Publishing House Baen Books Attacked by Cancel Culture

EDIT: I’ve added the responses from Toni Weisskopf, David Weber, and Eric Flint at the end.

Baen Books is a sci-fi/fantasy publishing house that has been around since the early 1980s. They’ve published thousands of titles from hundreds of authors. Baen is notable in our current time period because it is one of the only traditional publishers who does not bend the knee to the woke mob. Our publisher, Toni Weisskopf, truly believes in free speech. Baen’s Bar is one of the oldest forums on the internet. It’s a place for authors and fans to hang out and talk. Today Toni is shutting down the Bar in order to stave off a Parler style cancel culture attack against Baen’s service providers.

Yesterday some nobody, wannabe writer, social justice twit released a hit piece “expose” about how posters on Baen’s Bar were fomenting insurrection or some such nonsense. It was the usual bullshit hit piece (the sad part is, by saying the usual, half the country immediately knows exactly what I’m talking about). It was lots of pearl clutching over regular people not toeing their arbitrary political lines, misquotes, errors, quotes taken out of context, and some flat out lies.

However, this was clearly part of a coordinated attack in order to materially harm our business, because immediately after the hit piece was released complaints were filed with the various internet companies Baen uses for services to pressure them into kicking us off the internet. This hit piece was presented as “evidence”. Without going into details the companies then contacted Baen about these “serious allegations” so last night Baen temporarily took down the Bar forum to protect the rest of the company from being deplatformed.

I’m not going to talk about the moronic loser or go through all the nonsense in his ridiculous hit piece. Other people are going through it now and carefully cataloging his bullshit. In typical leftist fashion he’s already pretending to be the victim and claiming he’s getting death threats. Maybe he can get in touch with Anita Sarkesian and Arthur Chu for tips.

However, lying hit pieces from lefty activists aren’t anything new. We’re used to those. The real issue here is the complaints to the internet companies so they’ll deplatform anyone who doesn’t fall in line. The woke left saw what Big Tech did to Parler and they learned from it. This is a new weapon in their arsenal to beat America over the head with. The nail that sticks up must be hammered down.

Toni Weisskopf is a strong believer in free speech. She publishes books by republicans, libertarians, democrats, and socialists, it doesn’t matter what we believe as long as we entertain our readers. Toni doesn’t tell us what we can or can’t speak about. She is a rarity in the bland oatmeal world of traditional publishing. Most of the publishing world adheres to a rigid left-wing monoculture, and those who work there who don’t believe that way have to keep their heads down or face repercussions. Professionally she is a brilliant editor, personally, she’s a single mom with a special-needs daughter, her family were Jews who escaped the Soviets, her great-uncle was THE Weisskopf on the Manhattan Project, and she’s my friend.

But of course the commenters over at the hit piece and other cesspools are already plotting about how they’re going to get her banned from everything in society for hosting all this dangerous hate speech.

I’ve tried to warn people about the growing danger of Cancel Culture for years. Too many people who are nominally on my right side of the political divide are still debating philosophy and pontificating about moral equivalence things like the Red Scare from decades ago, while right now the left is actively mastering how to weaponize technology in order to crush the free exchange of ideas. You need to wake up and catch up.

The Bar isn’t a hotbed of extremism. It’s not a hotbed of anything. It’s an old forum that was mostly kept around because of tradition. It was created at the dawn of internet forums. I haven’t used it in years (I had already built up my online presence elsewhere when I started writing for them). But that isn’t the point. Anything that can be a target, will eventually be a target. They’re coming for your business next.

If you would like to help out, please spread the word. Go buy some Baen Books and help support publishers who don’t give in to bullies. Everyone needs to stand up to these dirtbags.

EDIT: Here is Toni’s official response:

To Whom It May Concern:

What is it we do at Baen Books? We publish books at the heart of science fiction and fantasy.

Science fiction has traditionally been a unique kind of intellectual pleasure, a process of glorious intercommunication and inspiration, with ideas flowing from scientist and engineer to writer and artist, to reader and viewer, back and forth, in a delightful mélange of shared thoughts, wild speculation, cautionary tales, reality checks, and the sheer fun of playing with boundaries and ideas. It is not for everyone. But those who enjoy it, take great pleasure in the dialogue.

When the modern form of SF began, with Hugo Gernsback and the other pulp magazines of the early 20th century, the publishers fostered that interaction through letter columns in the magazines and by encouraging science fiction readers to organize in clubs and meet in conventions. Baen Books continued that tradition with Baen’s Bar, a kind of virtual convention and on-line conversation that has been around in some form for over 20 years.

The moderators are volunteers. The readers, editors, and writers post and interact on the Bar at their own desire. Some conversations have been gone over so many times, they’ve been retired as simply too boring to contemplate again. Sometimes the rhetoric can get heated. We do not endorse the publication of unlawful speech. We have received no complaints about the content of the Bar from its users.

That said, it has come to our attention that allegations about the Bar have been made elsewhere. We take these allegations seriously, and consequently have put the Bar on hiatus while we investigate. But we will not commit censorship of lawful speech.

It is not Baen Books’ policy to police the opinions of its readers, its authors, its artists, its editors, or indeed anyone else. This applies to posts at the Bar, or on social media, on their own websites, or indeed anywhere else. On the Bar, the publisher does not select what is allowed to be posted, and does not hijack an individual’s messages for their own purposes. Similarly, the posts do not represent the publisher’s opinion, except in a deep belief that free speech is worthy in and of itself.

Most sincerely,
Toni Weisskopf
Publisher

EDIT 2: And here is what bestselling author David Weber had to say about this idiotic hit piece. Just like I said above. “The usual.” David is probably our most famous author currently working and a lot more of a statesman than I am.

So, Jason Sanford thinks that Baen’s Bar, the online discussion forum that Baen Books has maintained for its readers for around twenty years, is “Being Used to Advocate for Political Violence,” to quote the title of his self-righteous, biased, and intellectually dishonest hit piece.

Which, in case you haven’t already deduced this, is in my opinion — I realize I am sometimes guilty of a certain lack of clarity — a pile of horse shit.

I haven’t been on the Bar regularly in quite some time, and when I have been there in the last few years, I’ve tended to lurk rather than posting myself. Mostly, that’s because I do not have the time to engage with readers there the way that I would if I didn’t just lurk. There’s way too much conversation back and forth, too many fascinating rabbit holes to dive down, too many “oooooh, shiny!” moments. And there is enough online interconnectivity — now, as opposed to when Jim Baen demonstrated his forward thinking yet again by creating the Bar — that I have manifold other ways to reach people.

But there is no way in hell that the Barflies, as they are affectionately known, are advocating for political violence. Opinions are expressed, especially in the politics forum, and tempers are running high on both sides of our current political divide, so there’s a certain degree of venting. And there are a surprising number of historians, who can be relied upon to summon up historical examples to back their points. And there are heaps of independent thinkers, who aren’t going to hew to any particular party’s line and can be trusted to step upon any sore political toes in the vicinity. And there are quite a lot of veterans, who know what violence is REALLY like — unlike the vast majority of people who are currently hyperventilating about it in this country — which means the LAST THING they would want would be to instigate violence that is anything except defensive.

But once upon a time, back when there was genuine free speech in this country, one was ALLOWED to vent, to express opinions, to worry publicly about current political trends WHOEVER YOU WERE. You didn’t have to be on the “right side” of some self-appointed Guardian of Public Morality™ or the Currently Correct Way to Think.™ All you needed to be was an American citizen exercising your right to state an opinion. There are times when I regret closing in on 69 as opposed to 19 at this particular time in history for reasons that have nothing to do with age, because I remember how it’s SUPPOSED to work. I remember how we were SUPPOSED to have the right to disagree with one another without having hateful labels — Libtard, Commie, White Supremacist, Racist, Nazi, Whatever-The-Fuck-I-Hate-Worst — applied to us by people who simply don’t want to hear what we have to say and make the monumentally arrogant assumption that they KNOW what we are REALLY thinking, no matter what we SAY. Or what we actually DO, for that matter. And if we don’t prove that we Agree with Them™ by worshiping — publicly — at THEIR altar of who must be canceled or silenced, we must be evil, corrupt, VILE human beings out to overthrow All That Is Right and True™. I wish that my kids, who are CURRENTLY 19, would be in a position to remember the same “how it’s supposed to be” that I do, but how likely is that, really, in a world where politically motivated hit jobs like this have become the norm?

Baen Books is frequently characterized as a “right wing publisher.” That’s as stupid as the notion that the Barflies are plotting a violent coup. Baen Books doesn’t care what the political orientation of its writers — or their fiction — may be as long as the stories are good, as long as they engage and entertain the reader, and as long as there is a market for them. If Baen has a deep bench of conservative readers, that’s because so many other publishers are avoiding the kinds of stories they want to read and Baen is filling that void. Well, that of the fact that Baen Books tries really hard to publish GOOD stories that reasonably attract readers on their merits, as well. But Baen publishes conservatives, libertarians, socialists, and everything in between.

That doesn’t mean that Toni Weiskopf, as an individual, doesn’t have political views or that she — personally, not as an editor and publisher — doesn’t prefer some “flavors” of stories over others. But Toni is also a businesswoman, and she understands that her job as a businesswoman is to provide the best quality stories to ANYONE who likes a good SF/fantasy story, regardless of political orientations. And she understands — unlike some people — that that means publishing stories and allowing opinions to which some people might take exception. Well, as far as I’m concerned, anyone is entitled to take exception to anything he or she chooses to take exception to. That doesn’t give him or her the right to cherry pick, use partial quotes, take things out of context, or resort to all the other filthy, underhanded, unscrupulous, contemptible tactics people who produce hit jobs like this routinely reach for.

I know Baen Books. I know Toni Weiskopf. I’ve known her for 33 years, when she was barely old enough to drink. I knew Jim Baen. I knew his philosophy. I know his legacy, and the way both that philosophy and that legacy continue in the publishing house that he founded. And because I know all of that, I know one other thing, as well —Baen Books is not allowing the Bar to advocate for violence. The notion would be laughable, if it were not so vile, so politically motivated, and so contemptibly calculated to “deplatform” a publisher of whom the moral pygmy behind the hit piece disapproves.

EDIT: And here is another response, from way over on the opposite side of the political spectrum, bestselling author Eric Flint, who also recognizes this hit piece smear for what it is. He goes into a lot of details about just how slimy it is.

https://ericflint.net/information/controversy-about-baens-bar/

I disagree with Eric A LOT. (heck, even in this one, the Sad Puppies didn’t just collect quotes from nobodies, because we also got lots of big editors, and authors up to GRRM, saying stuff that validated my claims! ) but this is an honest stand up piece (and too long to cut and paste here, so go read it) and Eric goes into a lot of detail about just how sleazy and dishonest the “investigator” is.

I Couldn't Make It One Day Back on Facebook Without Getting Banned
I got interviewed by Hollywood in Toto.

499 thoughts on “Publishing House Baen Books Attacked by Cancel Culture”

  1. This is awful. Thanks for posting it. Baen is a great publishing house. And they do NOT care about fashion, only entertainment. Heck, they published my stuff!

    I wish the “New Left” understood that the answer to speech you do not like is more speech, not less.

    I buy a lot of Baen books on general principles. If there are other ways to support them, please spread the word.

    1. The Left learned a long time ago that more speech doesn’t work well for them because their ideas are so poor. It’s also the reason they use personal attacks (“racist!” “homophobe!” “white supremacist!”) so much because they can’t present a good, logical, cogent argument. ” ‘Shut up’ he explained” is their modus operandi.

  2. I had a very good conversation with Toni just last week when she was a guest on “Live From The Bunker”. We touched on this very notion that Baen is one of those publishers that doesn’t look at an author’s social media cred while checking the identity boxes.

    Figured it was just a matter of time before Baen was targeted.

    1. That’s a horribly sad statement about the state of our country’s politics. “They are reasonable so they will probably be cancelled. “

  3. Spin it all you like Larry, but it looks to me like Baen capitulated to the SJWs, instead of fighting back.

    A simple defamation lawsuit would suffice to shut these little pissants up but in true Chamberlain fashion, they backed off.

    Baen isn’t going to fight for free speech. That much has been made clear.

    1. I understand your frustration. Giving an inch to the SJWs is galling. However, I’m not sure a tactical retreat in the short term isn’t helpful, and it definitely doesn’t preclude a lawsuit in the long term.

    2. “A simple defamation lawsuit would suffice to shut these little pissants up but in true Chamberlain fashion, they backed off.”

      And you think service providers are going to wait till a court case is decided? Nope, they will shut down and is up to you to bring them to court and then try to win.

      She needs to keep the company afloat and cannot afford to sinlk it on a Chest Thumping scheme because it looks cool to a segment of the internets that will probably do not have several million dollars to back her up.
      It is cool to be tough online when your livelihood ain’t threatened and costs you nothing out of pocket.

      PS: Parler lost its lawsuit.

      1. And of course, the Purity Police understand how libel lawsuits work, they know the situation, they know what the provider said, and they totally understand that if the entire domain gets shut down, that doesn’t just kill one little forum, it kills the whole company, including a giant chunk of their revenue.
        Those sell outs! screamed the rando with no skin in the game.

        1. As a long-time newspaper man I can tell you that libel suits are nearly IMPOSSIBLE to win.

          You have to prove “actual malice” meaning that the speech had to not only be false, but the defendant had to KNOW it was false when he said it, that he INTENDED to “materially damage” you, your reputation, your livelihood or ability to earn same.

          That’s a very high bar, particularly for anyone even remotely in the public sphere. It’s even harder to prove when a COMPANY has been libeled.

          Moreover, even if you can prove all of the above, damages are notoriously hard to prove. “How many sales did Junior Dipshit cost you?”
          “Well Judge…”

          There’s reams of cases where a judge or jury agreed that yes, the complainant had been libeled, and yes, the defendant was a major douchebag, but actual damage couldn’t be proven and then there is NO award.

          You only file a libel suit if you have the pockets to back it, don’t really care if you get anything out of it and just want to punish the asshole who lied about you.

          Oh, and juries are notoriously unwilling to GAF when it’s “big corporation” suing “plucky lil blogger” or anything similar.

          So no, a libel suit won’t do squat.

          As usual, Larry knows whereof he speaks

          1. Case in point: Peter Thiel bankrolling the libel suit vs. Gawker. And afterwards, Thiel became quite unwelcome amongst the “right” people.

          2. Given the negligence and deliberate skewing of the piece Sanford could probably be done. For instance he quoted or paraphrased something by Arun, and talked about someone being called the Swarthy something or other and gave it as an example of racism. These are the same person – Arun is from southern India – Chennai if I recall correctly. Add in Sanford’s links to File770 and Athene and it’s increasingly looking like a badly researched hitpiece masquerading as an innocent investigative article.

          3. QBVII anyone? My (fictional) introduction to libel suits. BTW dude totally miss you and the Mrs on Facepalm but I’m off that.

      2. parlor did not lose it’s lawsuit, they lost the attempt to get a preliminary injunction against Amazon. the lawsuit is still ongoing and hasn’t been heard yet.

        to get an injunction, the judge has to rule that even if everything alleged by the other side is true, you are still likely to win. That’s a very high bar

    3. C’mon, man.

      First of all, if they coordinated Sanford’s piece with the ISP takedown, seeding people in the forum to post inflammatory stuff would be child’s play. It’s a personally reasonable thing to lock it down and take a good look at what’s been posted there. I don’t know what sort of moderation tools they use, but hopefully they have IP addresses to isolate the trolls from the long-time users.

      A tactical retreat is a viable tactic to seek a strategic advantage.

      1. I’ve not even seen the details yet, but apparently one of the egregious offenses was some new dude who just showed up recently… On a tiny little quiet forum that is only kept running because of tradition, mostly populated by old timers. Go figure.

        1. The person who wrote the article has had an account under his name for years without any posts (ONE post about learning his way around). Never filed any complaints about potentially illegal conduct.

        2. Oh, I can tell you with bells and whistles, being an everyday visitor of the Bar, and a frequent poster in the subforums in question.

          One subforum is the “Politics” part of the bar, and that should be a huge clue that this is no place for pearl clutchers or the easily offended. People here are not shy to treat your opinion like garbage, if they think it is garbage. Anyhow, this subforum got real active in the runup to the election, and became a real beehive of activity in the wake of subsequent events, “The Steal”, as it’s called in so many places. People in this subforum lean conservative, and the discontent with the whole election s**tshow was and still is palpable everywhere. And no, that place is not a sanctuary for American White Straight Males. They have a very diverse membership, including Indians (from India), Russians, Irishmen, Women (from Venus), at least one Cuban (me), all of them united in their love for good SF.

          Another subforum that got some flak is the “Kratskeller”, the demesne of one of Baen’s authors, Thomas Kratman, a retired Army colonel (he also has a degree in Law). As you may expect, this subforum has a lot of people talking about warfare, military tactics and equipment, hypothetical “what if” scenarios, etc. Unsurprisingly, in the wake of the Steal(TM) , a lot of posts came up where people started discussing “what if” scenarios revolving about a 2nd American Civil War, how to survive, how to prepare for such an event… and also unsurprisingly, some pearl-clutcher decided that this talk amounts to Intent To Execute (which is total BS, as anyone who has roleplayed a “what to do in case of…” scenario could tell you). The pearl-clutcher in question even quoted an example of the Colonel giving an humorous title to another bar member, and treated the quote as “proof” of the thread’s violent derangement. That the post in question dates from 2011 (yes, a DECADE) should be a huge hint as to the pearl-clutcher’s honesty.

          Now, my own opinion. I suspect that the pearl-clutcher (Jason Sanford) in question to be user NickWise, whom a few weeks ago entered the Politics thread (he was NOT a regular in this thread) and posted that the “Politics” subforum should be nuked, and issued a warning to everyone in the subforum to “Behave. You have been warned”. Note that he’s not a site admin, not even a moderator, just an average user. His post, predictably, got roundly mocked by everyone and his cat. IMO, this hit piece on the Patreon site has the feel of a pearl-clutcher that got hit in the feelz when the rest of the people didn’t acknowledge his mandate.

          1. When I was participating on the bar regularly, back before FuBar, Politics and TvP were places you went to get your angry out on the internet as opposed to trying to have an intellectual conversation about a subject. I know it wasn’t uncommon for people to not argue their actual beliefs, but some other position just so that the argument would be more satisfying to have. It was recreational, not serious.

          2. Well, this just sucks. Let’s hope that the shutdown is temporary. I’ve been on the Bar since just about the beginning, and it has become a habit I just _have_ to feed.

            No, the Bar was never a place to advocate violence. Yes, the guy complaining about it is a lying POS. I went and read his post. I wish Larry found time to fisk it – but I’d not want to distract him from creating one more book for me to spend my money on. 🙂

            And the most aggravating part of this entire situation is that, even if the Bar is restored and his entire libelous complaint goes nowhere, there will be no consequences for him personally. It’s the ‘there _should be a law_ kinda moment – except that we already _do_ have libel laws, which were created precisely for such situations, but in their current form are essentially useless…

          3. Are we talking about the same Tom Kratman, who wrote Watch on the Rhine? The Sci-Fi book that had literal Nazis, as in 3rd Reich Nazis being rejuvenated, cast as the heroes? And did not even make anything interesting of that concept, but went full wehraboo including stuff like tanks completely stomping superior air support, while the enemy has orbital supremacy? Not to mention all those problems with the numbers not adding up and weird logistics.

