Camestros Felapton

FELAPTONL

A Voyage Around the Puppy Seas to See How the Milomeltdown goes

This is largely presented without commentary but mainly to document that assorted pretzel shapes emerging from some quarters. I’m always interested in where fault lines lie between people with similar ideas.

Very short background. Professional troll-like speaker/Breitbart ‘journalist’ Milo Yianoppolis was riding high a few days ago after protests he had provoked and after appearing on Bill Maher’s show. Peak Milo arrived with an announcement that he would be a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Milo as I’m-not-alt-right-really gay British man speaking at this venue was seen as a bit of a coup. In the subsequent backlash from sections of the right and sections of the alt-right/no-no-we-arent-nazis/krypto-fascists (e.g. the man famous for being punched Richard Spencer), video of Milo discussing his teenage sexual experiences and his views on under-aged sex was pointed at by people on the right. Cue meltdown. While fans of Milo defended him, others were unsurprisingly unsympathetic in a confused conservative mix of legitimate concerns about his apparent pro-pedophile sympathies lumped together with regrettably-standard right-wing homophobia. CPAC invite cancelled, book deal withdrawn, Milo resigns from Breitbart, infighting on the right, schadenfreude on the left.

But what about the Puppies? Our pals in Puppydom kindly volunteered in 2015 as a kind of bellwether of vehement anti-leftism opinion from a weird sample of people who like SF/F. Let’s see how it’s all melting down.

Firstly from far across the sea from the isles of puppies comes John Scalzi: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/02/22/on-the-matter-of-empathy-for-horrible-people/

From beyond the worlds of kerfuffles, I think this piece is worth reading https://psmag.com/on-the-milo-bus-with-the-lost-boys-of-americas-new-right-629a77e87986#.d9qbw2ku0 but for a kerfuffle connection, on Twitter El Sandifer has positive views on Laurie Penny’s coverage and Alexandra Erin has an interesting critique of it that is less positive.

Sailing out of those calmer seas to towards the darkening horizon where storm clouds roil and sinister figures scowl. I’m using Internet Archive for links because I think some of these positions may change in the future.

I won’t bother posting the multiple defences of Milo from Vox Day -they are both dull and deeply hypocritical and then for extra ick tend to circle back to Vox Day praising himself for how loyal he is.

John C Wright? Follows Vox’s lead https://web.archive.org/web/20170222182323/http://www.scifiwright.com/2017/02/milo-libeled-fools-fooled/   There’s a point where somebody like Wright has taken on so many vices in the name of virtue that he has walled himself in. Like Vox the only virtue he can appeal to is a kind of loyalty.

But what about the world of Sad Puppies? Well, we can usually rely on Sarah Hoyt to angrily be vehemently confused about things https://web.archive.org/web/20170222182907/https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/02/22/if-they-take-milo-down-youre-next/ amid the various rationalisations the key message from Sarah is that Milo is an ally in their fight against the left and that really is the only thing that matters. Putting the specific topic aside for the moment, it is close to summing up where right wing politics is at the moment: there is no substance left except hatred of the left.

Neither Brad Torgersen nor Larry Correia are discussing Milo’s fall from (what? not ‘grace’ exactly?) on their blogs.

On Facebook Brad is trying to talk about without talking about so that he can follow Sarah’s lead and attack the left: https://www.facebook.com/brad.torgersen/posts/1800034383356120?pnref=story

Apropos of today’s hot publishing scandal, I said it on my blog a couple of weeks ago: gays and lesbians and ethnic minorities and women, who “come out” against the ctrl-Left, are branded as traitors. I also said in the same piece that the ctrl-left believe absolutely in one maxim above all: the ends justify the means. If they therefore have to lie to get what they want, they will lie. If winning means maligning and hurting people, they will malign and hurt. With a clear conscience, too. This is what the ctrl-Left does. This is who the ctrl-Left are. It’s not about fairness, nor compassion. It’s about having their way. No matter what.

It seems to be Milo-as-Martyr time for Brad but he avoids mentioning him by name. It’s classic Brad, a hot-take based in some alternate reality. The left attacked Milo previously BECAUSE he went around maligning and hurting people not because he was gay. The people throwing conniptions right now are Brad’s pals on the RIGHT. Ho hum.

Larry Correia isn’t saying anything on Facebook either. I’m guessing this is because Larry is the smartest of the bunch.

camestrosfelapton

33 responses to “A Voyage Around the Puppy Seas to See How the Milomeltdown goes”

  2. I just can’t get over the weird way they accuse others of what they themselves actually do–even when they’re in the middle of doing it! E.g Torgersen saying “the ctrl-left believe absolutely in one maxim above all: the ends justify the means” when they’re the ones saying “Milo is an ally in their fight against the left and that really is the only thing that matters.”

