with nothing better to do with his time. He needs a job. An actual job. Then he'll have much less time to act like an ass.
Originally posted by parabellum: If the shoe fits...
Okay
And if you're going to take this personally, I can't do anything about that.
The revelation of the source of this silly non-issue illustrates my point- some rich man's son, with nothing better to do with his time. He needs a job. An actual job. Then he'll have much less time to act like an ass.
I doubt anyone takes neckbeard cracks personally, but agree that a lot of the online fights are pretty dumb.
<>< America, Land of the Free - because of the Brave
Originally posted by RogueJSK: Could you give us some details on why he was uninvited, for those of us who aren't on Facebook (you have to log in to read that page) and who don't want to sit through a 20 minute video?
The simple brief is that social justice warriors (LIBERALS) are removing voices in any genre, twitter / google / science fiction / video games / politics - that they don't agree with. Its control they want, complete control.
This particular situaton involves an author who is strongly pro-gun, & is un-apologetic of it. The organization inivited his participation, promoted an event with him as guest of honor, he was smeared by 'safe space' accusations & promptly uninvited.
Which was widely communicated to attendees via social media in order to identify the conference leadeship's social values to the liberal mob. (Widely known as 'virtue signaling')
My friend is a writer and part of this involves traveling to set up booths at conventions like these. He's been watching this happen for awhile and it's quite discouraging for people who do this for a living, to see this industry turn left and isolate those who don't share their views.
Posts: 7357 | Location: MI | Registered: May 22, 2007
As to how silly the issue is i don't know. The first few days after there were several dozen poster on the origins facebook page that had requested refunds. They were both guests and vendors of the gamin fair. Even though they were in full refund time, they were refunded only 50%. At the same time they still had not repaid Larry's flights and hotel room via the contact.
This has turned into a shit show for the vendors and companies who were attending based on having larry as a large draw. While he may not have been the only draw. He certainly was a significant enough, that as of yesterday the sold out fair offered up 300 discounted attendant tickets through one of the vendor who came out supporting larry's removal from the con.
The same vendor had known about his attendance from day one and only voiced opposition when his invitation was already rescinded.
I have a suspicion that this will effect the overall sales of the vendors, many of whom were told of larry's story submission and attendance on the panel as a guest of honor. These smaller con/fairs typically rely on 1-2 higher profile guests of honor, followed by up and coming designers and authors. A few mentioned that his attendance was key to them signing up for the gamefair as vendors.
John Ringo hit it on the head I think. He mentioned the success ousting Jon Del Arroz and later him self has proven to be a viable attack for social justice malcontents to use. Where 3,5,10 people can whip up enough bullshit to be 100. That in larrys case, it reads as a scripted play. John ward announces larry, gets uproar with in minutes from known sjw, and dis invites him via facebook before speaking with larry or even sending him an email.
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010
The problem is more than just the bored adolescent-minded nitwits. The problem extends itself to event organizers who cave in the face of such pissing and whining. He could have told them to go piss up a rope. Instead, he chose the easy way out. If you're going to condemn the adolescent SJWs, you need to include the coward who caved.
I was upset over this, as con's are bastions of scifi, but when a few of my personal favorite authors, people who generally sit and do not shake the foundations of government unless it is needed, speak, then you need to listen. Politicians can do what they want, but when the authors speak, the masses march. I wish this could count as violating freedom of the press
Used guns deserve a home too
Posts: 783 | Location: North Ga | Registered: August 06, 2016
Originally posted by fatmanspencer: I was upset over this, as con's are bastions of scifi, but when a few of my personal favorite authors, people who generally sit and do not shake the foundations of government unless it is needed, speak, then you need to listen. Politicians can do what they want, but when the authors speak, the masses march. I wish this could count as violating freedom of the press
I too have taken quite an issue with this type of shenanigan over the last year or so. I spend 4-10 hours a day listening to one type of audiobook or another. To have authors excluded from things after being saught out is greatly aggravating.
John Ringo's was especially aggravating. As the supposed girl he was fawning over turned out to be his second wifes daughter she had given up for adoption 20+ years before. The con went out of their way to give John and his wife and daughter space for a first meeting. The SJW made up some bullshit story about how he was pawing all over this girl.
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010
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