            I would not exactly call that good Sci-Fi, but taste can be subjective.

          4. It’s because “NickWise” which he ain’t. Was trying to tell everyone he knows best and we should bow down to his opinion. What a CROCK, as was said the Bar Flies are a independent mindset.

          5. Felix,
            I have no notion what you’re talking about because I didn’t read it, but I’d like to point out a fact. The real sort of fact.

            Portraying all Historical Nazis as evil, no matter what, or all Historical Confederates as evil, no matter what, rather than real people, good and bad, who played the hand they were dealt, well or poorly, has ONE purpose.

            It’s to convince people that it doesn’t matter what they think, say or do, they can’t ever be the bad guy.

            Are you comforted that you can never be the bad guy?

            But here we are, talking about people, wrapped in robes of amazing righteousness, polishing their jack boots to an amazing sheen, but knowing that THEY can never be the bad guys.

          6. Hello Synova,

            I can see the appeal of having a story with sympathetic Nazis or characters that are usually cast as villains, but, due to the seriousness, it is a topic where people have to treat lightly and make sure the execution is good. In this book it is not.

            Meet Kratman, who barreled full steam ahead and did not just use Nazis as protagonists, but full SS-members. So even the clean Wehrmacht myth would not apply here.

            Quoting from the first chapter (No page numbers as I am looking that up fron a lets read thread): ” Mühlenkampf shrugged his indifference. “A political fanatic is dangerous no matter if he wants to hang capitalists or to gas Jews or to make economic life impossible, Herr Kanzler.” ”

            Mühlenkampf is the protagonist. Very tone dead, isn’t he?

            But it gets worse. Another secondary character, while training new recruits (I forgot to write down the chapter):

            “Krueger bent over and picked up a clod of half-frozen mud. This he smeared into Schultz’s face snarling, “You little pussy. You smelly little fur-hole filled with nothing. You are nothing so good as a Jew-bitch camp whore. At least she would have known her job.” ”

            Do I have to explain, what is wrong with that?

            And in chapter 6 we have Krueger reminiscing about his glorious time (read: comitting crimes) during WWII:

            “It was great, I tell you, boys. Great. Your pick of the women in those camps. And some of them were lookers, too, even if they were just Jew bitches.”
            [……]
            “How did you end up in one of the camps?” asked Schüler. “I thought you were a combat soldier.”

            “Well, I was only there for about six months, you see. While I was healing up from being shot by the Russians. At Ravensbrück, it was. A women’s camp. There were so many we never even asked their names.”

            Like I said, those are the heroes. Why should I find them sympathetic or root for them? Why would anyone? Why did Krattman think, we would?

            Second chapter:
            “Reinhard Schlüssel,” introduced the bent-over, gnomelike veteran of the German Navy. “It is also my job to design the turret for the tank. Though Benjamin here has been of inestimable value.”
            Mühlenkampf cocked his head. “Benjamin?”
            “David Benjamin,” answered the only truly swarthy man in the room.
            “Of Tel Aviv,” he continued coldly, so as to keep a hostile note out of his voice. “I am here on loan from Israeli Military Industries. We intend to build a few of these ourselves, and to purchase several more.”

            Yep, a modern Israeli working together with original SS-members. Do I have to explain why there might be some bad blood between those factions? Why they certainly would not work towards a common goal?

            But we also come to some more war crimes:

            Chapter Nine: Hans repeated that message twice more, then elaborated. “We are the 47th​ Panzer Korps. That’s right you shits, the SS. Believe . . . believe in your hearts. We will kill you with no more thought than we’d give to shooting a dog. Your only chance to live is to fight with whatever you have in your hands to hold the enemy. The enemy you can still hurt . . . and we will help you in it. Us? You cannot scratch us and we will butcher you if you try . . . or if you run.”

            A little bit out of context, but they are talking to soldiers belonging to the same country they are part of. And yes, those are the protagonists. The ones that are written as if they are in the right.

            But it is not only the political angle. The Sci-Fi is also bad:
            Chapter 3: “But look at it this way: that black plastic device on Stephan’s harness takes the energy of falling, saves it, and then twists it sideways to turn it into an energy of slowing. ”

            I can take some technobabble, but energy of slowing? At least try to make sense.

            Let me try to put it into a MHI-context (Spoilers for Nemesis):
            Remember, when we got the point of view from the MCB. Larry did a great job of humanising the formerly faceless government goons. Watch on the Rhine would be, if Larry had them not make hard decisions, but kill people who did not even see anything supernatural just for the fun of it, loot their bodies and extort various sexual favours from their victims. Even if he did all of that, the protagonists of Watch on the Rhine would have been worse.

            I like stories with grey morality, if they are done wrong. But if I read about characters, whose morality is clearly black, but they are written as if they shine in a white angelic light, I reserve the right to voice the opinion that the book is terrible and I would recommend anyone to not read it. You are free to do so and form your own opinion, though. If you do, tell me what you thought about it.

          7. Hey there Jongleur.

            First of all, your little rant was very cherry-pickish. Allow me to elaborate…

            First, the book is about the SS, not the Nazis. Listen up, because this is gonna blow yer walnut-sized brain…

            THE SS AND THE NAZIS WERE NOT THE SAME.

            Also, you mention a character named Muhlenkampf and something he says… and? What did you find at all objectionable in what he said? Or did you just find it gross that he said it with just a shrug? We’re talking about a chronologically VERY old man that lived and survived WW2. Being inured to horrors of all kinds is par for the course, for that generation.

            Then we come to the character of Krueger… and the many horrific things he says to the recruits, and that he recounts in his little “anecdotes”. Yup… and you also fail to mention the MANY instances in the book where the recruits and the other characters express their absolute disgust for the sonofabitch, and even fantasize with the idea of fragging him. You also fail to mention that Krueger is NOT portrayed in a positive light AT ALL. Krueger is the author’s recourse to show the reader a window to the horrors and casual brutality to which an evil person can easily descend, if given the chance.

            You also fail to mention that this Hans character is part of a division of soldiers raised WITH THE EXPRESS PURPOSE of stiffening the spines of the existing soft and unprepared army, and that this little spiel of his is him telling those unprepared soldiers, when facing an onslaught of several MILLION aliens, that if they dare break in the face of the enemy, he will kill them like dogs. War crimes? You idiot, his division was raised, with the (reluctant) pemission of the Government, for that very purpose!

            Oh, and also… you fail to mention that in the book, this Muhlenkampf character’s backstory is actually recounted…

            —SPOILERS AHEAD—

            … after the war, the man was wracked with guilt at the crimes commited by his country, and he tried to atone for it in various ways…
            … prominently, joining the Israeli army in its formative period and serving as a soldier in its ranks…
            … in the course of which, he fell in love and married a Jew girl…
            … a girl that we later find out, had been the victim of gang rapes at the Ravensbrück camp.

            … and you very much FAIL TO MENTION that at the end of the book, Krueger is shot dead by Muhlenkampf.

            Soooooo, no. In WW2, there was a lot of Nazis, and there were also a lot of soldiers in the SS, and there was some degree of overlap, but not every Nazi was a SS soldier, and not every SS soldier was a Nazi.

            You fail, buddy. Clear out.

          8. Ah, after some recap, I realize I have made a mistake. I
            confused the character of Muhlenkampf, with a different character, Brasche. Muhlenkampf was not the one that got married to the Jew girl, Anna, it was Brasche, and it was also Brasche the one that put Krueger on the ground.

            Serves me right for posting from memory.

          9. From his books that I’ve read, I’d say Kratman has a knack for drawing readers in with a deliberately provocative premise. But it usually turns out to be a much more complex situation that is not as it first seemed. Caliphate comes to mind. Lots of surprises in that one, plenty that should’ve made the progressives smile too. I had to read it twice.

            What people have been saying about the Bar makes me want to go check it out when/if it comes back. Dissecting and analyzing what-if scenarios sounds like fun. The kind of discussion that once made cons fun, back when freedom of speech was still okay.

        3. I don’t know about you, but I regularly bit bucket stuff posted by some rando that is ridiculous, offensive, etc.
          And a lot of it, I’d bet you is “planted.”

      2. True, and it will go a long way towards showing people that the left lies like a rug.

        But they aren’t going to say ‘Oh, well. It was just one thing S/He said that was uber-bad, you can keep your site.’ No, they will take 2-3 items Out of Context, and continue to march those back and forth across the stage.

    4. Whatever you say, sockpuppet. 😀
      You don’t know shit about what is going on behind the scenes, but keep on posturing.

    5. “A simple defamation lawsuit would suffice to shut these little pissants up.”

      Ha ha no. Pressure campaigns like this aren’t just random things that pop up today and can be driven off tomorrow by a simple C&D. If you want to know more before you spout off again, look up @hradzka’s writings on pressure campaigns and how competent people make them work.

      If the payment processors, book distributors, and Amazon throw Baen out, it *doesn’t matter* whether they would have a winning legal case that might get resolved six or ten years from now, against a bunch of activists that will never make enough money to provide actual recompense for the damages of even a one month shutdown.

      1. Yeah, people seem to think that libel lawsuits are like this magical wand that you can just wave to make this stuff happen.
        Only they hide behind the whole public persons thing.
        I learned this back during the Entertainment Weekly/Guardian thing.
        If it was that easy then everyone would do it. But that doesn’t stop people from pontificating on the internet.

        1. Even if one were to win such a lawsuit, most of these useless sacks of shit have negative net worths (e.g., they owe $150,000 for their degree in Left-Handed Albino of Color Studies, and make minimum wage at Starbucks). The best possible outcome for the plaintiff, after years of legal costs, is that the judge says “don’t do that again” and they say “okay”. There’s pretty much no scenario under which they actually wind up paying significant consequences.

          1. Even with how egregious the reporting was in EW and the Guardian, I had some of the best libel lawyers tell me that it would personally cost me a fortune and years, to get basically jack and shit, because they hide behind their extremely loose definition of public persona.
            Anybody who thinks libel law is an easy button is a sucker. Unless the libeler blunders into some very specific traps, they’re pretty safe.

          2. P.S. as soon as I heard about this I bought a Tom Kratman book (I’ve already got all of Larry’s, I’m pretty sure).

          3. Remind me why duelling was bad, and had to be done away with?
            I keep forgetting.

            (Tongue only slightly in cheek)

          4. Careful, talking about dueling will probably get my blog deplatformed for “inciting violence”. 😀

          1. Ah, but typically men only engaged in dueling with those they regarded as their social equals.

        2. What the guy above shows is that he has no idea how hard it is to actually sue people in this country unless you’re loaded. I had a legit problem with a house I once bought – owners didn’t disclose some fairly major defects – and I figured that even if I’d won a full judgement, it was going to net me about $1200. Not worth a year in court. in other words, suing people is not the easy panacea TV makes it look like.

        3. From what lawyers have told me in the past , your characterization of libel and related types of suits is accurate. As much as people are rankled by the decision to take the Baen Bar down, for now it looks like a tactically smart decision. Putting a statement up in defense of freedom of thought and speech would also be a good decision to keep the good guys encouraged.

      2. I once had a woman libel me, so I went straight to an attorney. After reviewing the facts, he told me “If you sue, you’ll certainly win. The whole thing will cost you about $30,000 in legal costs, but that harpy will then cry about how she lives in a doublewide trailer and can’t afford to pay. You’ll get a judgment that she has to pay you about 100 bucks a month until the end of time, and about a year later she’ll stop paying. You’ll then have to haul her back into court. Give your coworkers who were named in the newspapers my number: I can get those papers that ran her bullshit to settle out of court.

      3. Libel is very hard to prove, which is a good thing for a free press but a bad thing for the victim when libel actually takes place. Defamation is slightly easier but only slightly. Lawsuits are expensive and can drag in for years… just look at ANY lawsuit Planned Parenthood has ever been in, they’re masters at it and will sue, counter sue, and appeal for decades – in part just to warn anyone else what’s in store if they sue or are sued. The Left uses our courts
        to get their way not to get justice. “A simple defamation lawsuit” is never simple.

    6. Toni has to protect the business. If it goes under a lot of people will be affected. The other side is playing for keeps right now and there’s no shortage of Woko Haram types who would be happy to see Baen destroyed. That was the whole reason for the Bar’s content being shared on social media in the first place.

      1. Hmm that’s a new term to me. Must try to remember it. Woko Haram is pretty accurate – left-wing hippy wannabe terrorists.

    7. It’s death from a million papercuts, so a simple defamation lawsuit won’t do it. Who do they sue, the “expose” writer? His article will still be used to justify random people screaming at big platforms to shut down the evil wrong-thinkers.

      The Left might as well adopt Hydra as an organizational name.

    8. Neville Chamberlain catches a lot of heat, but his critics tend to overlook the fact that Britain was in no shape to take on the Nazis at the time that he was capitulation to their demands. Britain’s military weakness predated him and was a fact that he had to keep in mind when negotiating. Before a nation can negotiate boldly, they really should try to have a few cards in their hand.

      The Wokenistas have shown that they coordinate their efforts on multiple fronts, shutting down their targets’ ability to communicate or do business as they start their campaigns of slander, alienation, and threats. Based on that, Toni Weisskopf was wise to consider a tactical retreat for the moment to forestall the next part of the planned DOS attack on Baen.

      1. We sure did let big tech get aggregated didn’t we? It’s like trying to get goods across the country without using superhighways when they lay down that deplatform card. We need more heckin big server farms for independents. Infrastructure to the People!

    9. >A simple defamation lawsuit would suffice to shut these little pissants up

      I’m an attorney. You’re a fucking moron.

      There is nothing simple about a defamation lawsuit. A defamation lawsuit against the “pissants” does absolutely nothing to halt the process of your upstream providers deplatforming you over nebulous violations of their loosely-worded and inconsistently-enforced TOS’es, and the “pissants” themselves are almost certainly judgment-proof, i.e., your litigation costs will far exceed the value of their assets.

      1. “I’m an attorney. You’re a fucking moron.”

        You win one Internet for that one.

        Savage… Brilliantly and beautifully savage.

      2. What I don’t like is the air of defeat. No offense intended, but if the laws don’t work to do what they should be doing…what are they doing, exactly? If “pissants” can say whatever they want about someone, with no recourse for the aggrieved, defamation or libel laws may as well not exist.

        Freely admitting that I am not a lawyer and not all that smart anyway.

        1. >If “pissants” can say whatever they want about someone, with no recourse for the aggrieved, defamation or libel laws may as well not exist.

          There are two relevant features of the civil law in the United States.

          (1) Each party to a civil lawsuit generally bears their own litigation costs. Only under unusual circumstances does the winner get costs and attorneys’ fees from the loser.

          (2) You can win a judgment and have damages awarded to you, but your ability to *collect* is limited by the defendant’s ability to pay. You cannot get blood from a stone.

          The implication of these two realities is that a lot of things that amount to compensable torts in law school hypotheticals are simply not worth pursuing in the real world, either because the costs of litigating those matters will very quickly exceed the most optimistic estimates of any possible recovery, or because the defendant lacks assets that could satisfy a damage award.

          Jason Sanford gets to spread malicious lies about Baen because Jason Sanford is an impoverished loser who doesn’t have enough money to make Baen whole for the reputational injury he’s caused them: at the end of a successful lawsuit, Baen would be left holding a huge legal bill and a piece of paper entitling them to recover more money from Jason Sanford than Jason Sanford will ever make in his entire pointless existence. That may seem unjust, but the glass-half-full view of it is that Jason Sanford has to live with the knowledge that he’s human garbage too worthless to bother suing.

          1. >I’ve heard the term “debtor’s prison”. Is it no longer in existence?

            Basically no longer exist. Brick and mortar debtor’s prisons went out of fashion by the mid- to late-1800s.

            Some states will prosecute and imprison you for non-payment of fines or fees imposed in *criminal* judgments, or for civil debt related to child support arrears. But you generally can’t get somebody thrown in the pokey for failing to pay a civil judgment: your recourse is to go back to court, and convince a judge to let you garnish their wages or go after their non-cash assets. And no judge in the country is going to issue an order that relegates even the least sympathetic civil defendant imaginable to absolute destitution.

      3. “I’m an attorney. You’re a fucking moron.”

        Just when I thought nothing could make my dick harder than the solidarity expressed in these comments….

      4. Dear BC,

        I am also an attorney. I also conclude that swiftfoxmark2 is a fucking moron.

        In legal terminology, swiftfoxmark2 is “not able to pass the M’Naghten test” hence not competent to stand trial, serve as a witness, sign an affidavit, or, in this case, voice an opinion worth rebutting.

        All you said is true, and there is the additional burden of the “public figure” defense, the speculative nature of the damages, the lack of proof of cause and effect, as when the provider cancels for alleged breach of terms of service, and does not cite the libelous article as the source and cause, and so on and so on.

        I, for one, would like to see the defamation laws rewritten, and strengthened, or otherwise cancel culture will impose the rule of Big Brother entirely through the soft power of social pressure, social activism, unpunished rioters, and Big Tech.

    10. It takes a good amount of time to evaluate whether you have a good lawsuit and defamation can be difficult. The accusing jerk may have made statements that are offensive but not untrue, for example, and a small website putting a halt to comments for a bit to survive while she contemplates next actions isn’t giving in. I don’t believe anyone knows yet whether your last sentence is accurate.

      1. Al, even the slanderer had screwed up big time, and we filed the fastest lawsuit ever, and ended up with the swiftest judge in America, the whole company’s website still would’ve gotten kicked off the internet before it did anything.

        1. There’s nothing wrong, when ambushed, with beating a tactical retreat .. it’s what you do next that counts.

          Toni is not only a force to be reckoned with, she has spent most of her adult life working with some of the most twisty devisers of devious plots available.

          I’ll wait for the next chapter to drop.

          Mew

          p.s. and I might do a little shopping in the meantime.

    11. This whole thing has blown up in just the past few days. There is no basis for concluding that “Baen isn’t going to fight for free speech.” If you knew anything about law of defamation, you would not imply that a lawsuit could be brought within days of the libelous attack. Baen had to deal with a crisis management situation to avoid being “Parlered”, which is probably going to become a verb just like “Borked” became a verb after Joe Biden et al. viciously attacked a great nominee for the Supreme Court.

    12. Seriously? First, as many lawyers have said over on Larry’s Facebook page about this, defamation lawsuits, especially against nobodies, are worthless. They have no money to be taken. And Baen was smart to post what they did. They’re being pro-active to protect their damn web presence. You can take that stupid capitulation shit and shove it up your ass.

    13. }}} Spin it all you like Larry, but it looks to me like Baen capitulated to the SJWs, instead of fighting back.