    I find myself wondering if there’s just a part of their brains that doesn’t function properly.

    Like

    • Yeah it’s hard to fathom. Some of it is willful ignorance (particulary Brad) and the other is that all vices are the enemies (eg the left is supposedly both ignorant and over educated).

      Like

  3. Isn’t it funny that last year, the various puppy fractions positioned themselves as champions against the alleged hotbed of pedophilia that is the SFF community (based on three decades old cases, which were widely condemned), but now one of their own makes pro-pedophilia remarks, all that concern about abused children is completely gone? It’s almost as if they never cared about pedophilia and abused kids at all, but only used it as the worst insult they could throw at their enemies.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Perhaps they’ve have taken the puppy analogy too far and replaced their subtler human traits with the loyalty of dogs to their masters.

    Like

  5. Hoyt makes the argument in her post that age of consent should be when a child has gone through puberty — so therefore Milo isn’t talking about pedophilia at all. That’s some desperate rationalization right there.

    Like

    • delagar: Hoyt makes the argument in her post that age of consent should be when a child has gone through puberty — so therefore Milo isn’t talking about pedophilia at all. That’s some desperate rationalization right there.

      And from the people who insisted that the falsehood-laden SSARR was deathly important because pedophilia was so awful.

      There is, apparently, no level of despicableness to which the Puppies won’t sink. >:-(

      Liked by 1 person

    • Yeah and its not an uncommon one among sections of the right. The key element here is their concern is not about protecting vulnerable people nor about consent or child safety but purely about what taboos should be.

      If you asked these same people about VOTING age their answers would be suddenly different.

      Like

      • There’s quite an interesting battle going on in the comments on Hoyt’s blog, with Hoyt repeatedly making justifications for pedophilia and another woman repeatedly saying “No, it’s not okay”, and getting cast as the villain by Hoyt for it.

        Like

      • We see a lot of this in Germany among our far right. They are totally concerned about sexual harrassment and rape, as long as the victims are white women and the perpetrators are Muslims and refugees. They are concerned about sexual abuse of children, as long as they can use it to smear leftwing and green politicians. And they are so concerned about the homeless, as long as they can pit them against refugees. It’s disgusting, but thankfully a lot of people don’t fall for their tricks anymore.

        Like

      • “They are totally concerned about sexual harrassment and rape, as long as the victims are white women and the perpetrators are Muslims and refugees.”

        tbh i wonder how much of that is down to a view of white women as the exclusive property of white men. that is, it’s not the sexual assault that’s upsetting to them, it’s the “theft” committed by non-white men.

        Like

  6. Did anyone else notice that they’re defending Milo for not only saying the same things, but even worse things, than for which they crucified Delany?

    Yegods, I hate hypocrites. 🙄

    Like

  7. I did wonder how long it’d take them to face up to this. I linked to the unedited* Joe Rogan video over at Spacefaring Kittens back in May last year; given that the Rabids were paying quite a bit if attention to that blog at the time (they were trying to smear the owner as a paedophile for pointing out the flaws in their conspiracy theory) I’d imagine that a few of them would have clicked the link.
    It’s all a blatant double standard, of course. We all know how they’d have reacted if a left-wing SF author made the same comments that Milo did in those interviews.
    *And yes, I’ve watched both videos in their entirety. Enough to see the flaws on Milo’s “taken out of cobtext” excuse.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I’m not sure if I read it on Spacefaring Kittens or somewhere else, but I remember listening to that video around then, and I only pay attention to Milo in a sort of “keep my eye on that nasty insect on the ceiling to make sure it doesn’t jump on my head” kind of way. This is definitely something MY’s followers/fans/supporters should have already known. On the one hand, I don’t think the Puppy leadership cares much about the issues they’re taking on, for or against – they just want notoriety and increased sales; on the other hand, I don’t think MY was known at all to the political establishment that he recently entered and was quickly ejected from. I think there are a lot of purely base political types on the right who have no idea what nasty subculture they’re embracing. They’ll be learning over the next few months and years. It’d be funny if they weren’t in positions to do actual harm.

      Like

  9. As others are saying, thanks for looking. (I haven’t really had time to look, and am not sure I have patience. Or the stomach for it.)

    I suppose this can’t be anything like a new observation, but is anyone else boggled by the sheer amount of projection and adoption of every one of the dirty deeds loudly attributed to the other ‘side’? The theatrical hypersensitivity (noted by Ms. Penny) while simultaneously acting like dirtbags to everyone else is a case in point, and, I guess, is now their signature trait. Moral consistency’s for other people.

    On reflection, it’s so double-damned ugly I’m really not sure I want to look closer at the fallout. Depressing, really.

    Like

Blog at WordPress.com.