Weisskopf, Correia, Weber Defend Baen’s Bar; Jason Sanford Subjected to Harassment Over His Report

In the wake of reaction to Jason Sanford’s February 15 article “Baen Books Forum Being Used to Advocate for Political Violence”, a public post on Patreon, Baen publisher Toni Weisskopf announced a hiatus for the Baen’s Bar forum.

Toni Weisskopf today replaced Baen’s Bar — for the time being — with “A Note from Toni Weisskopf” (Baen.com)  [Archive.is link]

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

Jason Sanford tweeted an update thread responding to Weisskopf’s statement and contesting some of her claims. Thread starts here.

He concludes:

DisCon III, the 2021 Worldcon at which Toni Weisskopf will be a guest of honor, answered calls for a statement with this tweet:

Larry Correia defended his publisher in “Publishing House Baen Books Attacked by Cancel Culture” at Monster Hunter Nation [Internet Archive link].

He threw shade on Sanford’s reporting:

… 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, he declined to challenge any specific quotes cited by Sanford:

…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.

Correia urged readers to believe what is happening is a “coordinated attack,” that Sanford’s article is being used as the basis for complaints made to Baen’s internet service providers, and Baen’s Bar was temporarily taken down to “protect the rest of the company from being deplatformed.”   

…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.

…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.

Correia then assured readers that Baen’s Bar did not deserve this attention.

…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.

As Rev. Bob observed in a comment here:

And naturally it took the MHI commentariat all of an hour to test the theory that Baen’s capitulated, reject that in favor of it being a coordinated attack by The Left (complete with the problematic content really being false-flag posts by Seekrit Leftist Infiltrators), assert that this is really about smashing Baen into nonexistence by denying them distribution, denounce such coordinated attacks as despicable lefty tactics, and finally call for a coordinated attack on Sanford’s Patreon account.

David Weber, widely regarded as Baen’s flagship author, came to their defense on Facebook. He offered these reassurances:

… 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.

… 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….

To refresh readers’ memories, immediately after the January 6 insurrection  Baen author Tom Kratman made an extended comment on the next move in his Baen’s Bar author forum which began:

So where do Trump and the nation go from here?

He needs to do three things; start his own news channel, start his own party, and start his own well-armed militia as part of the party.

The militia – again, a _well_armed_ militia – is necessary to present a threat in being to the powers that be such that, should they use extra-, pseudo-, and quasi-legal means to try to suppress the party, the price presented will be far too high.  The militia will be heavily infiltrated; this is a given.  No matter; it will not be there for any purpose but to present a serious threat of major combat, and the shame of defeat, and the reality of death, to the tactical elements, police and military, that may be used against the party.

It ought to be made clear that, “I can start the civil war with a stamp of my foot.  I’ve refrained, so far, but you cannot count on that restraint under all circumstances.  And if I am infiltrated, you are even more so.”…

Today Kratman also left a comment on Correia’s post which begins —  

Jon Del Arroz, who has a Patton moment every time he sees there’s some attention he’s not getting (“An entire world at war, and I’m left out of it? God will not permit this to happen!”), also rushed to comment on Correia’s post. His efforts to horn in were recognized for what they were and Correia verbally flattened him. These excerpts are just one part.

Finally, here are other examples of the harassment being directed at Jason Sanford on Twitter. He has received more in direct messages there and on Facebook.

And with respect to the “helicopter ride” political murder meme:

149 thoughts on “Weisskopf, Correia, Weber Defend Baen’s Bar; Jason Sanford Subjected to Harassment Over His Report

  1. @Mallory So, it’s totally okay to threaten someone with death because they truthfully reported on the contents of a publicly accessible moderated website belonging to a significant SFF publisher, because the person who is responsible for the website as part of their job shouldn’t actually be expected to have anything to do with it? Even though the reporter specifically states that he doesn’t believe TW or Baen actually condone the violent fantasies of domestic terrorism within their moderated boards? If you don’t like the report and can’t actually point out anything factually incorrect about it, shouldn’t YOU just look away from it?

  2. They did, and that tripped me up for a long time. It was an interesting choice, but I don’t know why they made it.

    According to Traveller designer Loren Wiseman, creator Marc Miller chose the LL spelling to make the name stand out in the U.S. and be more distinct as a trademark.

  3. @ Chris Mallory

    When you write a hit piece trying to destroy another’s employment

    Whose employment is being destroyed? I didn’t realize anyone who might be impacted by Sanford’s piece is employed to advocate political violence. Which is the activity that he’s discussing.

    Dealing with this report doesn’t require shutting down the Bar, Baen Books, or everywhere that’s ever employed a conservative. It’s about forum moderation, for goodness’ sakes.

    Do you need to breathe into a paper bag or something? Put your head between your knees? This level of hyperventilation isn’t good for a person.

  4. When you write a hit piece trying to destroy another’s employment, you don’t get to complain about harassment.

    This is a terrible take. Exposing the advocacy of political violence on Baen’s Bar was not an attempt to shut down Baen Books, unless you think the company can’t operate without allowing that kind of noxious junk on its forums.

    Having run online discussion sites, I question whether Baen makes any money at all as a consequence of running the Bar. Message boards usually have a small number of active regulars. How many books could they have been buying? Larry Correia, Eric Flint and other Baen authors moved their reader communities out of the Bar (or never had one there to begin with).