      They covered their asses in order to stop the bullshit, yes. Those bastards would likely have closed EVERYTHING, not just the servers hosting the bar.

      Give them time to fix the issue, FFS.

    14. How much do you understand these kinds of attacks? How expensive they can be? How damaging they can be?

      A defamation lawsuit takes years and may cost hundreds of thousands, not to mention the cost in lost productivity. Meanwhile, the Tech Giants could shut down a small company which does not comply with mandates.

      Yes, there needs to be a response but without destroying the company. It appears to me that Baen has handled this the best way possible under the circumstances. Baen has closed off the alleged problem while making the reason public, and openly declaring a devotion to free speech.

  4. So has the slimeball been doxxed publicly? I realize that is a favorite tactic of the left, but there is only one rule in warfare. Win. Crush your enemies and drive them before you and hear the lamentation of their women… when in doubt, attack.

    1. It’s needed.

      The time for fighting in traditional ways – as so many, including Larry himself, has pointed out – is past. Time now to use their own playbook and rules against these malicious fools, just as Alinsky points out in that playbook (Rules for Radicals). Hold all of them accountable to and by their own standards. Isolate them, paralyze them, destroy them in the same way they try to do to others, and let the result be just as Conan suggested.

      When these lefties want to return to more sane rules of engagement, we can be happy to join them again; but until then, no more Mr. Nice Guy.

      1. ‘Hold all of them accountable to and by their own standards.’

        They have no standards. Therefore there is no point in trying to hold them to them.

        The corollary being that you need to adhere to no standards to attack and destroy them.

      2. What would you do? Go after the idiots at Vile 770? That would deprive Larry of target practice when Mike opens his fool mouth…

    2. Yes, let’s all clamor for breaking laws in response to a meadow-muffin accusation from a loser …

      Umm .. no. Do not dox the twit. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

      Mew

    3. Agree wholeheartedly.
      I’ve doxxed people who went after a conservative business and tried to have it shut down. The doxxers went so far as to doxx patrons of that business, saying they were the usual, racist, etc. They weren’t, merely conservatives, like the business owner.
      Guess what? The doxxing WORKED. They shut up. I have no doubt many were shocked to have their tactics used against them.
      It’s effective. The days of we shouldn’t do the same because we are better than they are over. Eye for an eye.

      1. I’ve been saying this for years. So-called “doxxing” works wonders against leftist vermin. Every single leftist goblin in the country needs to be identified personally and put on a publicly available list of scuttling filth to be fired from their jobs, evicted from their homes, denied services across the country by millions of private businesses, and repeatedly arrested and prosecuted for the littlest offenses, even jaywalking. Driving them into suicide is the best outcome of all!

        The best defense against “cancel culture” is a vicious, no-holds barred offense in kind, amplified a hundredfold.

    4. I think you left a few cliches out there. Maybe toss in something about sheepdogs, or SPARTA! or shield walls or some shit, I dunno.

  5. Shutting down the bar was the right choice. Suing that little shit stain out of existence is the right next step. He’ll launch a GoFundMe for his defense. At least it will remove some pocket change from the leftist’s pockets and fund the Baen lawyers and perhaps, Baen.

    1. Why would you buy books from deplatforming Amazon when you could buy them direct from Baen? That’s the whole point. Why support – with your money – a company that will cancel a business rival over cultural crap?

      1. Amazon effectively already has my money, in the form of gift cards and the like. I might as well spend that ammassed credit on something that helps Baen. (No, I am not the OP, but I had actually already gone through this cycle in my head when I was thinking about supporting Baen but didn’t want to give Amazon any more money, so…)

    1. Lol. That’s some revisionist history. Everybody was on your side originally until you annoyed them to death.
      I finally kicked you off my fan page because you posted an idiotic meme that pissed me off.
      Plus, you might want to check your timeline about “first” coat tail rider. They came for me long before anybody ever heard of you, and if I recall correctly, when they first tried to cancel your ass, Alan introduced me to you and asked for me to help you out, which I did. Then your schtick got increasingly tiresome, and when you started using my name to start shit for you to benefit from, I said fuck that noise and cut ties.
      I’ve not really paid any attention to you since. I’m going to go back to doing that again now.

        1. It was a meme of me about to shotgun massacre a bunch of SJWs, so that I could take the heat while you milked the controversy for publicity. Like usual.
          And here we go again, I don’t hear anything from this dude for years, there’s some controversy for him to score points off of to make it all about him, and he vultures in.
          Figures.

        2. Oh brother… And it turns out that the “death threats” that the SJW was whining about was because this attention whore clown sent him some helicopter meme.
          Yeah, I can’t imagine why most of the authors who originally defended this guy eventually got sick of him and distanced themselves.

          1. “Oh brother… And it turns out that the “death threats” that the SJW was whining about was because this attention whore clown sent him some helicopter meme.”

            Yup, drama queens gonna drama. I think any time del Arroz comments, everyone should just respond with “Yas Queen!” but that’s just me. I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna get meaningful debate or even logic from the guy.

          2. Wait, so JDA stirred up a controversy and then decided to milk it for publicity while everyone else took the heat for his shit?

            He’s _never_ done that before, ever. Ever ever.

          3. It’s not a science-fiction controversy without JDA jumping in to get some free publicity for himself.

          4. How did I know this retard would be behind the stupid and then proceed to claim victimhood.

            No, JDA, you stupid little infected foreskin, your stupid little meme was not funny. It was much like you – retarded, damaging, and pointless.

            But please, do go on claiming victimhood, so we can all continue to laugh at your sorry ass, you fuckwitted hack.

          5. And then people wonder why JDA’s sales are down. His first book or three were amusing, but I got tired of his antics. So. . . .chose not to buy any more of them. There are plenty of authors who write a damned fine tale and don’t constantly act like a feces-throwing capuchin.

            Apologies to any monkeys who might have been offended by being compared to JDA. I just lack an appropriate Dolphin metaphor. . .

          6. And now the Leading Feces-Throwing Capuchin Screecher Voice in Science Fiction is attacking me on FB.

            Nice. Well, I won’t be noticing him anymore.

          1. “It’s not a science-fiction controversy without JDA jumping in to get some free publicity for himself.”

            Well that’s not working out too good for him, considering that I’d never heard of him until now.

      1. “and Baen went along with it…”

        And how exactly did Baen go along with it, Genius? Do you know Baen’s legal strategy, here? Have you consulted with their lawyers? Have you proposed a strategy of Out Drama Queening the SJWs to death?

        Please grace us with your astute analysis.

        1. The only thing Baen “did” to Jon Del Arroz was ignore him. He’s a wannabe. He wants to be Larry Correia so badly he’s trying to take credit for Sad Puppies now.

          1. But LARRY’s stuff is fun to read. I did read a couple of JDA’s pieces (can’t remember what they were now) and they were eminently forgettable.

    2. “First they came for JDA, and Baen went along with it…”

      He said with smug satisfaction. You betray yourself, little peacock – if you were a man of Principle you would defend Baen, regardless of how much you feel you were “wronged” by them.

      You’re the guy who leaves your Squad Leader behind for the zombies because he disrespected you 3 months ago.

    3. I do not understand friendly fire. Why do we do this to publishers who are working hard to fight the good fight? It’s senseless and hurts everyone who believes in freedom of speech.

      1. Ann, you’re wasting your breath. His only principles are getting publicity for himself. He’s an author who thinks that if he can just stir up enough controversy he’ll become famous. He rides coat tails, stirs up shit that others have to deal with, and then plays the victim and tries to make everything about him. Hell, this thing has nothing at all to do with him, and he’s out there trying to start up hashtags like he matters. It’s kinda sad actually because he’s not untalented at fiction. Every conservative, libertarian, or even vaguely right wing author eventually realizes this and cuts ties with the guy. The ones who haven’t yet, just haven’t been screwed over by him. But give him time, it’s in his nature.

        I’ve ignored him for the last couple of years since I got sick of his antics and booted him off of my fan page. I honestly hope he does well for himself. He can just do it far away from me because he’s annoying as shit. 😀

      2. There are people who are Controversy Vampires, and part of the MO is to do & say things that are Not Helping, then whine about how their side isn’t supporting them.

        For instance, the supposed friend who picks a fight, then expects you to step in.

      3. JDA is on team Vox and views Castalia Hizzy and the Dark Lord as the true Kwizatz Dorsai Slandroid of the 4th Law of the Lens or whate’er + Kanye.

        I followed him and stanned for him against the nonsense of some sleazy comic guy who was fighting with Vox over who was the real OG of comicsgate and and who should own the trademark for it. Said sleazy guy had sic’ed a half gaggle of youtuber gay-ops clown supporters on him claiming he was a cryptonazi or something because he would not split from Vox. This was back during the stupid Internet Bloodsports / Kumite fad when youtuber drama was the teat many sought to suckle all at once like famished piglets who just found the (hiding) sow.

        At some point JDA started going on and on about how masturbation is bad and porn should be censored online. I think it was because GAB was going after pornhub but I might be wrong.

        I am not against the trad-Cath or pulp revival or OSR D&D crowd even when they are drunk on crusader memes or feeling edgy, but a copious repetion of ” Don’t Touch Yourself HORNY BONK! ” is not going to spontaneously form the backbone of any vibrant effective opposition movement to push back against either Captain America being a Hydra Sleeper defeated by Squirrel Girl’s pee in a crossover or cancel culture on the march.

        After the 8th or 9th screed about Onan’s downfall and not respecting your weewee, I told him he sounded like he had lost his fragile grasp on what people care about on free speechy fiction twitter AND UNFOLLOWED just like a depraved lost heathen oppressed by demons would presumably while on the way to bow down to random idols I might happen across while trying to get a good seat at the secret corn god slaying ritual and boody dub step rave.
        JDA said it was sad I was so addicted to masturbation that I’d bust up a friendship over it. Wow. At least he didn’t accuse me of betraying the true cross by doing a yoga move.

        I told him that he was trying to gaslight someone who didn’t even have a gas hookup.

        Fun times.

        Any way the moral is: “Keep Mr. WEENIE in the pants…always in the pants.”

    4. Careful JDA, this crowd will help cancel you in an attempt to redirect the SJW fire and then kvetch about how surprised they are that their “losing with style”-tactics only serves to make the Commies more bold.

      Vox told us years ago that this would happen but they went and tried to cancel him cause “muh lolbertarian values” or something like that. Chamberlain tactics is not a winning concept.

      Shame, because there is some good authors here and pearl clutching only shows weakness of character.

      I know for a fact that Baen authors have called people “Nazis” and participated in the unpersoning of several good Christians so don´t act like you didn´t see this coiming.

      Ps, You ARE a douche but a funny douche, Jon;)

      1. Oh good. The philosophical ponderings of some random dipshit on the internet.
        Oh no! I don’t meet his arbitrary purity requirements! Whatever will I do?

        Meanwhile, back on Earth. I didn’t cancel JDA. I just wouldn’t let him ride my coat tails and stir up pointless bullshit that I had to deal with for his benefit because he’s an attention whore who feels the need to make everything about him (like today being an example). Rather than cancel him, I actually talked one con chair who was getting endless complaints about him into letting him still attend, but that was before I got tired of his bizarre need to be the center of attention and booted him. As for what Vox thinks about how I deal with SJWs I don’t particularly care but you can ask him. Beats me. If a Baen author called somebody a nazi I’m not shocked, because like I said in the blog post you clearly didn’t read they’re all over the spectrum (and some of them are dumb!) only we don’t enforce rigid homogenous groupthink so it ain’t my problem. By “unpersoning good Christians” you sound like a moron, but I’m actually kind of curious what stupid example you’ll cite. But the fact you think that some Baen author being a lefty dork explains why SJW’s tried to get the whole company kicked off the internet yesterday, you’re clearly too fucking dumb to live.

        So fuck off, Jon’s sock puppet who suspiciously sounds just like him.

        1. Heh… I just noticed that both of today’s suspected sock puppets mention “Chamberlain”.
          Fucking sloppy work. 😀
          You’ve got to learn to mix up your dialog and speech patterns. It’s amateur hour up in here. Your game is weak.
          I’m pretty sure the “Unpersoning Good Christians” translates into “not gullible enough to believe JDA’s bullshit”. 😀
          Toodles, sockpuppets.

          1. Jon Del Arroz desperately seeks the validation from Larry that he clearly never got from his father. This is pathetic.

        2. Jesus, this guy is bending over so hard to give himself a rimjob, he may bust a vertebrae or three!

          Desperation is SUCH a bad look!

      2. I know. Vox is right. I don’t care that they’re canceling me. They don’t really impact me despite Larry’s whining about “coat tails”. I barely ever interacted with him and he’s making up a ton of nonsense about me.

        I’ll continue forward with Christian Nationalism and pray for Larry’s salvation along with the others.

        1. You can always spot the GOOD CHRISTIANS because they have to continually tell everyone what GOOD CHRISTIANS they are. They’re like the religious version of vegans.
          Real Christianity is obviously about telling everyone how righteous you are rather than demonstrating it through your behavior, and then using the savior’s name as a shield for your bad behavior. Because obviously, if people think you’re being awful, rather than reflect upon that, swallow your pride, and repent, you just claim that they’re attacking Christians, because of course, you’re representative of all of them.

          1. And you’ve hit the nail squarely on the head, sir.

            I do recall Christ having a lot of very specific things to say about pride. ????

    1. Now is the moment of the cancellation zeitgeist. Sooner would have been too soon, later would have been too late.

  6. I’m assuming that lawyers have been contacted to file the appropriate suits already. I’ll pick a book up on my way home from work.

  7. I’m going to assume they launched a bunch of complaints about authors who posted pictures of guillotines with captions like Eat the Rich. No?

    Shocking.

    1. Just thinking the same thing.

      I hear David Boop’s Straight Outta Tombstone anthology is on sale. It’s got short stories in it from Larry, Jim Butcher, Sarah Hoyt and a whole bunch of others too.

  8. Could Baen hit the author of said piece as well as anybody filing “complaints” with Tortious Interference lawsuits? I can’t imagine that any of this will stop until we can make it hurt for THEM.

  9. “…pontificating about moral equivalence things like the Red Scare from decades ago”

    And that right there is part of the reason such people are still on the back foot. Because when they bring up the “Red Scare” as if it was just a witch hunt, they’ve already bought into the enemy’s propaganda.

    Reading “The Venona Secrets” was pretty eye-opening. The HUAC did nothing wrong.

    1. Yeah, I keep seeing people on the right or libertarians getting all philosophical about this and talking about how both sides are equally morally bad, and bullshit like the Satanic Panic (40 years ago), and how the pendulum swings. Meanwhile the left is mastering how to crush free speech and association right now in ways mankind has never seen before. So don’t worry. When we’re not allowed to have jobs, credit cards, or bank accounts, we can rest comfortable knowing that the pendulum might swing back after we’re dead.

      1. Yeah. If your “principles” preclude you from defending against pernicious attacks aimed at tearing your entire society down, then your principles suck.

        Something about minds so open that the brains fall out…

        1. There’s a comfortable distance between “fighting to protect yourself and your values” and “becoming just like the people you hate”.

        2. Heinlein said that hunting the reds in the government was justified since we were at war.
          I’ll go with what he said.
          Unfortunately, I think it was too late.

        3. Principles can be legitimately re-evaluated, and if appropriate, altered. But the point of having principles is to not just abandon them the moment they become inconvenient.

          It may well be time to examine those principles in the light of recent events, and the actual fact of the ways the world has changed since they were formulated.

          And it may well be that there’s a measure of stubborn pride involved as well. I’ve had people mock me viciously *to my face* for adherence to my principles, when the only person that adherence had harmed was myself. Because they *knew* that my principles would cause me to refrain from responding in kind.

          Now hell, maybe that just makes me an idiot. But I try to live by the rules that I think everyone should live by because I think it would make the world a better place if everyone did. I think that living by the rules the left espouses will make the world a worse place. I think we should ponder long and hard before we abandon our principles for theirs.

      2. They are not just going to take our jobs, credit cards, and bank accounts. The left NEVER stops there. There will be a final solution, there always is.

        And if we go down that road….. After the good leftists say “we didn’t know, we’re sorry”, I’ll say, “want forgiveness, get on your knees and beg Jesus for some. We told you to stop or it would kill millions, you didn’t listen.” I’m beyond the point of forgiving even the good german left who are just going along to get along. Anyone willing to see can’t miss the evil the vile left is doing right in the open now. Anyone going along with them is no longer a good person….

        1. Ya boy Zack, aka Richard C Meyer, an indie comic book writer spotted this and made a youtube video about 3 years ago, they, the social justice warrior crowd want you dead. They don’t just want you cancelled from your current gig, they want you so radioactive that you’re unemployable not just unemployed. then homeless and living under a bridge until you decide to off yourself just to put an end to it all.

      3. I’m gonna jump in here and debunk some leftist propaganda because this topic is one of my pet peeves.

        Everyone likes to chant “McCarthyism, McCarthyism blah blah blah” and its STUPID because its all based on a lie.

        The entire “witch hunt” of communists was a LIE. It never happened. First of all, SENATOR Joe McCarthy never had anything to do with the HOUSE Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). How do we know that? Because he was a SENATOR. senators are not in the house and cannot participate in house committee’s.

        Why does everyone associate republican SENATOR joe mccarthy with a HOUSE committee? Simple, because they are LYING. they are lying in order to create a narrative that the government and evil republicans were persecuting innocent little socialists. This is BS. The actual head of the HUAC was CONGRESSMAN Martin Dies. Ever heard his name? Of course you haven’t. The reason is simple. He was a democrat, not a republican. If you admit that democrats and union members were ALSO concerned about the communist activities in hollywood then people might realize that there was something real there to be worried about.

        One of their main witnesses was democrat and huge union supporter Roy Brewer. The HUAC was not a witch hunt. it was a VALID investigation into the FACT that the russian communists were funding communist activities in hollywood with the specific intention of influencing american elections. I remember a time when foreign governments trying to influence our elections was seen as a BAD thing.

        documents uncovered since the berlin wall came down show that starting after WW2 and until the 1980’s the USSR was funding communist front groups in the USA to the tune of 2 MILLION dollars a year. A communist agent working directly for the kremlin also incited a violent riot in seattle. Thats what the HUAC was investigating.

        you can look up this youtube video from razorfist “Hollywood Was Always Red: A Rant” if you want more info.

        In summery the argument “both sides are equally bad, because of mccarthyism” is bullshit because 1, mccarthy wasn’t involved in any way, and 2, the HUAC was investigating REAL attempts by the USSR to influence our elections.

        1. Thanks. I was just pointing out the quality of argument I’m getting from people nominally supposedly on my side.

        2. Hell, we KNEW the “McCarthyism” narrative was all bullshit at the time, because we were reading the Soviets’ mail through the Venona program. Unfortunately, the Venona papers weren’t declassified until the mid-90s, so the KGB propaganda had time to metastasize.

        3. Red scare like the fact the state department was owned by the soviets? Highest ranked state department bureaucrat was a Soviet spy, and he helped hire the head of state department counter-intelligence. Who was a Soviet spy, but that did not come out until the wall fell.

          And about as well known as Teddy Kennedy asking the soviets for help getting Regan out of office.

          1. Ever hear of John Walker? I the early 80’s one of our helicopters was using it’s sonar on an exercise. There was a Greenpeace ship nearby. A few weeks later the Crew who was in that particular aircraft at that time got letters from Greenpeace berating them for using sonar because it may harm the sea life. Between what Walker was giving the Soviets and the North Koreans giving them the code machines from the USS Pueblo, they were reading the Navy’s mail. They felt confident enough to supply Greenpeace with a flight schedule.

        4. You need to look a little wider and deeper than just Hollywood. I’d say what I mean here, but, that might just make things worse.

        5. EXACTLY! And though McCarthy was a bully, a liar, and an alcoholic, he was right. Try reading Blacklisted By History. Much of what he brought up was (again) verified by the Venona Papers.

        6. McCarthy was an attention whore. And an idiot. He couldn’t have done a better job smearing ‘Red’ hunters if he really tried. He was also a defender of Nazis. Look up his role in trying to get the Germans who massacred GIs at Malmedy (this was before he pivoted towards going after Commies)

          https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-mccarthys-nazi-problem-180975174/

          If he’d been a real patriot, he would have published his infamous lists and damn the torpedoes. He didn’t, because he had nothing and knew it.

        7. Thank you. The slander and libel against Joe McCarthy, even (and especially) from people allegedly on the conservative side, and the lionization of the Red filth newspaperman Edward R Murrow who publicly humiliated him, is also a pet peeve of mine.

          I have heard conservatives using McCarthy’s name as a synonym for witchhunt.

          America will be sick in her soul until that man is exonerated and his name is cleared.

        8. Huh. I didn’t know any of that.

          Do you (or does anyone) have any book recommendations I can read on this subject? I’m sure there are a bunch, but I thought I’d ask to see what you enjoyed/ found interesting.

        9. And what is also over looked by the left is that the Roosevelt administration allow the Soviets to tool up to build the A-bomb through the WWII Lend-Lease program.

          Tons of tooling, material and classified information flowed out with the blessing of the White House. Combined that with the traitors that filled in the last critical details giving them at least a decade head start.

          So when the Left screams “Russia, Russia, Russia”, they are merely projecting their crimes and guilt.

      4. Too true. Justice delayed is justice denied they say on the left, but when the non-lefties are the injured party, apparently we have to wait for that pendulum to swing back. And I keep seeing it mostly swing in the unhappy direction, more and more, and I’ve been watching for decades…

    2. The HUAC did nothing wrong.

      What do you mean? They missed a whole SHITLOAD of communists, and now our entire country is infested with the vermin.
      ———————————
      Some folks can be taught. Others can learn by example. The rest have to piss on the electric fence for themselves.

      1. “They missed a whole SHITLOAD of communists, and now our entire country is infested with the vermin.”

        Okay, I’ve got to concede the point there. The statement still does stand in the context of the official Narrative that the HUAC and “McCarthyism” (which was a KGB info op term, BTW) were only witch hunts jumping at shadows.

  10. agreed. lawsuits are expensive, time consuming affairs that only serve to keep the lawyers employed. (and I am one.)

    while they do serve an ultimate purpose in having the court vindicate the side who has the correct legal position, they don’t prevent loss of income, and in some cases life, that real-world actions entail. you can bankrupt yourself and still win the legal fight, and thus lose your the livelihood you were fighting for.

  11. Anyone who does business via the Internet better have a backup plan. Parler didn’t have a plan. Gab, MeWe & Pirate Bay learned to survive despite all the techno-fascist shenanigans . We best pay attention to how they did this & have a plan.

    Another thing to watch out in any public forum is trolling. SJWs will create an account, post offending content then complain to service providers about the content they posted. Baen should probably do a little forensic investigation into the schlubs complaining. How much would anyone bet that they posted the “offending” material?

    1. Oh, there’s a definite possibility that some of these offending posts could have been made by trolls for the purpose of being shared on social media to generate controversy and create a pretext for shanking Baen.

      1. One of my posts the little… Individual… uses concerned the death of Ashli Babbitt, a post he twisted so maliciously…

        It was meant to show how her unjustifiable shooting death at the hands of a supposedly highly trained police officer was being minimized for the sake of DNC/PLD politics. From what I had seen up to the point I posted it, was that no one in Congress was speaking for Ashli Babbitt, and in point of fact, very few people were speaking for her in the news, either.

        I am/was one of the very few ‘Flies who would pick apart a shooting incident before saying a thing about it. My record speaks for itself. I have sided with the shooter, I have sided against the shooter. I can’t give an actual score, but I figure it’s about 60-40 in favor of law enforcement. But when I do side against the Officer(s) in question, I don’t sugarcoat it, and generally call for the harshest penalties.

        I called what happened to Ashli Babbitt Manslaughter, Minimum, and more like Murder two. I noted that the Officer’s name was being kept quiet, and then was angry when it was determined he would face no charges. For those who watch the video, it is clear that he fired the shot with fellow officers in his field of fire. No charges? I can think of more than a few…

        And Sanford used it to call me a racist, among other things…

    2. In this particular case, it is a lot simpler than that. I went and read Sanford’s long-winded whine.

      He references real Baen Bar users, with whom I have interacted on the Bar for years. Two or three of them are relatively new, but the rest have been on the Bar for a very long time.

      What Sanford does is quote the text, and then assign the meaning to it that does not, in fact, follow from the text.

      For instance, a discussion of modern militia’s equipment and purpose automatically is assumed to be a preparation to violent uprising. No, the original discussion did not have any immediate calls to arms, and Sanford does not provide such quotes. Incitement of violence is ASS-Sumed, as self-evident from the very fact that somebody had the unmitigated gall to have a discussion about militias. After all, ‘everybody knows’ that all militias are, by default, evil-fascist-trumpster-insurrectionists, right? Riiiight.

      Or, in another example, another Barfly’s comment that, if white population of the US gets tired of being all baselessly labeled ‘racist’ and goes on strike for a few days, the entire country will come to a halt, is labeled ‘racist’ without any explanation why, exactly, an obvious statement of fact is somehow ‘racist’ in Sanford’s eyes.

      And on and on and on it goes like that.

      The guy doesn’t need actual offensive content to get offended. He gets offended, then pulls random content, and quotes it as evidence, because him being offended makes anything, up to and including ‘Good morning, kind sir”, offensive.

    3. (Note: I am a legal retard.)

      If they posted the offending material, then they or “friends” wrote an article to try to get Baen shut down, couldn’t that be considered “tortious interference”?

      If the Bar even opens up, maybe there should be some sort of paid membership and contract with stricter terms. And the money could fund better moderation.

  12. If I might make a suggestion:

    Report every post this gentleman makes or has made to Patreon under targeted harassment and bullying. This includes his posts on “Genre Gossip” as well as any hit-pieces like this one. Go after his other social media accounts as well for verified attacks like this, and report him to his ISP for the same harassment and bullying. One or two reports won’t do much but when you have larger numbers of people reporting it tends to get noticed.

    When reporting it, especially to an ISP or webhost, ensure that you provide screenshots and links to exactly what you’re reporting. If you call a report in (for instance, Google has that option for anything it hosts) be sure to use the “Abuse” hotline that they have. Always get a case number and be sure to follow up.

    If you receive a kickback about an automated system not finding an issue, ALWAYS request that it go to a human for secondary verification. Again, the more people that do this, the more likely you are to get it seen/removed.

    Just my .02 cents.

  13. There should be one stock response to SJWs: Fuck off.

    Then, Baen should move their entire internet platform to Epik (or some other ISP that doesn’t quiver whenever the Twitter mob glances at them) so they can be immune to this sort of pressure.

    1. I believe they were working on it after the Parler wake up call, but weren’t there yet when this BS hit.
      Problem is, how many businesses are out there using providers who they have no idea are just going to roll on them the first time a mob shows up?
      Lot of businesses getting a wake up call right about now.

      1. PornHub/Baen ?

        that or a server farm in Bulgaria where they don’t seem to care so long as the checks don’t bounce

      2. I suspect the Parler hit was a wake-up call to a lot of IT folks ..

        “what do you mean they can simply shut down our cloud servers, those are mission critical!”

        How long it takes to wake up the C-level boardrooms .. ‘nother story.

        Mew

      3. The Bezos clown show owns 50% of the cloud services, and the next biggest 4 own another 30%. You know they’re trying to drive the other 20% out of business or into their fold. At some point, there won’t be any safe haven from these asshats if things continue on like this.

  14. Keep in mind that Eric Flint has been characterized as a “leftie activist.” The left doesn’t monopolize cancel culture and I know a great many “lefties” who feel the same way everyone here does about it. Cancel culture stinks wherever it finds purchase. Focusing only on the left eliminates allies in the fight against it. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

    As for attacking any business that makes hard decisions it needs to make to stay in business, that is none of our business.

    1. Honestly, no.

      I’ve been having this conversation and it’s just not as brilliant and intelligent as it first sounds. There are NO lefty allies against the woke inquisition. It’s true enough that the left eats it’s own, but that doesn’t make an ally. What makes an ally is someone stepping forward and making a public statement that this is completely farked and needs to stop.

      Glenn Greenwald is probably the most notable example at the moment. Tulsi Gabbard is pushing back. Who else?

      Anyone?

      1. Yeah, sadly notable people on the left who are fighting back against this can be counted on your fingers. So I’ll just have to find a way to sleep at night knowing that I’ve committed the unforgivable sin of using accurate labels.

      2. Matt Talibi. The three people who made the fake social science papers (dog rape, feminist geography, etc), they are on the left

      3. There are a few. Unfortunately, none of them are involved in SF/F that I know of. Almost all of them academics who are left wing but also free speech activists.

        If you’re interested in some interesting conversations, you can look up these guys on YouTube:

        Eric Weinstein
        James Lindsay
        Helen Pluckrose
        Peter Boghossian

        … ehh…. I know there are more. These are off the top of my head.

        Some other activists who are more centrist/ right wing are:

        Jordan Peterson
        Gad Saad
        Douglas Murray

    2. And I’ve yet to find anyone making the “both sides” argument, that “the right” is busy cancelling people they don’t like, who can make any sort of distinction between choosing not to support something or someone and working overtime attacking secondary or tertiary targets to get them shut down so no one can choose to support them.

      1. from what I’ve seen, when the right leaning person says something like, “I’m not going to give anymore of my money”, the replies from the left start rolling in, “I thought you didn’t believe in cancel culture”

        1. Exactly.

          I would never argue that there aren’t people on the right who misbehave and need to stop. Doxxing and Swatting and DOS attacks – don’t do that. Just don’t.

          But when we talk about cancel culture, pretending that choosing to cancel your Disney Plus account is “cancelling” them is a sort of theater of public faux-stupidity intended to disqualify any real discussion of what it means when people’s livelihood is threatened, they’re deplatformed, or threats are made to second and third parties demanding that they face punishment and reprisal for failing to join the mob, when remaining neutral or “silent” about what someone *else* is doing, puts a target on your own head.

          So you get a “Dur-de-dur-dur, it’s just like, you believe in Cancel Culture, too, bro. Cuz you “cancelled” your Disney Plus account.”

          1. The tu quoque fallacy, along with projection, is an essential tool in prog “argument” methods.

          2. I just explain, I don’t give money to people that hate me. That’s not canceling anybody, that just free market economics…

        2. “We’ve been called racists often enough, by now, we shouldn’t flinch when it happens.” — Art Chance

          Same thing applies here – ignore what they say, watch what they do, and drive on.

          Mew

  15. “You need to wake up and catch up.”

    I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I think I get it now:

    If I was a writer I would want a site to advertise my work. And maybe promote writers I like and mentor new ones. But while it might have the occasional political post or humorous fisking, if some guy starts a conversation about last straws or red lines, I’m shutting that down hard. Because invariably, another guy is going to respond with “well we should also consider…” and then another with “but that won’t work unless…”, and suddenly my business site is flagged as an Insurrectionist Townhall and gets shut down. That’s food taken off my kid’s plate because some yahoos wanted to shoot the shit about revolution.

    It’s even more dangerous for people like you and Hoyt and Petterson who have stood up to the SJWs – they want to turn you into an object lesson to prevent others from standing up.

    And it doesn’t matter if you are innocent (as we are seeing with Baen) the SJWs will launch Reichstag Fire Ops and by the time you get the truth out, your livelihood is a smoldering ruin.

    I’ll spread the word. And I have a ton of new books to order, so I’ll give Baen all my business. Is there any point in writing to the companies Baen uses to warn them they are being played? Or would that just make it worse?

    1. I see the Usual Vile Suspects are certainly boosting his signal. Inevitably.

      Lefties do this stuff, and it never seems to occur to them that it can be done TO THEM as well. And it will be. Most likely by other Lefties. Sooner or later, what goes around comes around.

  16. “Those who burn books will, in the end, burn people.” — Heinrich Heine.

    These Baen attackers are the stone cold enemy and should be fought as though our lives depend on it. Because I think they do.

  17. To which I append the following:

    I am often quite surprised at the left’s lack of reasoning power and discernment, generally. In this particular case, while I am pretty sure Sanford is being as honest as his limited reasoning ability allows, note that there is a distinct – and legally significant – difference between advocating violence and advocating being prepared to engage in violence in order to deter violence being done unto oneself. Note that Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian Compound were excellent examples of illegal or immoral mass violence being done to innocent people under color of law.

    And, in addition, in a smashing display of potential research skills done to death by doctrinaire lefty thinking, note that Arun (the actual Swarthy Menace, AKA Swarth Vader) revels in the nicknames. One would think the silly turd would have realized that, before citing to Arun for something else.

    Note further that, in an equally smashing display of intellectual dishonesty, he’s putting a quote from John Scalzi into Toni Weisskopf’s mouth. Tsk; how very sad.

    This from a man who allegedly has defended plagiarism and plagiarists. (Ere it disappears from Wiki: “Sanford served as the fiction and nonfiction editor, while York served as poetry editor. Both editors were heavily involved in the debate around the alleged plagiarism of Southern author Brad Vice, with Sanford defending Vice’s work and his essays on the affair being mentioned in the subsequent press coverage.”

    1. Yeah. I saw the thing about the alleged racism. Two guys who are friends in real life using nicknames for each other, so pretty much the end of the world.

      Ascribing a Scalzi quote to Toni on accident is so fucking ridiculous, I’d sue just for that, just on principle. We can crowd fund that shit. 😀

      1. I understand the crawling turd is now crying “death threats” over a helicopterian joke.

        Thing is, even these silly shits don’t believe any of that. If they believed we were what they claim we are, they’d be too afraid even to turn on their computers, less still to leave their homes, let alone attack us while using their own names.

        1. Yeah, I snorted at the death threats bit.
          Turns out it is because Jon Del Arroz sent the guy a helicopter meme. So it’s just another episode of When Assholes Collide.

          1. Y’know .. with a little sophistry and some boilerplate accounting bafflegab, I could probably whip up a proposal for a government-funded ASS .. Asshole Supercollider Site ..

            Anyone got a friendly congress critter to send it to?

            Mew

          2. “When Assholes Collide”…

            I just had an image of a double anal dildo… In use.

            Bleh. Anyone have a jug of brain bleach at hand?

        2. Doesn’t a true threat (“unlawful” speech) require both access to a helicopter and the means by which to physically force one aboard?

        3. This cannot be said enough. For all the Sturm und Drang by the idiocracy leftists, a genuine insurrection against extreme governmental overreach would have virtually the entire lot of these Marxist wannabees hysterically crying and blubbering snot from their noses as they trembled under their beds.

      2. I’d like to sue for libel, as he took what I said completely out of context. Fact is, while i generally support the officers involved in shootings, I have often condemned them when they do go to far. When I first pointed out that Ashli Babbitt’s death was manslaughter at least, Sanford said nothing.

    2. The original post didn’t even have Toni’s name or that she’s… well, “she” right. It was later edited after a comment pointed it out. Per usual leftist claptrap, the error was never acknowledged and the correction made quietly.

  18. This might be a stupid question.

    Would a polite, but firmly worded letter of complain to Baen’s service provider be in any way helpful?

  19. Longtime lurker, extremely rare poster here.
    Yep, it’s time to hit up Baen books with credit card in hand and make up for a few months of fiscal restraint. Spending my stimulus check on something worthwhile.

  20. The only way to stop this nonsense is to sue the ass off those who difund libelous claims against their political adversaries, based on nothing else but their prejudices. And then the Internet hosting services that pander them. That is the only way

  21. Where it now seems we are headed, in my opinion, is into a world where we have at least two almost completely separate economies, sharing the same physical space.

    Freedom lovers and statists may still live in the same town, at least for a while, but will no longer use the same bank, nor attend the same church.

    1. “a world where we have at least two almost completely separate – ”

      I don’t think so. We are dealing with control freaks, they require subjects. Like an abusive spouse, they will never let us divorce them and they will never leave us alone. Ctrl Left. They get off on it.

      1. Two cultures in the same geographic space, and one has nowhere left in the world to go.

        Bosnia is going to look like an elementary school scuffle.

        1. Thank you for accurately reproducing the thought process behind many of the “planning for the apocalypse” posts on The Bar.

          Larry – do you know if Tom Stranger insures against rogue SJW nanobots?

          Mew

      2. But we don’t have to fund them or their allies in the meantime. I eliminated them from my entertainment budget years ago. The fact they support pedophiles and want our death validated my decision.

  22. Not to defend the SJW punks but it seems to me that the real problem here is the tech oligarchs that actually do the deplatforming. There are those on the Left that hate them too, albeit for a different reason. So it is worth exploring whether cooperation can occur. Hurting the oligarchs is hurting the oligarchs and I dont care how.

  23. Hmm I need some more LC and DW books. Is it better to order from Amazon or Barnes and Noble to help at the moment?

  24. We need an updated Niemöller poem:

    When Twitter blocked Donald Trump,
    I kept silent,
    — you know, I wasn’t a Trumper.

    When Amazon locked out Parler,
    I kept silent,
    — you know, I wasn’t a Parler user.

    When they came to cancel Baen,
    I kept silent,
    — you know, I wasn’t a Baen author.

    When they canceled me,
    there were none left
    who could protest.

    [German version following the original/Deutsche Fassung in Anlehnung an das Original:]

    Als Twitter Donald Trump sperrte,
    habe ich geschwiegen,
    ich war ja kein Trumper.

    Als Amazon Parler verbannte,
    habe ich geschwiegen,
    ich war ja kein Parler-Benützer.

    Als sie Baen auslöschen möchten,
    habe ich geschwiegen,
    ich war ja kein Baen-Autor.

    Als sie mich auslöschten,
    gab es niemanden mehr,
    der protestieren konnte.

    1. I’ve been using this comparison for a while now. Really pissed off a Jewish friend of mine, until he thought about it for a bit. Which is the entire point, really

    2. I’ve been using this comparison for a while now. Kinda pissed off a Jewish friend of mine, until he thought about it for a bit. Which is the entire point, really

  25. Just went and purchased three monthly bundles from the website. I would have as the publishing dates arrived but messages need to be sent and buying books from people I like is a good one, And my preference is always direct from Baen.

  26. Letting him posture, think he’s one and watching that account fill till there’s enough booty to make it worthwhile would seem, to me, a wise course of action.
    I suspect the less response he gets the more likely he’ll talk himself into actionable crime.
    Just a thought…

    BTW Jonathan, I was nearing the end of my TBR list about the time Larry tossed your name out… made a note to watch for your stuff, and got turned off before I could check you out.
    I suspect you’re a decent storyteller just based on The ILOH’s mention, he doesn’t really spend much time on loosers.
    Unfortunately I’m on a fixed income and really would be disappointed if your constant shifts between self aggrandisement and whining carried into your books.
    Perhaps something of yours will show up in the teade shelves at the VA. I’ll keep watching.

  27. “The woke left saw what Big Tech did to Parler and they learned from it. “

    Minor quibble here – what Big Tech did was put standard leftist tactics to use, because big tech is comprised of leftists from the top all the way down to janitor. The movement Left has always played this game. It’s just now that they control pretty much everything, you see their tactics on every level.

    The Right is only just now starting to see this stuff because it’s been mainstreamed. The Right calls for boycotts that only make a small dent, then peter out. The Left calls for boycotts, and then calls sponsors, suppliers, clients, and support businesses of their designated targets. It’s obviously highly effective. I can almost guarantee they’re doing more than going after Baen’s hosting services.

    I hope they’re ready.

    1. Great response. The left likes bureaucracy, “process,” all kinds of coordination. The right doesn’t like to participate in these things and sees them as “seeming fake.” Leftists at protests often have premade matching signs, provided talking points, maybe even paid participants. I was at an Obamacare protest once where all the organizing groups stood separately with their handmade signs and a counter protest group showed up with matching signs, stood together and shouted slogans. I talked to them and a whole segment of them was made up of out of town students brought by a homeless advocacy group that was working with them for the week, some of the people were employees, and a few came on their own — but to people passing by, they made the bigger impression although few of them were there out of personal convictions. We HAVE to wake up to this, they have a huge head start and are very good at it. Some groups are starting to figure it out but it’s an uphill battle because right-leaning people, in general, don’t WANT to do what the left-leaning people just LOVE to do.

  28. I believe we should initiate operation “Streisand effect”
    Go buy more than you normally would, get gifts, spread the word.
    I agree this (disinformation,deplatform, destroy) campaign has the potential to radically alter this last best hope of mankind. We must fight it or be destroyed, economically at first, history tells us the endpoint

  29. Well crap, I was going to do something else with my spending money this month, but now looks like I need to go ahead and buy books.

    Any thoughts beyond Gun Runner?

    1. July 2021 bundle has MH Bloodlines, and June 2021 has Drake’s the Serpent.

      Beyond that, I like LMB’s Penric, Lee and Miller’s Liaden, and Hodgell’s Kencyrath.

      Drake has a wide range of excellent stuff. Kratman, Ringo, and Weber have a lot of good stuff, and some stuff I’m not in the mood for.

      Freer’s fantasy series with Flint and Lackey.

      Chuck Gannon’s Caine Riordan books are nice. See also Mike Williamson.

      It’s not as simple as ‘buy everything’, or ‘buy everything by these 20 or 30 authors’.

  30. Leftist: “It’s okay when we cancel someone, because they can start their own awards/ social media/ publishing houses/ studios/ ect.”

    Also Leftist: “We need to shut down these evil Right-Wing awards/ social media/ publishing houses/ studios/ ect.”

  31. It strikes me that this twerp who wrote the hit piece is a wanna be that can’t sell a book he’d written so he’s taking a page out of N.K. Jemesin’s playbook.

    Pick a high profile target on the right, attack it, get hammered in response, play victim, get accolades from the “righteous woke”, wins a Best Related Hugo at Dis-Con after successfully getting the con to withdraw Toni’s GoH status, and starts selling his crappy books.

    Jemesin attacked Vox Day and got three undeserved Hugos. He’s probably thinking by bringing down Baen – even if just getting the forum perma-shutdown and Toni’s GoH withdrawn – it will launch his career to great heights.

    And he’ll never know that it will just make him a hatful POS like Jemesin is.

  32. The Barflies plan a coup? Yeah, against light beer. Because when I was there from time to time, that was about the only thing that would get the board as a whole up in arms about anything. Other than that, to use a Jewish expression? “Two people, three opinions.” Mr. Sanford, please go take a long walk off a short pier.

  33. Yeah, uh, look.

    What’s wrong with advocating violence?

    First of all, the left does it regularly, they’re quite open about wanting to use whatever force necessary to get the right wing loonies to shape up and get with the program. So it’s not like there’s a principled bipartisan case against it.

    Second and more importantly, how exactly do you think this country came into existence in the first place? Peaceful protest? Or vandalism of private property of tea shipments and repeatedly shooting Brits in the face?

    From a practical perspective, advocating violence from the right gets you arrested. Advocating (or employing actual) violence from the left gets you no penalty at all. There’s reasons for that – among others, that the left is organized and serious about it, and the right is not. Enough so that it strongly influences police behavior. Tucker Carlson had a mob surround his DC house and threaten his family, which is why he moved out of that area. That was violent. One of Trump’s lawyers is being threatened and harassed and having his property graffitied. That’s violent. People with MAGA hats have repeatedly been violently attacked. Every single perpetrator of these types of events has a name, a face, a location, and NEVER SUFFERS ANY MEANINGFUL CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR VIOLENT ACTS. No violence has ever been applied to them. Those who observe them see that they suffer no costs for their actions, which encourages more.

    Cancel culture is an attempt to destroy people’s livelihoods and impoverish and possibly starve them. That’s de facto violence and justifies a violent reaction. Why has no author of a hit piece ever suffered any consequences for these actions? Why are they being permitted to continue operations in impunity?

    Violence does not stop until it is answered with superior violence. The right wing is the side that is supposed to understand that.

    As long as this “how DARE you suggest we’re violent” attitude persists, the right continues to demonstrate that it is absolutely not serious about anything. And the left understands that. And that’s why they do what they do, and why they win.

    You will stop losing when you start employing violence (and I don’t mean warnings of violence, I mean actual violence with no warning at all) and employing it effectively. That is not advice or a suggestion, it is simply recognizing a fact.

    Act, or don’t. But stop whining.

    1. By “whining” you mean not being a total bad ass like you. Sorry we haven’t jumped to the killing part fast enough to suit you.
      But you want to kick it off, ain’t nobody here holding you back, champ.

      1. Killing is not what he said.

        There are dozens of intermediate levels of force between “do nothing” (where we are now) and “kill them all.”

        Writing off forceful responses because of bad optics is self defeating, and allows people like this shithead to retain the initiative.

        Rollory is right, the left operates with impunity because we, their opposition, exact no cost from them. That, in turn, provides no brake on the actions of the left, so they spiral ever farther into outright assault and battery, with occasional forays into straight up murder.

        I’m just a nobody from nowhere, but even I can see this.

        We all know that leftist turds like this guy always get around to putting people in box cars. We have already seen people on the left float this idea in a serious way after the incident on 6 Jan.

        I personally would like to dissuade them from this notion before it comes down to mass murder in the streets.

        Sitting around and pontificating on the internet won’t get it done. We’ve gotten really good at doing that, had 20 years of practice. Meanwhile, the left gets banks to close the accounts of political dissidents, and a book publisher has to tread carefully lest its entire internet presence gets wiped in an afternoon.

        The left is so far ahead of the right in operational concept I fear we will never catch up.

        1. You guys are preaching to the choir. I’m the dude who popularized the whole left has a knob, right has a switch thing.
          If he’s not talking about killing people, then I’m open to ideas. But otherwise it just feels like the same as it always does, with people who aren’t doing anything themselves telling guys like me that we aren’t doing enough.

          1. The only even vaguely sane interpretation I can make that fits the suggestion would be to use “state violence” against said perpetrators more effectively. Make a real nuisance of ourselves pressuring the local DA to actually press charges, in locations that’s even vaguely feasible. Obviously, a not-leftie living in Portland trying to get their DA to even use harsh language against their lefty scum is going to have very little success.

            But anywhere the government might be even slightly amenable, well, use the system against the lefties perpetrating real violence. Hound them I to actually doing their job there.

            Yes, I realize this is a very small start in the face of “we’re going to wipe you out of contact with the financial system”, but… it’s somewhere to start.

        2. Then get started. Because until you do, you’re just as guilty of whatever it is you’re charging here.

          More of the royal “We” going on here. Do you really think that posting shit in public about your public plan to commit felonies is how to do it? If so, go start your own blog, step out of the shadows of being a nobody on the internet, get some skin in the game, create a following and go bash some heads with your new Badass Brigade.

          1. I have little patience with these “let’s you and him fight” types. They complain about other people not “kicking things off” but always have excuses why they don’t “kick things off.” Yet somehow these excuses aren’t allowed to apply to other people.

          2. “They complain about other people”

            To be fair, they are lost and looking for the right-wing equivalent of Community Organizers to give them a SitRep.

            They’ve been betrayed by the likes of Romney and McCain, they are sick to their back teeth of Failure Theater and Surrendering Gracefully, and they are looking for guidance.

            So it’s hard for them, after seeing so much ground given up, to view the Baen instance as anything other than more of same. The frustration from previous retreats has blinded them to the fact that this particular tactical retreat is the smart play.

            They aren’t all SJW provocateurs or FBI agents, most are more like refugees. And they will continue to wander in with questions about what happens next. Because they see you guys as fighters first and writers second, instead of the reverse.

        3. “Killing” is not what he said. But he did say “violence”. Sadly for us, the right isn’t super good at low level street violence and general fuckery. If you think that the right is going to start doing all that and the government is going to treat us like they treat the left’s low level street violence, you’re suckers.
          Just look how their months of rioting was peaceful protests, but the right got rowdy at the Capitol once, and the government freaks out like it’s 9-11.
          So if you want the right to turn to “violence” then when the state inevitably responds with killing, it will turn into “killing”. If you think that Biden/Harris is going to respond to the right’s violence with the restraint that Trump showed to the left’s violence, you’re in for a shock.

          1. So what is to be done? Do we just hunker down and hope for the best? Because it’s not working.
            I don’t have all the answers, but I am leaning to what Rollory said, short of killing, but it might be far too late. Yes, the left is in charge now and they are going to punish the right for what they let the left get away with.
            So what do we do? I have been asking this for months, if not years, and no one has any answers.
            How do we fight this? Can we?

        4. The left is ahead because most of the right only complains on the internet. There’s a lot of work to be done that just requires a bit of time and diligence. Here’s a few ideas that do work.

          1) Don’t give money to people that hate you. Let your family and friends know. This does work, just watch the stock prices and market share of woke companies drop when a large group of consumers are dissed and aware of it. See the NBA and NFL for examples.

          2) Be aware of local, state and national politics. Read the bills and budgets. Dig deeper than the lazy, corrupt media. Seek the truth, the power and the money flows.

          A group of us locals have been tilting against local corrupt red windmills and have won a few battles. We will support saner candidates in the primaries and vote for the lesser of two evils in the primary. Research your local elections or find a group that does. The election fraud is worse than you think. The more people see the actual records, the harder it is to dismiss.

          3) Home school your kids and vote against school bonds. Starve the beast that is twisting the culture. Study their budgets and discover the extreme amount of waste.

          4) Support good people and not the bad. I did donate a computer to a friend of a friend that tutors home schoolers. I didn’t give a reference for a former co-worker since he bragged about supporting team blue and cheers when members of team red die.

          5) Prepare for hard times. Stockpile like a Mormon. Learn skills. Network locally. Switch to better email providers. Have at least one computer on Linux or FreeBSD or OpenBSD. Etc…

          There’s a lot easy things to do that help you, your community and don’t help our oppressors.

          Also pray hard and have some fun!

          1. Larry is Right has some great and legal ideas. I will also add that people like Sanford do have employers. I sent an email to Mr. Sanford’s employer that coincided with a service that I use. There is doxxing that is non violent. And I did let Disney know why they will no longer see me at their parks or on their cruises. And I didn’t even reference one person, just ‘cancel culture’. So there’s tons to do short of violence.

    2. Do you really think that wagging your little e-peen and demanding everybody shut up is an effective way to persuade?

      Spoiler Alert: It’s not.

    3. I’ve an inkling this little shithound is attempting to get something on Larry, so the lefties can complain and get the site shut down. Or he’s a JDA adherent. Both are equally vile.

      As Tom Hardy said in Mad Max, “That’s bait.”

      Take your provocateur comment and stick it in your ass. Nobody’s buying it.

    4. “Cancel culture is an attempt to destroy people’s livelihoods and impoverish and possibly starve them. That’s de facto violence and justifies a violent reaction.”

      More than anyone here, I understand where you are coming from. And my days here are probably numbered as a result.

      But we don’t do that. We don’t pretend that “de facto” violence justifies a violent reaction. That’s what the SJWs do: redefine “silence is violence” to justify kicking you death for refusing to render a BLM salute.

      Please adjust accordingly.

    1. Eh, it’s more like corporate cover your ass. Their ToS are always nebulous gibberish. They catch heat from a woke mob about how they’re hosting hate speech/bigotry/insurrection or whatever the bigotry of the day is, and then they immediately cave to avoid the mob coming after their business (or they are lefties and they think this power is just splendid)
      It’s just the logical next step of thing like Survey Monkey shutting down the Walk Away newsletter or all the stores no longer carrying MyPillows. They’ve found a new trick so they’re gonna abuse it.

  34. Two things stick out when I read his screed. One, he’s doing it to make money: the second sentence was a pitch to back his Patreon. Two, his intent as well noted by Larry and everyone else, is to hurt and maybe even cancel Baen. Otherwise he would have actually contacted Toni Weisskopf to address the issue instead of presenting his condescending, biased twattle as an “investigative report.”

  35. Say what you like about Jon del Arroz, but he’s currently engaged in suing the SJWs who canceled him from WorldCon, his editor isn’t Guest of Honor there, and he’s not pre-emptively canceling himself and whining about how hard it is to do anything about cancel culture.

    If you want to be able to brag about standing up to online bullies, you might consider borrowing a page from Jon’s playbook, following his example, and seeing if you’re up to trying to ride his coat tails for a while.

    1. Heh. Oh look another cheerleader for a dude who isn’t involved in this thing, but who feels compelled to make it about him. 😀
      I wish him luck in his lawsuit. Didn’t know he even had one (like I said, I’ve not paid him any mind since I told him to scram)
      As for Toni being the GoH at WorldCon, we talked about that when they made her the offer. It was a different ConCom trying to apologize to how they treated her like shit. Personally, I don’t trust them, and would’ve told them no, but it was her call. She spent 30 years in that world before she got thrown under the bus and people she thought were her friends did nothing. If she wanted to accept that offer as an apology, cool. Not my decision. I got fucked over harder by the WorldCon crowd that you ever have and you don’t see me crying about it.
      Sadly for you she doesn’t seem to care about passing the purity tests of bloviating internet randos. Oh well. That must be hard for you.

    2. I do like how all you DelArroz sockpuppets/possible humans who mysteriously appeared here for the first time today work off a similar script.
      1. Praise Del Arroz (though he has fuck all to do with this) and act like he actually matters.
      2. Apply arbitrary purity test.
      3. Declare that people talking about this are “whining” (as if you’ve done shit) 😀

      Why would I want to follow his example? I actually produce books.

      1. The Ralphie “I’m Helping!” meme would be appropriate right here.
        Some people are just Controversy Vampires, feeding off situations they didn’t create, and are actively trying to make worse.

      2. JDA is a courageous and handsome culture warrior. He’s a super good Christian, too, just ask him. He’s a modern day Aquinas.

        Sure, it may *seem* like he shows up after the fact, trying to glom onto someone else and use them to promote himself. It just looks like that to you because you didn’t study the Ancient Japanese Military Arts under Ivan Throne like he did. What he’s *really* doing is advanced 5G warfare strategy. Jumping on every trend to come out of 4chan-8kun, from “DEUS VULT!” to simping for Taylor Swift is part of the technique.

        It is absolutely NOT the behavior of a desperate, aging wannabe trying to be edgy and relevant like his fellow young people. Who even said that?? WE NEED TO STAND TOGETHER OR ELSE YOU’RE NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN AND A CUCK. PLEASE NOTICE ME. HIM! Notice him. No me. I’m not him.

          1. “So Jon’s the only human being you know?”

            Quote from “the Manchurian Candidate”, but with the name changed.

      3. Well, they do bleat about doing exactly what the progs do.

        Which seems to indicate they think the progs are unstoppable and the only way for them to “win” is to completely embrace the progs’ tactics.

        …which I guess includes projection since they like to bleat about how those who don’t do things as they demand are “cucks” or wimps or whatever.

      4. I appreciate your taking the time to respond to me, Larry, and I hope you will appreciate that my comments come from a place of love and respect for you in particular and for the folks at Baen in general. We’re all involved in this thing: you, me, and Jon del Arroz, whether we like it or not, and our only choice in the matter is whether we hang together or hang separately. It’s about all of us, and how we can help and teach each other the best and most effective ways to work together and take on our common foes.

        As for the “shit” I’ve done, I won a successful settlement in arbitration against Indiegogo. And I’m currently involved in one against Patreon. Through my efforts, I personally have inflicted a five-figure cost that continues to escalate the longer Patreon refuses to acknowledge its wrong-doing and rectify its mistakes. And I’m just one of a hundred people doing the same thing. Patreon is getting their nose bloodied and rightly so. That’s the kind of thing that you and the rest of your readers could learn and benefit from.

        I got into writing science fiction specifically because of you and the Sad Puppies. “They think Larry’s books are too politically-charged? Well, hold my beer and watch this!” Thought I’d try to help you and the puppies out by creating some high-quality books with strong appeal to “right-thinking” readers, and do my best to draw some of the arrows away from you. Not up to your level of commercial success, sure, but if someone like John C. Wright can say my books are like Heinlein juveniles, only better, I take that as having accomplished my mission.

        So I figure I have enough skin in the game to warrant stopping by, looking you in the eye and giving you my opinion: the conflict is here, and attacking folks like me and Jon is counter-productive. You ought to be focusing your energies on your enemies instead of your allies. And you ought to be thinking how you can do a better job than being blindsided by an attempt to cancel you and Baen.

        It’s unfortunate you’ve been ignoring Jon, because he has been doing a good job bringing the fight to the bad guys. You should look into Jon’s WorldCon situation as an example of what to do. He got cancelled by them, and he’s successfully making them pay for it. A different ConCom to be sure, but I’m confident he’d be happy to tell you more about it, so you could profit from the experience he’s acquired and the arrows he’s taking on our behalf.

        You’re right about one thing. It is genuinely “hard for me” to see people I love and respect making dumb tactical errors. Pulling down Baen’s Bar was an admission of weakness that will be treated as an acknowledgement of guilt. It would have been better to restrict access to the existing crowd. Toni going to WorldCon? Enough said about the wisdom of that move, and not your decision, anyway.

        I apologize for letting my frustration with what I see as an ineffectual response from you get the better of me. But there’s a lot you could learn from Jon, and he deserves better than to be dismissed so cavalierly by you.

  36. Does anyone have a mirrored/copied version of the original hit piece?

    I’m vaguely interested in what the guy’s actual “arguments” are, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to give him the traffic he so desperately craves.

    1. I saved an archive copy: https://archive.is/o3tw8

      (I have been lurking on this blog for a while, and I like Mr Correia’s no-bullsh*t attitude! I used to be left-leaning but have moved away from that in disgust at their extremist views and hypocrisy. I have bought novels from Baen Books and will continue to do so.)

      1. Thanks!

        And yeah, that’s ridiculous. Between the weird hate-boner for Kratman, and all of the attempts to conflate warnings about what to do if violence erupts and/or speculation about how said violence may erupt with actual calls for violence, there’s practically no substance there, whatsoever.

        It’s really sad that “evidence” so spurious is enough to scare ISPs into censorship, these days.

      1. Thanks for the archive. It might deprive the miscreant of some ad revenue, though it looks like a patreon post. Not sure if they have ads there that provide money if someone opens the article link.

        It has a secondary purpose of providing a record in case the author decides to memory hole the original.

        Edit: …and the idiot cites Vile770 as a source! *snicker*

        1. Depending on my mood at the time, it’s a toss-up about whether I prefer archive links more because it deprives the author of potential revenue or because it prevents stealth edits or outright deletion of “inconvenient” material.

          Though, regardless of which reason gets the #1 spot, a close third place is “strips away all of the javashit of the original”.

    2. I just read it.

      It tends to follow modern journalistic practices, where nothing is objective, it’s all attacking one side, but then again, journalism exists to sell newspapers…and now generate clicks…so taking a few minutes to ask objective and/or hard-hitting questions is clearly taking a back seat to generating an emotional response.

      And yes, he mentions a new user or two showing up out of nowhere and making ridiculous statements, but of course doesn’t go any further to ask questions about why anyone should take that seriously.

      What I find fascinating is that it almost reads like a somewhat-educated prison snitch report to the warden, but there aren’t really any large-scale ‘gotchas!’ to warrant sending in the guards to break anything up, although the author does go a bit case-of-the-vapors over Kratman.

      In the end, however, like all amazing questions that never get asked: Is there actually some valid reason why so many Baen’s Bar visitors are apparently so incredibly unhappy with the events that are unfolding around them, to the point where they’d be engaging in horrible, no-good, evildoing of this giganticus level? Golly gee, might there be something to all of this?

      Nope, it’s almost like all of this is happening in a vacuum or something. According to the author, everyone in Baen’s Bar just decided to lose their frickin’ minds one day for no reason whatsoever, and oh my stars and garters, Toni was enabling the psychos.

      In the end, it’s an often-repeated, formulaic journalism 1010 cherry picking that anyone with an IQ over 90 should be able to spot, which doesn’t say much about the server peeps who are threatening Baen’s existence.

  37. for all those who say that the Right was against free speech in the past…

    Which is worse, the person who did wrong and learned better? or the person who claimed to be better, but when they got in power changed their opinion/actions?

    It should always be possible for a sinner to repent and learn, but going the other way has no virtue.

    1. Reminds me of people who moral-equivocate modern Islamists (to be clear: extremist militant Islam) to Dark Age Christians. Yeah, okay dude. I’ll be sure to watch out if I meet an 800 year old priest….

  38. Those who have weak arguments always try to silence the debate. It has a poor historical record of working, so usually those silencing debate move on to silencing people permanently.

  39. Unbelievable… And also not surprising. The left is ‘large and in charge’… And they are going to tear us down any way they can.

  40. Looks like File770 is helping Sanford out. Since I seem to recall File770 being one of Correia’s favourite people … 😀

    N.K. Jemisin also appears to have gotten involved in the Tweet discussion. Recognise the name, think she’s another rabid Leftist.

    And the JDA (whoever he\she\it is) contribution is gaining a lot of mileage on the Left – it’s proof the evil Right is sending Sanford threats.

    Disappointing to see Baen put the Bar into downtime but however much I may dislike it I can appreciate their need for due diligence. If they go through the threads and conclude it’s all legally permissible then further action by Sanford et al can have the hammer dropped on them.

    1. Honestly, since I vaguely remember Sanford’s name as being part of the 770 crowd, I’m not surprised.

      My suspicion is that a chunk of this is the Worldcon crowd being offended that they are expected to recognize Conservatives and conservative adjacent people as people and not barbaric monsters.

      My experiences trying to read across the aisle back in the day left me very much feeling like they were an updated variant of the old “it’s not that we’re bigoted, they just don’t fit in with our community standards” bigotry of entertainment’s portrayal of community integration in the 50s.

      1. “Community standards” is a crock of manure. Abused, debased, and weaponized by the Left.

      1. They’re all over it. Google “Jason Sanford Baen” and the first bunch of hits are Vile.

        Because I’m a fan of research I went and read the original Sanford piece. Baen’s primary crime is having a “conservative” bent and that’s pretty much the entirety of his complaint. Conservatism is violence, you know.

        Just another collection of 11 year old comments, out of context comments, lies and half truths to generate a shirtstorm, have a try at getting Baen kicked off their web service provider.

        At some point non-Leftists will have to get serious about web hosting and so forth. Any company who offers a TOS package that will keep a website up through anything short of an in-person visit from the Feebs will get lots and lots of customers like Baen.

        AKA there is money to be made in webhosting for Conservative companies. If you build it, they will come.

        1. The problem is, you still have to buy access and bandwidth from some company like Verizon. Who may or may not give a damn about you as a customer, they just see $. If there’s a persistent annoying bunch of vermin who are badgering Verizon, Verizon may yawn and ignore them. Or, if the responding manager is woke, drop the hammer on you. It’s a crap shoot, and that continual Sword of Damocles doesn’t make for a good business model.

    1. I always tell people to buy them in whatever format makes them happy. (I’m actually not sure which one the company makes the most on, assuming ebooks direct from Baen probably)

  41. Sometimes I think Pratchett had the right idea with all the various Guilds in Ankh-Morpork. Guild of Thieves, Guild of Seamstresses, Guild of Lawyers, Guild of Assassins.

    All of the above would very useful in situations like these. I wonder…the Seamstresses would probably have a dim view of Jason Sanford working outside their purview.

  42. That is Not Cool. Not Cool At All. Baen is my very favorite publisher hands-down. They have probably brought me more joy in this world than most could imagine. I have both a terribly active imagination and a woefully underdeveloped work ethic so I’ve spent many happy hours in other worlds and times and places in the company of heroes and villains and robots and aliens, valor and humor, life and love, war, peace, weird alliances and all manner of dalliances.

    What was it that someone said about taking away everything?

    Hands off Baen, creeps. And while we’re at it, hands off the Constitution as well. Yes, all of it. No you can’t change it without going through the lawful process. Sorry (not).

    1. Actually, change the Constitution a little too much, and I might feel like it’s not serving any useful purpose and the social contract has been thrown out the window…i.e. “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…”

  43. We need a better nomenclature than Left/Right. There is a strong authoritative movement pushing a particular value system in America today that is called “Left”.

    They are being opposed by two distinct movements–those who are anti-authoritative on principle and those who agree with the concept of an enforced morality, but want a different morality to be enforced.

    The fact that both of these groups claim to be Right-Wing is confusing and makes it difficult to co-ordinate resistance to the Left.

    1. I tend towards “Statist” for those who want to concentrate power in the hands of a small group.
      I’d like to use “Individualist” for those who just want to be left alone, but it’s not the best description.

        1. Problem is, not all potential tyrants are Communist. There are those who would call themselves anti-Communist, yet would happily take away my life, liberty, and property to advance their ideology.
          And typically, the ideology a tyrant follows tends to really not matter all that much. All of them tend to fall into the same weary pattern of killing & oppressing, all while lining their own pockets

          1. Aristos vs. peons. Dirt people vs. Cloud people. Globohomo vs. deplorables.

            Those who believe they were born booted and spurred and nearly everyone else was born with sadles on their backs.

            The which we will always have with us, especially since the line between good & evil runs through the human heart. That’s a different, if overlapping set, anyway. I’m told Marie Antoinette, clueless aristo exemplar was a sweet kid.

            The U.S. was a really novel experiment and honestly only a miracle could’ve preserved it. May she rise again.

          2. Then why not just look a step back, at the Puritan Roundheads? See also: Salem, Plymouth, or everything that made this crowd undesirable back in England to begin with.

    2. “Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.” – Robert Heinlein

      1. We want people to be controlled into leaving us alone. Forced to resist their impulse to boss us around. Required to let us do and say and believe what we want.

        It’s turtles all the way down.

  44. Getting death threats from BAEN readers? Yet again I am reminded that “Your honor, I would have done it better.” is not a viable defense. And why (even jokingly) John Ringo has not ended the Paladin of the Shadows series the way he really thinks it should have been.

  45. “Grandpa, how did the second civil war start?”

    “Well, son, it may seem strange, but there was this book publisher, by the name of Baen. Some folks decided to go after them. Made up lies about how they were all bad people. Well, Toni Weisskopf didn’t like that much…”

    “You mean President Toni, right, Grandpa?”

    “Hrumph. You let me tell my story my way, son! She was an editor in those days, long before the Day of Hawaiian Shirts…”

    1. This is quality work, but it’s definitely not speculative fiction: Toni’s smart enough not to go into politics.

  46. This is my first comment after years of reading and enjoying Larry’s writing. This stupid, idiotic, moronic dunderhead attack on Baen has got to take the cake. Anyone with an ounce of sense and who took 3 mins to look over the author list and then do a search would see the wide range of author’s Baen publishes. Baen has introduced me to so many author’s that I never would have taken a look at otherwise. These people are morons of the highest order. Keep up the good work Larry

    1. ‘Anyone with an ounce of sense and who took 3 mins to look over the author list and then do a search would see the wide range of author’s Baen publishes.’

      The ‘wide range’ is what’s ‘problematic’. Only what the ‘Woke’ write should be published. Period. All else is CrimeThink, too doubleplusungood for innocent eyes.

  47. “The Nazis used the word Gleichschaltung for the process of successively establishing a system of totalitarian control and coordination over all aspects of German society and societies occupied by Nazi Germany.” –

    The names and faces change, but the assholes remain the same.

  48. Dear Mr. Sanford.

    You sure you want to ride this train?

    Cancel culture has a funny way of rebounding, after all.

    Maybe you should hide under File770’s skirts for a while.

    1. .. given sufficient time, file770 will devolve into a purity death spiral …

      ..one Sanford-drone denouncing another …

      …slowly twirling down like an autumn leaf ..

      …well, except for the excrement-flinging, screeching, and general unpleasantness.

      Still, given enough time, lefties always run out of others to do unto, and start in on themselves. The trick is “enough time”.

      Mew

  49. Good day. I am only posting here tangentially as related to the closure of the bar. Inasmuch that the procedures of how to submit a book for publish is now no longer visible. In truth my book is not sci/to but political non fiction and after getting it drummed through my thick skull that despite knowing that baen would not publish it I still thought there was a chance they would. My question is does anyone know of a publisher that would accept a right leaning political non fiction book to be published? Barring that how does one go about self publishing and the costs doing so requires.

    1. Well, Regenry Publishing made small headlines for picking up the Hawley book that Simon and Schuster dropped. Threshold Editions also makes it their thing to do conservatives. Don’t know anything about either of them and their process though. You can also look into agents that have history of representing right of center non-fiction.

      As for self-publishing: The Mad Genius Club (www.madgeniusclub.com) have stuff about that. Also google “Kindlepreneur”

      1. Thank You Very Much.

        You know I just had a thought. Since Baen ‘s slush pile is temporarily down, Would Mr. Correia be willing to temporarily take up that role here?

        1. Oh hell no. 😀
          Don’t get me wrong. I love supporting new writers. I don’t however want 600 manuscripts to show up in my comments. 😀

          1. Ah. Just to be fair though I was thinking just a separate tab, like with your store, not in comments. However, since this is your website, your rules and decisions apply.

          2. Dude!

            I have just the urban fantasy time travel military star-crossed dinosaur lover series that is guaranteed to be a huge hit! The “cream” that floats to the top of the slush pile!

            LOL! 😀

            (In real life the author deals with sane audiences like computers…)

        2. I will also recommend checking what Moe Lane is up to.

          http://moelane.com

          He’s self-published three, so far .. quite readable. (I *think* I mentioned two – ‘Frozen Dreams’ and now ‘Tales from the Fermi Resolution’ – in Books before The Pause began.

          He’s .. pretty open about how he goes about stuff.

          Mew

    2. As for self-publishing, costs range from nothing (do it all yourself) to a few hundred bucks if you buy a cover, to a couple thousand if you get proofreading, professional cover, editing services, etc. Posting to Amazon is free and easy.

      What isn’t free and easy is getting eyeballs on your book. There are literally millions of self-pubbed books, and hundreds of thousands for just about every genre or theme, fiction or non-fiction. For that, you need to build an audience, and there isn’t a quick or simple “recipe.”

      I make a decent living off indie writing (fiction) but it took a lot of work and more than a little luck. On the other hand, you get your book out as soon as it’s done, versus waiting years with no assurances of getting published in the traditional way.

      P.S.S. As for regular publishing, DO NOT send non-fiction manuscripts to fiction publishers. You are just wasting everyone’s time while getting a rep as a guy who doesn’t follow the rules.

      1. Thank you. As to the audience thing…I may have a ready made audience. My fellow battles were asking Mr. Kratman when he would write History and Moral Philosophy to which he said he’d probably get around to it. I thought hell I’ve got a master’s level History Education I’ll give it a shot and said so. It’s taken me about a decade but it’s done-ish. I’m editing and trying to decide whether I’ve hammered home the idea that life is precious under the natural right to life part.

    3. Hardcopy or electronic? Worst case scenario you could always go Amazon\Kindle.

      Organising Alpha\Beta readers however would be problematic.

      Barflies Never Say Die! 😉

      1. I tried getting some second readers and the only one that got back to me was James/G. None of the others, and no offense to James, who were better educated said a thing. It’s mostly done, I’m doing a final run through/edit before I do something with it.

        1. No offense taken. I are a Sergeant and no my limitations, which is command of an Infantry Battalion plus attachments.

          Difference between a 1st Lieutenant and a Sergeant? A Sergeant has been promoted four times… 🙂

        2. Sorry only just noted this response. If you still need\want a proof reader I guess I can volunteer – it’ll be a change from fiction. I probably fall into the ‘better educated’ category (community college through post-grad but not PhD – assuming I’m using the correct US terms), will probably be fussy over spelling (Your U’s are missing! 😉 ), but my grammar will likely be a bit hit and miss – never seemed to study it at school. My US philosophy\founding fathers background is pretty minimal for some strange reason (lol) and my outlook will likewise likely differ to most. Perhaps more conservative Leftist than Kratman acolyte? 🙂 Anyhow the offer’s there if you want, though I’m not sure how we’d swap anonymous email addresses without posting them publicly which is just begging to be spammed by the ‘Hate Correia Brigade’. 🙂

    1. Because they’ve been there for years, and full disclosure, I’ve got an affiliates account so I get an advertising percentage from everything people buy there not just my books when they enter through those links. Plus normally when I’m flogging one of my things I do it through there in order to spike the sales rating as hard as I can, so that it shows up higher in all the searches, which causes more people who’ve never even been to my page to see my work and purchase it. 🙂 So basically business stuff.

      However, this week? Hit Baen direct! No doubt.

  50. The ‘Never Give an Inch to SJWs ‘ has been broken. It’s a solid, unbreakable Rule. They now smell Baen Books as food. It will soon be over in a bad way.

    They love destroying mild, bow-tie moderates these days. It’s called ‘Cancel Culture.’ They are the sheep, and you guys are the grass they munch on now. The Cucks will soon be the Cuds. BTW, I love Larry’s writing. Just know how this ends. Sad Puppies wasn’t adequate to stop Gamergate crap, so it took Rabid Puppies. It’s a Culture War, and they want all your entertainment gone, replaced with Narrative. The fact that ‘you’re not a threat, and just want to be entertained,’ makes you a wonderful munchable.

    1. Whatever you say, random internet nobody #8.

      Hmmm… I’ve got a bunch of posts like this. All from people with no skin in the game, doing nothing themselves, risking nothing themselves, but complaining because the rest of us aren’t working hard enough for them.

      Great. Ain’t nothing stopping you from showing us how it’s done, bud. Go out there and kick some ass.

      1. I thought Del Arroz didn’t like masturbating. So why is he here spraying jizz all over your site as if you were his own personal happy sock?

      1. Okay Larry, let me stop being negative, I enjoy your books plus about three other Baen authors, quite a lot.

        I also think Baen should have thought things out before showing weakness (they did). Institutional level SJWs will now come for Baen. This is Not what I want. It’s what they do.
        I do have a moderate amount of money in the game, backing some Culture Wars efforts, but not like you or other Baen authors. I intend to put more money into the Culture Wars in the future.
        ————————-
        I like VD’s idea on this: “The correct strategy is to go private. Require some sort of inexpensive subscription to join the Bar that includes a few ebooks, then deny access to everyone else. It’s much, much harder for SJWs to make a coherent complaint about a private forum, particularly one to which they do not belong. “

        1. Okay, now this I can reasonably respond to.
          You’re missing one giant part of the equation however. Like I said in the post, the problem wasn’t the hit piece. The problem was the attack against the infrastructure. If the Bar stayed, the whole domain was toast. The Bar is financially insignificant. The ebooks sales are a huge chunk of revenue. Keep the bar. Lose webscriptions. Duh. So it’s super easy for people to shout about how we should fall on our swords to placate their purity ideals. Or, Toni could be the boss and meet her fiduciary duties to her contracted authors, employees, and investors. That’s a no brainer.

          So it’s easy for people on the sidelines to say what we should have done, only they’re full of shit, and I very much doubt many of them would set a bunch of their own money on fire to prove a point.

          VD’s idea about controlling everything is great, except for the issue of timing. That controlling your own vulnerabilities is awesome, only it takes time and money. Toni’s no fool. She was already working on that. But we didn’t get there in time. This was a planned and coordinated attack

          1. Toni will fire you, and Kratman, and call for your banning from all media, and will lick Tor’s shoes on live webcam.

            Then the next week she will fire Eric Flint, the biggest liberal in the stable, for being the wrong color.

          2. Whatever you say, anonymous fake name guy on the internet.
            As soon as Toni fires me feel free to come back and crow about your super accurate prediction.
            Until then, shut the fuck up, dipshit. 😀

          3. >> Toni’s no fool. She was already working on that. But we didn’t get there in time. This was a planned and coordinated attack
            ————
            Yep, I figured it was a planned and coordinated attack.
            I do sincerely wish Toni, Baen, and some of my favorite authors well. If you guys can get through this time, I believe this will all pass, but have no clue how long . I see multiple signs that large portions of the World populations are getting sick of this nonsense. I have been for years and years.
            Meanwhile I will keep trying to back people who see this as a Culture War. I do enjoy good entertainment too. Best to you and yours.

  51. The goal of a defamation lawsuit isn’t to win. It is to force the other side to lawyer up and spend money, otherwise, if they don’t defend in court you get a default judgement. So basically, the one with deeper pockets wins. Large business firms often will sue small firms for copyright infringement or trademark infringement knowing there wasn’t any infringement, basically to put them out of business with lawyer expenses.

    It is a sad world we live in.

    1. This reminded me of a particular lawsuit: a company called Harmony Gold (which owns the copyright for a bunch of Battletech content) filed a lawsuit against Harebrained Schemes, the small game studio that was at the time immersed in the creation of the excellent Battletech turn-based tactical videogame. Things were NOT looking good for HS, since they were a small studio with shallow pockets, working on a game they funded through a Kickstarter.

      Well, just a little while after the lawsuit was served, Harebrained Schemes was acquired by Paradox, a very large and successful videogame developer/publisher. And all of a sudden, the hyena bullying a little chimp suddenly had to contend with the 800 kilo gorilla that had taken the little chimp under its large arms. And at the end of the story, Harmony Gold had to shut up, and the Battletech videogame and its DLC were much better for it.

    2. It is to force the other side to lawyer up and spend money

      The problem is, that requires you to lawyer up and spend money, money that could otherwise be put to other uses. It’s an economic problem: “the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses.”

  52. Baen has already shown they do not support free speech. They may believe in it, but caving to the left and shutting down The Bar shows they do not have the courage to support it. Sympathetic cowards do more damage to the cause than the enemy ever can.

    1. Where are all you purity test fake name internet randos coming from all of a sudden? Somebody must have written an article on a blog for True Alpha Warriors.

      See my many previous explanations to your Rando Brethren explaining why your hot take wouldn’t have worked. Not that you care. You’ve got no skin in the game.

        1. They also have apparently learned their tactics from 14th century French knights.
          “Hark, English archers upon yon hill. Let us charge them across this muddy ground!”
          “Sire, did we not do this and fail at Crecy and Poitiers?”
          “Silence, foul varlet!”

          1. And even worse they sat their horses all night in the rain so to not get their freshly cleaned and polished armor muddy. Completely exhausting their mounts so that when they charged it was more of a lumber through fetlock-deep muck. Made the work of the longbowmen even easier for them.

          2. There was a lot of “Honor Before Reason” with those idiots. Then you have their “how dare you take away our glory” idiocy before the Battle of Nicopolis.

      1. Well, you’ve been linked quite a bit from the right leaning sights for this and the Wa-Po mafia post. I saw at least 3 links from Instapundit, one on Ace of Spades. Pretty sure I saw some somewhere else, but can’t swear to it. Brings in a lot of randos.

    2. “Baen has already shown they do not support free speech.”

      That doesn’t follow. The only reason Baen is on my radar is because they provided safe harbor for writers who were being cancelled for WrongThought. Principles like that don’t collapse overnight.

      So they got ambushed and have pulled back to assess the terrain. So what. You guys remind me of Hudson with your “Game Over!” drama. This is going to be a slog, so go to the fucking rear and find a fainting couch.

      As the acting Turkish Provocateur Whisperer, I really hope you lot are on the other side, because if the walls ever do come down you’re going to be useless.

    3. You do realize you’re doing exactly the same as the lefties right? Condemning a business for not making the choice you find “pure” the same as them.

      1. A lot of people on the Alt-Right are more than happy to emulate the SJW’s, right down to the Gulags if they could.

        The whole bit about becoming the thing they hate is lost on them.

        1. That’s because a lot of them already were what they claim to hate–namely, racial collectivist twerps.

          SJWs want to pretend the Civil Rights Movement didn’t happen. The Alt-right wishes it didn’t happen.

    4. And what was your bar handle, Joe?

      And how long did you have it?

      Did you participate in a snippet-hunt?

      No?

      Then this is not your fight, mate.

      Mew

      1. I’ve been on the bar since just about the beginning. Probably while you were still in junior high, *mate*. I posted only occasionally, but I was there. As for my handle, that’s none of your business, *mate*. By the way, Joe is not an alias, it is my name.

        1. Know somethin’, Troll .. erm Joe?

          If you’d actually *been* on The Bar, and wandered down to Politics .. at any time since User Friendly was a thing .. you’d have found me there.

          You respond to an IFF with taunts?

          Yeah. Troll. Sod off.

          Mew

      2. Cat, this ‘been on the bar since just about the beginning’ guy doesn’t recognize you. I’ll bet he won’t make a connection between my name and a certain Bar handle, either.

        Somehow, I suspect that if we put together a dozen of Bar old-timers like us, the ‘been there since just about the beginning’ dude won’t recognize a single one.

        Interesting how these ‘Bar veterans’ who don’t recognize any of the real Bar old-timers on sight, are now multiplying like rabbits, eh?

  53. I went to the Bar this morning to post a video from a young lady in Russia that I found about the small town she grew up in, not far from Vladivostok. I was going to post it in politics because it a) shows the reality on the ground there today, b) Russia comes up in the threads occasionally, c) some of us still remember Russia as an enemy, and d) it both challenges and defends some of our positions on any number of other topics that we discuss on the Bar.

    Naturally, this led to me digging into what the hell happened. Which led to me to respond. By buying the last four monthly bundles from Baen that I hadn’t already bought. AND sending a note to Baen that I had, why I had, and that they won’t be losing my business because of whining, crying, pansies on the internet so long as they keep producing good stories. Yeah, I would have spent that $72 in due course, but I spent it today instead to support Baen and piss off the weasel dicks that much more.

  54. About half of my three 6 foot tall book cases is filled with Baen books. Ringo, Krautman, Weber (almost singlehandedly fills one, damn David! 😉 ), Larry, Michael Z Williamson.

    I understand the why Toni took the Bar down.
    Any updates? Is there a way fans can help?

    I hope she understands that basically the Eye of Sauron is now upon Baen. She better batten down the hatches with Baen’s online presence, because this attack will likely extend to payment processors and web hosting.

  55. “and make the monumentally arrogant assumption that they KNOW what we are REALLY thinking, no matter what we SAY. Or what we actually DO, for that matter.”
    Absolutely right and one of my surest markers for the left. They simply cannot resist this conceit and don’t perceive it in themselves because of their lack of self awareness.

  56. The author of the hit piece on Baen is an obscure author named Jason Sanford (https://twitter.com/jasonsanford). He has had a few science fiction / fantasy stories published but does not seem to have given up his day job. By day, he works for the Ohio News Media Association (ONMA) as a “Content Manager” (basically he writes their newsletter and does marketing graphics) but he supplements his income via his Patreon page.

    I am preparing an article for publication and have just drawn the President of ONMA’s attention to the matter in my phone call to her. I am concerned, having analysed the evidence, that Mr Sanford’s article attacking Baen is misleading and I am concerned about the characteristics of some posters he has singled out in his article. OMNA President Monica Nieporte sounded delighted to receive my call. I am awaiting comment.

    Mr Sanford is an active convention goer. If any of you can provide more information on Mr Sanford, for example if you have had an adverse experience at a convention with him, email me in confidence via the address on my website’s ‘About’ page (http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?page_id=9).

    There is a picture of Mr Sanford on his LinkedIn page for anyone who is interested in background – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonsanford1.

    1. I would just like to say that to prevent any confusion as to which Jason Sanford is being discussed here that his job title should be appended to all mentions of him, so that no innocent Jason Sanford is troubled in any way through confusion. So when we speak of this particular Jason Sanford, Manager of Communications and Content for the Ohio News Media Association, we are being clear as to whom is being discussed.

    2. I am gamergate and so can you. Nice.

      Generally, those on the right are terrible at being allies. Not friends. Not drinking buddies. Not co-religionists or family. Allies in the fight.

      Yes, I know the progressive hive is worse. But the difference is that they know it and spend a *lot* of time and money (including public funds for public servants on public time) to learn how to improve. They call it “allyship” and make it sound woo-woo and asinine, but the bones are solid.

      Right now the best we can hope is that our allies leave us alone and don’t join the dog-piles (see MHA and JDE above). Just as likely though is that stepping in to “help in the fight” … doesn’t. (see MHA & JDE above)

      I wish both you guys loads of success in all you do. Be well. Be merry. Fight on!

  57. This sneak attack on Baen Books may backfire on the perp. The support that Baen is getting in the parts of the web I habituate is impressive. There was a cartoon today at http://www.daybydaycartoon.com that lampooned the perp and called him out by name. There was a post in the Member Feed at Ricochet.com linking to Larry’s blog post here. With any luck it will get “promoted” to the Main Feed (open to the public) at Ricochet. I don’t do anything on social media, so it’s possible that a similar phenomenon is occurring there.

    We “have not yet begun to fight” to borrow a phrase from John Paul Jones.

    1. I asked Chris Muir if he could do that. Figured it would bring some people’s awareness of the fight up to the front of their minds. I thanked him for his efforts.

  58. “However, this was clearly part of a coordinated attack in order to materially harm our business, because immediately after the hit piece was released complaints were filed with the various internet companies Baen uses for services to pressure them into kicking us off the internet. This hit piece was presented as “evidence”. Without going into details the companies then contacted Baen about these “serious allegations” so last night Baen temporarily took down the Bar forum to protect the rest of the company from being deplatformed.”

    Larry, would you source the coordinated attack, that complaints were filed with platforms, if possible that the platforms then contacted Baen? It’s not that I doubt you, it’s my usual trying to collect and synthesize everything I can.

    Obviously if it’s privileged information just say so.

    [My email address is attached to this post: if it is privileged, parts are privileged, or just complicated in general would you drop me a note?]

      1. I was hyper-focused on collecting data to get an overview when I posted, only afterwards stepped back and looked at the entire situation. I was already looking for a way to delete it when your response came in.

        I screwed up, I shouldn’t have posted that, and I apologize.

  59. I went back a little further and grabbed the IP for every comment that portrayed Toni/Baen as a traitor/sellout. Here is the updated list. Strangely enough every single one is through AWS Cloudfront and the three with stars next to them are from JDA under his own name. Notice a pattern?
    64.252.185.68
    64.252.128.139
    64.252.173.82*
    64.252.128.71
    64.252.169.169
    70.132.57.78
    70.132.61.142*
    70.132.10.137
    130.176.134.82
    130.176.157.97*
    130.176.119.106
    130.176.92.82

    Two possible conclusions to be drawn from this. JDA is very clumsy at using sock puppets, OR AWS Cloudflare users are remarkably united in telling Baen how we should stand up to cancel culture for them.

      1. No idea. Very few of them were new posters requiring approval. (WordPress is set so that first time posters go into moderation to stop spammers and need manual approval).

  60. Have been in touch with Toni Weisskopf. Email to her is occasionally bouncing

    : host mail.protonmailXXX [XXXXXX] said: 550 5.1.1
    : Recipient address rejected: Address does not exist in reply to RCPT TO command)

    If yours bounces, try again. Worked for me.

    1. Several bits had me rolling my eyes, but he’s right. And he’s absolutely right about the way that all the important and difficult reasons that free speech was an ultimate value to anyone considering themselves liberal in the past has been entirely forgotten.

      And of course, he’s more than profoundly right about the sloppiness of the “research” and the lack of any actual proof of wrongdoing which is the result of choosing to view none of it in the context of the whole and ignoring the vast majority of conversations and the largest selling authors in a deliberate attempt to portray a clear falsehood about the nature of the publisher as if it were truth.

      1. Yeah, but he also bears a serious grudge against some of those who posted in politics, and was rather uncomplementary of their opinions. His attack on Theoryman over how to attack a city was a bit much, I thought.

    2. Oh, Eric, so sad. He did well right up until the end, and then he tripped over his dick.

      But mostly what I say is this: “If you really can’t tell the difference between a bunch of people with no power fighting with cops on a street somewhere and a mob incited by the president of the United States to storm the nation’s seat of government in order to force through what would have been, if it had succeeded, a genuine coup d’etat, you have no business expressing any opinion on politics because you’re an idiot.”

      Mind you, it takes some talent to cram that much bullshit into one sentence, but it is talent of a sort that should not be rewarded. As per usual, it takes far more to refute the bullshit than to spew it.

      This is not January 7th. We have facts now. Ignoring them does not make them go away.

      We know now that BLM and antifa were there. We have seen copies of the messages they sent to each other, plotting to disguise themselves as Trump supporters, infiltrate the crowd and instigate violence. Many of the ‘insurrectionists’ have been identified as known left-wing agitators, including Confederate Flag Dude. It was literally a false-flag operation.

      So, the ‘insurrection’ was planned weeks in advance, by some of the same left-wing radicals that have been rioting in our cities for almost a year. Trump’s rally and speech was merely the venue.

      The break-in took place while President Trump was still speaking to his supporters half a mile away, all of them unaware of what was happening. No evidence that Trump in any way ‘incited’ ‘a mob’ ‘to storm the nation’s seat of government’ was presented to either the House or the Senate in the Democrats’ second impeachment, which proved to be even more of a sham than the first one.

      That ‘bunch of people with no power fighting with cops on a street somewhere’ are ACTUAL rioting mobs. They have killed at least 30 people, injured more than 2,000 police, looted thousands of businesses, burned down hundreds more — including the iconic bookstore Uncle Hugo’s — caused billions of dollars in damage, ruined the lives and livelihoods of tens of thousands of innocent people, terrorized and assaulted still more innocent people in the streets, in their cars and in their homes…only someone with no eyes to see, no ears to hear, or no brain to think could believe that they have ‘no power’. Some of them have traveled back and forth across the country repeatedly to attend the various ‘mostly peaceful protests’ that have devastated dozens of American cities. The same rioters have been found in Portland, Minneapolis, Washington DC and other cities, again and again.

      The Speaker Of The House is responsible for securing the Capitol. MaligNancy was informed several days in advance by the FBI that violence was planned at the Capitol on January 6 2021. President Trump mobilized more than 1,000 National Guard troops to provide support.

      So then why were the Capitol Police completely unprepared? Why were their repeated calls for backup ignored? Why were NONE of the National Guard troops deployed, or even informed of what was going on? Why did Capitol Police open the doors in at least two locations to let ‘insurrectionists’ into the Capitol building? Why did they not even attempt to arrest any of the ‘insurrectionists’?

      Four Trump supporters died on January 6th, NONE of them from ‘mob violence’. Three people died of critical medical events (heart attack, stroke) and one woman was shot inside the Capitol building under circumstances that are far from clear.

      We are told that Ashli Babbit was shot by a Capitol Police officer, but the arm holding that gun was wearing a suit, not a police uniform. Why?

      We still don’t know what happened to Officer Sicknick, except that he died two days after the ‘insurrection’. So far, every story we’ve been told has turned out to be a lie. Why?

      The party of ‘defund the police’ and ‘all cops are racist pigs’ threw him a hero’s funeral. Why?

      His body was cremated immediately afterwards. Why?

      The Democrats were ready to call witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial, until the Republicans indicated their intent to cross-examine a few House members, at which point the Democrats dropped the whole witness idea like their fingers had been burned. Why?

      After a year of violent riots, a protest that really WAS ‘mostly peaceful’ has been hyped as The Storming Of The Bastille. Why?

      Washington has been turned into East Berlin. Why?

      How long before they put in the guard towers and minefields? I’m thinking, in time for the 4th of July.

      1. Anyone who calls the cast of Animal House wandering around the capitol building after being allowed in by the police a “coup d’etat” – genuine or otherwise – should focus less on politics and more on breathing reliably.

      2. Flint’s problem is that he still thinks the balance of power is the way it was in his younger years, and it’s not.

        Should the pendulum swing back the other way in my lifetime, I hope to avoid the same malady.

      3. Note the cop who died was also a Trump supporter so that makes 5 Trump Supporters dead. Now as to how he died, that’s still unclear. The MSM said it was Trump terrorists bashing him with a fire extinguisher, but the coroner has reportedly said there’s no signs of physical injury so perhaps another medical victim? Wasn’t aware the body had already been cremated though. That’s suspicious!

        1. ‘ Wasn’t aware the body had already been cremated though. That’s suspicious!’

          Actually, in the event of a death by violence, until all forensic evidence is collected(which takes 2-3 days minimum, especially if Toxicology needs re-examining), and with him dying to ‘Protect the Bastion of American Democracy,’ it should have taken time to make the proper funeral arrangements.

          So yeah, something’s wrong with the picture, and it ain’t the Outer Limits doing it…

      4. The party of ‘defund the police’ and ‘all cops are racist pigs’ threw [Officer Sicknick] a hero’s funeral. Why?

        Of course! How could I have not realized it? They’re trying to make him their Horst Wessel!

        Leftroids keep calling us Nazis, but they’re the ones following the Nazi playbook page for page. Like it’s some sort of spell, and if they recite all the incantations just right it will bring about their Thousand Year Reich Green New Deal without requiring them to actually THINK about how it’s supposed to work.
        ———————————
        Dukhat: “When someone does a foolish thing, you should say it is a foolish thing. They may still continue to do it, but at least the truth is where it needs to be.”

        1. Gonna have to look for the cite/source for them having a hand in the funeral…

          Meanwhile;
          https://www.wesh.com/article/security-officials-jan-6-failures-at-capitol/35595459

          This is what I was talking about when I made my comments concerning Ashli Babbitt, and basically no one speaking for her, specifically in the report;

          “Five people died as a result of the violence, including a Capitol Police officer and a woman who was shot by police as she tried to break through the doors of the House chamber with lawmakers still inside.”

          That the MSSM do not use any names is rather telling, don’t you all think so?

          1. Well, that’s three lies right there in one sentence.

            1. Horst Wessel Brian Sicknick died two days after the ‘insurrection’ and everything we’ve been told about his death has turned out to be a lie. Now that his body has been cremated we may never find out how he died.

            2. Ashli Babbitt was shot while climbing through an already broken window into the Speakers Lobby, which is quite a distance from the House chamber, and no members of congress were anywhere near the site.

            3. The shooter was NOT wearing a police uniform, and his identity has STILL not been revealed after more than a month.

            When police shoot members of certain designated victim groups, their names are released to the public within a few days even though there is a long history of such officers and their families being threatened or attacked by Brownshirts ‘mostly peaceful’ activists like antifa and BLM.

            The longer this business goes on, the more we find out, and the more lies they tell, the more it stinks of an elaborate setup.
            ———————————
            John Sheridan: “You can’t kill the truth!”
            (pause)
            “Well, you can, but it always comes back to haunt you.”

          2. Oops, make that four lies.

            4. Nobody ‘died as a result of the violence’ — three people had heart attacks and strokes, Ashli Babbitt was wrongfully shot by THEIR security, and we will probably never know how Brian Sicknick died. Maybe he saw something, or knew something, and somebody was afraid he’d talk?

    3. That was an amusing 15 minutes. Despite multiple paragraphs buffing his socialist cred, along with re-iterations of These Aren’t The Deplorables You’re Looking For, the SJWs over at Camestro Something are still going to nominate him for their 2nd Purge.

      Although I have to give him props for linking to what will become his “confession” at his show trial.

      “I saw Goody Flint in congress with Goldstein”

      Maybe the best strategy IS to hunker down and feed them more rope.

      1. Flint is a card carrying communist and has been forever, but he is also a man of principle with an actual spine. He is the kind of man you absolutely HAVE to shoot after the revolution because otherwise he will call your bullshit out with the same gusto he did before.

        And him buffing his socialist cred is actually germaine to the issue when the issue is how all of baen are evil rightwingers and anyone defending them is an evil rightwinger.

        1. Agree. Seems to be one of those disagree with what you say but can respect you for actually living according to your principles types. Makes such a change from the Al Gore, Meghan Markle etc live as I say not as I do types.

  61. Good for Bean to close that down. In the end they’re not political social media forum. Their bussiness is publishing novels. If some side activitity threatens that they need to drop it. Only fool would risk their entire business just for a small forum.

    1. The closure isn’t, pending further comments from Toni, permanent.

      While the downtime is a bit on the annoying side (I follow several subforums there, including the Politics one that Sanford is focused on), I can understand Toni wanting to make sure all her legal “i”s are dotted and “t”s crossed.

      Ultimately, I think this is going to backfire on Sanford, because the original hit piece (even Eric Flint, an outright self-avowed Socialist, calls it such) was based on half-truths and lies built on misrepresentations and taking things out of context, and that’s not even counting stuff posted many years ago, back during the Obama administration. I know Kratman sometimes despairs of being “Cassandra with a dick” (his words), but posts made years ago having any relevance to the current complaint would be some seriously Next Level voodoo fuckery.

  62. What I honestly don’t get about Baen why are they still using Simon & Schuster to print and distribute there books. My guess is that is where the SJW’s are looking to attack and break.

      1. Not surprising, given publishing has a very long history, one that makes the byzantines look sane, and gives Kafka a run for his money …

        Mew

  63. I bought my Monster Hunter Trilogy from Baen yesterday. Everyone can afford $10 to help them fight the good fight. Looking forward to reading it.

  64. I’ll make an effort to buy more Baen, but in the meantime I’ve subscribed, liked, etc. all their sosh meeds.

  65. Hey Monster Hunter Nation! By pure coincidence, the acronym for Matthew Hopkins News (my website) is MHN!

    I have published an article about the guy who went after Baen’s Bar, Jason Sanford. He is a junior employee at the Ohio News Media Association (ONMA). My article details his unethical conduct and includes a complete list of email addresses for all ONMA trustees, as well as his boss, the President of ONMA who I spoke to on the phone.

    Only publicly available emails were used.

    The article is up at – http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?p=7615

  66. Please. You say that the original post was filled with “misquotes,” but then fail to provide evidence of even one. You state that the original post had “lies,” but then don’t hold up a single example. You state that the original post is about toeing arbitrary political lines, but then do nothing to explain what arbitrary lines apparently aren’t being towed, and why they are invalid (the ‘arbitrary lines’ mentioned in the original post are specifically about violent political speech, but you do not demonstrate this nor do you demonstrate why this is ‘arbitrary’). You do, however, fill your post with ad-hominem attacks, doing everything you can to try and run the author down personally by insulting him and using reductionary language without actually saying anything of substance about his actual argument. If anything is a “hit piece,” it’s this one. If anyone is “pearl clutching,” it’s you, as all you’ve done is say “these evil people are doing evil things” in as vague a way as possible without even pretending to make an actual counter argument.

    Come back when you actually want to give specific, cited examples about what he got wrong or lied about or took out of context, and can demonstrate how putting them back in context changes the argument.

    1. “Come back” says the moron to Larry on his own blog. See, it’s not an ad hominem when it’s verifiable.

      Come back when you can read for comprehension. The goal of the post was not to pre-emptively meet Sean’s demands. This isn’t a court of law, nor was it even remotely an attempt to lay out a formal argument. The goal was clearly to properly label assholes. Must’ve hit a little close to home for ya.

      If you truly are an inquiring mind, and want to see all the facts that you’re demanding, read the various threads posted over the past few days instead of making demands of other people in their own house.

      Or you could continue letting that narcissist flag fly.

    2. It’s rather difficult, Sean, to *reply with cites* when the website in question is **MIA**, eh?

      Are you willing to accept evidence someone could actually, you know, *produce* … or are you just trying to be a clever one?

      Mew

    3. Off of the top of my head Arun was condemned for advocating violence, and ‘The Swarthy Menace’ is a racist nickname for one of Kratman’s victims. Apologies if I’m remembering imprecisely but I don’t feel the need to wade through that sewer again.

      Not revealed in the Sanford piece is that Arun is ‘The Swarthy Menace,’ is not American, is not White, and is a ‘co-conspirator’ in contriving that ‘racist’ nickname. Note these facts have already been pointed out at least twice in comments here.

      Thus is there a lack of evidence, or are you simply unwilling to accept any evidence as valid then contend there is no evidence for lack of any evidence you’re willing to accept?

    4. Sean –

      Bar’s back.

      You are now free – or, more accurately, called upon to – go find a cite to back up your opinion.

      I’ll wait.

      Mew

  67. On the subject of Jason Sanford’s Twitter account, he’s clearly a coward at heart. Only approved followers can see his Tweets.

    1. Funny how the supposedly “open minded” liberals always act in ways that only reinforce the echoes inside their bubble…

  68. Sanford has now hidden his Twitter thread so non-Leftist followers cannot see what he’s posting. Guess he attracted more interest than he intended, and of the wrong (or mostly Right) sort. Interesting that he can’t handle criticism by those who fail to fawn all over him – Correia, Flint, random Barflies etc.

    Rules for thee and thine, but not me and mine – cos we’re privileged?

  69. Are there any Patreon members of long standing who are prepared to complain about Sanford’s posts there? His obvious intention is to silence a group of people who he finds objectionable, robbing them of their right to free speech. I could sign up but to do so and immediately complain about Sanford would be correctly interpreted as being for the purpose of making the complaint, which most platform providers weight negatively.

  70. Discon III has dumped Toni as Editor GoH, saying (loose translation):

    Anyone who provides a venue with sufficient freedom of speech that people whom we severely disagree with are allowed, is second-degree radioactive and must be shunned.

    1. Want actual quote, not paraphrase on that please. Not getting me in that briar patch…

      That DC3 has been cowed is no surpise though. It is what the DNC/PLD want, and will get with their violent Antifa/BLM Quisling stormtroopers, who have actually killed a minimum of fifty people in the last 10 months.

  71. It is extremely disturbing that cancel culture–which is undoubtedly a small percentage of people–has such an outsize influence. I am heartened, though, by the responses of Toni Weisskopf, David Weber, and Eric Flint–as well as all the many people in this forum who stand against this form of censorship and intimidation.

  72. Sanford is either back and live, or somehow included me in his friend list – his Twitter account seems to be public again.

    He’s thanking everyone for the support, claiming the harassment is continuing, but that he’s managing to cope with it. He’s alleging claims that he had no evidence are wrong as he provided screenshots – the actual claim is that the evidence lacks context, is misrepresented, or distorted to ‘prove’ his point, not that he lacked any.

    He claims that folk had reported ‘forums’ to Baen in the past, that Baen may themselves have been alarmed at the content, and law enforcement are possibly interested. No evidence provided for such claims of course, they’re just possibly true statements. It’s equally possible they’re drug induced fantasies – we have no way of knowing if Sanford is an addict, or a mentally unstable individual.

    Sanford alleges most of those complaining about his piece are saying they haven’t been on the Bar in years, or if they have, avoided Politics like the plague that is Leftism.

    He claims facts still matter, that the SF/F genre will emerge in a far better place after this. Pretty sure SF&F are considered 2 different genres, but perhaps not in Sanfordland? Also not clear what he considers a better outcome – evicting non-Leftists from SF&F? The fury of the non-Left evident on sites like this make clear that there is no interest in backing down. Now whether Baen can afford to continue supporting the Bar in light of cancel culture, that’s still TBD. I do think the push for folk to buy direct is an awesome one. Sadly I prefer HBK to ebook and Baen don’t offer that direct. If they do, let me know as I’ll consider dumping BookDepository and looking for additional content for my new library! : D

    I did try posting a response to his Tweets but I doubt I’ll get a response – think he’s more into generic responses for fans. I do wonder if he’s considered, or cares, about the ramifications though. The Bar could be a lifeline for some. A significant number of Barflies are elderly, debilitated, or living in extreme hardship – alone, homeless, jobless etc. If lives are lost because his conspiracy against Baen destroyed a support network will Sanford care, or will he celebrate another dead Red as is the norm for so much of the hate driven Left?

    1. Bewildered –

      This is not an innocent mistake. This is a scam, a flim-flam, a dirty trick.

      The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll stop abetting the malicious twatwaffle.

      Mew

  73. Peke, waaaaay upthread has caused me to rethink Watch on the Rhine. Because I hit the first page and reacted just like Jongleur and put the book down. Thank you Peke.

    1. I don’t understand why you would do that. Watch on the Rhine is about the need to face the realities of Total War when you meet an enemy intent on it. War is a brutal business waged by people who if they are not already capable of it already need to learn to be more effective than the enemy. There’s no nice way to kill people and sometimes the troops who are needed are not the sort of folks you would want to meet your mother, but they are necessary.

      1. What’s that John Adams quote … “I study war so my kids can study whatever they want “ or something…

        War is deliberate hell on earth. If someone isn’t comfortable studying it, good! That said .. they self-identify as “not someone who should be listened to on the topic” …

        Mew

    2. Yeah, what some folks don’t like hearing about the Germans in WW II, is that not every single one was a dirty rat ba$ta*d. Schindler’s list made it clear to some, and if there is ever a movie made about Michael Wittmann, by those able to be honest about him, I might watch it.

      And Kratman was correct in stating that many of the SS Divisions were not guilty of any War Crimes. In point of fact, one SS Commander was protected by members of the US Army who described his actions in protecting his prisoners during the Battle of the Bulge.

      I’ve backed away from some books because someone said things about the plot. Then I heard someone else say that the first person was full of crap…

      It’s been something I don’t do anymore. I read a book and decide for myself.

      1. While not exactly historically accurate (lol) Hogan’s Heroes makes this point pretty clear. You have the Germans that are fighting against the Third Reich, those that have no interest in the war and only reluctantly do what they must, those that want glory, and finally those who are total Nazis. It goes the other way too – there were a couple of English men and women depicted as supporting the Nazis.

        Thus while you can generalise you often can’t be absolute when saying things, not if you want to be accurate.

    3. Good to hear!

      It’s an interesting read, and it provides a lot of context and backstory for something that has been for many decades, an “untouchable, icky” subject for anyone wanting to do a close examination (the subject in question being the SS, and the unthinkable possibility that it may have been composed by human beings, not inhuman monsters).

      You see, the SS were humans just like you and me, and de-humanizing them as a whole is a knee-jerk reaction to the horrible realization that, given the right (or wrong) circumstances, we could become capable of the atrocities that happened in places like Auschwitz. And in doing so, we wilfully blind ourselves to the possibility that it would happen again, and makes us lax in taking the precautions that would prevent it from actually happening again.

      (hey, where did this soapbox come from?)

  74. We’re getting off-track here. The point is, the Bar has been shut down. The result? Well, for one thing, stories and reports like this;
    https://www.wesh.com/article/fauci-possible-americans-will-be-wearing-masks-in-2022-to-protect-against-covid-19/35577257

    aren’t getting the attention needed to insure people know that the DNC/PLD is screwing them over yet again.

    April 29th, the end of the first hundred days. And I had already predicted something like this was due to happen well, right about today actually…

    1. And there’s so many things coming up that merit discussion – Beijing’s regular invasion of Taiwanese airspace for instance. One wrong button and there’s a hot war in the Indo-Pacific which could easily go global.

      Alternatively there’s the Soros push to see groups like Turning Point USA and Women for America First silenced – or at the least removed from the internet. If the internet is made a conservative free zone can the 1st Amendment be said to exist?

      And what of the (in)Equality Act which aims to overturn the 1st Amendment and other such protections? Without the Bar where are conservatives supposed to discuss their opposition to it, Facebook? Discussions there would be like discussing Jewish rights in Gestapo HQ – you’re simply making yourself a target.

      1. House passed a sweeping LGBT-bill, now on to the Senate. Nothing incremental about it, and aimed to oppress straights, be sure of it.
        Don’t care. Why? Because it’s simply something President Trump was going to do about eight months from now, in a series of smaller bills, but without the oppression. In fact, there are several sections he tried to get pushed through in 2018, but the DNC/PLD obstructed…

        1. You’re talking about the inequality bill? I don’t see President Trump supporting such a bill as it directly conflicts with the First Amendment. Note the bill itself explicitly targets those of religious identity thereby proving its intent to establish a hierarchy of privilege in American society. Should the bill pass the Senate, some Americans really will be more privileged than conservative animals.

  75. Oh, by the way, I am seriously looking at doing a ‘Not My President’ Day celebration/gathering on April 29th, this year. Next year will be the day after the State of the Union Address. This was being discussed in Politics, in a tongue ln cheek manner, but now, I definitely plan to see what can be done…

      1. Not going to speak for you. Fell in that Briar patch with you once before…

        Started looking to see if anyone is actually organizing something, plan to go on FB and see what muck can be raked…

          1. That’s what I was trying to help him with 🙂

            95.78% of us do not live in the US. You other 4.22% are welcome to squabble over who your President is, just keep the brawling in your own back yard please.

            John

          2. Them why are you here?

            To suggest that you matter?

            To give us your permission to discuss?

            I have some bad news for you.

          3. Ah. I confess I was a tad confused too John Hoare. Completely logical once explained though.

  76. The bar was a home away from home where I checked in daily. Elsewhere on the web I occasionally twitted a politician or two, tweeting during campaigns or about the mismanagement of our national COVID strategy but that was it. Now I’m homeless on the web and tweeting enough that I’m at risk of becoming a habitual twit. It’s tragic.

  77. It’s been years since I signed up to the Bar. Are\were there any terms of service that had to be agreed to before you got your account?

    It might be something of a case of bolting the stable after the horse is gone, but if the information on the Bar is considered confidential or privileged or whatever the requisite legal term is, then posting screenshots on Patreon, Twitter etc as Sanford has done would be a criminal offence no? A violation of privacy, possibly a violation of Twitter’s anti-hacking policy, plus a violation of Twitter’s anti-coordinated harassment policy. Yes asking Twitter to police a Leftist is a longshot but chances are if a lawyer drafts a letter they’d be more inclined to act, or am I still too innocent about the degree of animus Big Tech has towards Baen et al?

    ONMA for instance clearly seems to be protecting Sanford – the total opposite of what occurs when Leftists claim offence at speech by non-Leftists. A balanced playing field where power and privilege is not exclusively held by the Left would be nice.

    1. Bewildered, breach of Terms and Conditions is a breach of contract, not a crime. As such the service provide has two options, either simply withdraw the service from offending users or sue them. In the US as in most jurisdictions it’s the party who has access to the most funds that wins most civil law suits. Baen Publishing doesn’t have deep enough pockets to risk pursuing that remedy, which is exactly what Mr Sanford and his ilk rely on to protect them.

        1. Bewildered –

          No.

          The point to rule of law .. one of them, anyway, is precisely *to* hold the rich and powerful to account.

          If they aren’t held accountable under law .. they will be held to account under anarchy.

          Once again —

          “Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

          This is known as “bad luck.”

          -Heinlein

          Mew

          1. The problem with civil cases is that victory can too easily go to the side who can fund the most lawyers for the longest time. When you run out of money to pay your lawyers you lose your ability to pursue justice. This is also why the system wherein criminal cases are pursued by the State had to be developed, because otherwise those rich enough would not be brought to justice.

          2. Again, not quite.

            The point to the *second* amendment is, in part, to ensure there is an extra-legal alternative for those who.. grow weary of asshats following the strategy you outline.

            Please do bear in mind, the U.S. *is* largely populated by barbarians.

            Mew

          3. Monopoly of criminal prosecution by the state results from a willingness of citizens to forgo revenge in favor of trusting to the results of formal courts and laws.

            The state lacks the power to /force/ people to refrain from revenge killings in the case where they FUBAR the court system.

            Quite a lot of the US becoming peaceable was quiet murders of folks who wouldn’t behave according to local consensus, and wouldn’t leave. Americans are much too culturally diverse to just naturally agree on what mores and customs are appropriate to a situation.

            Right now we were in a very nice situation where we were mostly negotiating the differences out in words. But some of our word experts, who were acting as our agents, have decided that they can just screw us over without needing to have any respect for the principles. So, we are leaving that situation for a time, but have mostly not realized it yet.

    1. Stack Exchange seems to be okay for techie stuff, but .. as Every Single Site On The Gorram Internet have found .. the minute politics enters the picture, keeping the trolls knocked down takes a LOT of work.

      One of the rare joys about Baen’s Bar was .. there were a diverse group of posters who all agreed trolls (see: Athene) needed to be removed, even if we disagreed about everything else.

      Mew

      p.s. I’m not sure sealing Athene in a gun safe, placing the safe in a dumpster and filling it with concrete, placing the dumpster in a boxcar and filling it with molten lead, and dropping the resulting block into the Marianas trench would’ve been sufficient.

  78. This thing just keeps coming! I have done a new and shocking followup piece on the head official who deals with “Code of Conduct” breach allegations for WorldCon. Heather Urbanski is also a teacher. She is an Associate Professor of English at Fitchburg State University.

    She has been the subject of numerous student complaints of improper conduct over a course of 8 years. That is just students – no connection to her failing to deal with Jason Sanford’s child torture filth and ban him from WorldCon! :O

    Article here – http://matthewhopkinsnews.com/?p=7775

  79. I am a Progressive Liberal. So What. I am a long time reader of Baen Books and look forward to each and every read I can get my hands on. I don’t call folks I disagree with names or give them objectionable Labels. Heinlein’s stories come across as not exactly PC, so what! They’re still great stories. Many of Baen’s authors have a similar tilt, So what! They’re still excellent writers.

    Don’t fall into the trap of lumping all Liberals with the nutcases. There are plenty of those folks on both sides of the political spectrum. Science Fiction is intended to make one think (Animal House, 1984, 7th Level, etc.) Sometimes the opinions of the other side are good to think about.

    I hope that Baen Books keeps on providing quality Science Fiction. Keep up the Good Work!

  80. Libel lawsuits only work when they can be backed up by a demand for satisfaction.

    There’s a reason Saul Alinsky would never have published his book a hundred years ago.

    Only in a post-scarcity culture where god has been replaced by ‘the law’ can people like this exist. Any other place, any other time, they would have been discarded or destroyed.

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