  5. @Barry Hunter: I’m not finding anything about “The Wizard of Oz” being banned from libraries in 2021, but I am finding stories about it being banned from libraries in 1928 (female protagonist), 1957 (general worthlessness), and 1986 lawsuit (witchcraft). (The closest I’ve gotten to “2021 library bannings” is a 2020 article from a native american blogger who is mad about Baum’s horrible anti-native advocacy but the only mention of “banning” is in the article title)

    As for “Mockingbird”, the first banning appears to have been in 1966. The ALA lists further actions including 1977, 1980, 1981, 1984, 1985 (3x), `1995, 1996 (2x), 2001 (2x), 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2009. Marshall University lists attempts in 2010, 2012, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.

    “1984” turns out to be a lot trickier to track down. I’m finding lots of places saying “it’s banned all the time!” but not a lot of places saying “there was an attempted or successful ban in this year by these people). The best I’ve been able to find (in the US) is a 1981 lawsuit and a 2017 attempt.

    Anyway, what I’m saying is before you start talking about a “new wave” of censorship (and “The 451”? really? c’mon) you should first make sure that it’s not just what’s left of an “existing wave”.

  6. @Peace:

    I’m well aware of both Hoyt’s backstory and the US/UK spelling variant. I don’t care which spelling she prefers; that’s completely up to her… but switching between them at random, especially in such a short piece, is not the hallmark of a professional-grade author. It makes her look bad at her chosen profession, which at the very least is poor form. After all, when you get down to brass tacks, an author’s online presence exists in large part as a way to promote their work… and such basic errors can make people think twice about buying books from “someone who can’t spell.”

    As for whether my criticism on that point is unfairly petty, I don’t believe it is. I didn’t denounce her person, opinions, or character; I simply graded her job performance on a completely objective metric. I did not, for example, speculate about her bathing habits based on her political opinions.

    @Chris Hensley:

    Now that you’ve called particular attention to that aspect of Toni’s statement, it occurs to me to point out that her statement contains at least one untruth:

    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.

    In fact, some topics are forbidden on the Bar, and not for reasons of legal hazard. Sanford gave some examples in his article. Either Toni is somehow unaware of this (and thus inexcusably negligent), or she is announcing a change of policy (which I seriously doubt), or she is lying.

  7. @rcade: “Exposing the advocacy of political violence on Baen’s Bar was not an attempt to shut down Baen Books, unless you think the company can’t operate without allowing that kind of noxious junk on its forums.”

    According to Correia (and thus the other Puppies have adopted it as Holy Writ), Sanford’s post is merely the first step of a coordinated attack. His reasoning, such as it is, is that if Baen leaves the Bar in place, The Left™ will use Sanford’s piece as leverage to attack Baen’s assorted business relationships – leaning on their service providers to dump them, appealing to distributors to sever those relationships, calling on Amazon et al. to cease carrying their books, and so forth. In his mind, the end result will be Baen forced to close up shop, becoming a company isolated from its customers as The Left™ rubs its collectivist hands with glee before moving on to the next target.

    It would make a good satirical premise if he were not serious. (Or is he another Limbaugh or Hannity, putting on an act and privately laughing at the rubes who believe it?)

    I wonder what his crew thinks of the fact that creators of legal adult content are barred from many of those same private companies. Call me crazy, and no doubt he will, but I think advocating sedition merits a stronger penalty than does depicting a consensual sex act in explicit terms and/or images.

  8. To quote the original article, because it really does speak for itself:

    And one of these banned topics, “Genetic engineering to select for a genetic defect in a child,” so enraged Jim Baen that “he didn’t want to have any part in propounding it anywhere on his site, even something as small as the infinitesimal amount to which he would be footing the bill.

  9. rcade wrote:

    Having run online discussion sites, I question whether Baen makes any money at all as a consequence of running the Bar. Message boards usually have a small number of active regulars. How many books could they have been buying? Larry Correia, Eric Flint and other Baen authors moved their reader communities out of the Bar (or never had one there to begin with).

    I seem to recall that me new member mentioned joining because he heard Baen’s Bar is a great place to discuss politics now that some other places he liked had been shut down. I’m sure he’s not the only one. Are members like this buying the books? Or are they just going to drain bandwidth, take up the time of the moderators, and potentially, post speech that might not be protected. Having a place for fans to interact with the writers and other readers makes sense, and I wish more genre publishers did that. Hosting a place where somebody doesn’t buy your books distracts your writers and takes up everyone’s time. That doesn’t make as much sense.

    Also, if this is all about free speech, how come I can’t go to Baen’s Bar and ask why Mercedes Lackey was upset and why they took down her post about not getting paid? How come people couldn’t ask about other banned topics?

    How come even long-time regular members were banned for going to management with complaints about the posts? Don’t tell me they were “weak” or “soft” or other bulllsh*t words people use. It sounds more like the “leadership” couldn’t deal with complaints, even from customers.

    It also pisses me off that I bought lots of Baen books in the past, but customers like me no longer matter. Even customers who agree with their politics have been pissed off by some of the things they do, and by the quality of certain authors.

  10. @Anne Marble: “It also pisses me off that I bought lots of Baen books in the past, but customers like me no longer matter. Even customers who agree with their politics have been pissed off by some of the things they do, and by the quality of certain authors.”

    Yup, I’ve got quite the collection of Baen books myself – many of them signed by authors who later turned to the Bark Side of the Farce. I was a customer for decades, back into the ’80s, when they were reprinting the old-school Heinlein that I was picking up for the first time.

    To your larger point, though, I completely agree that it is extremely hypocritical for the Bar to defend “attack the cities to exterminate the libs” and QAnonsense as “free speech” while banning any discussion of genetic engineering or Mercedes Lackey. They’re clearly picking sides rather than turning a professionally blind eye; allowing the threats to remain constitutes corporate approval of them.

  11. And one of these banned topics, “Genetic engineering to select for a genetic defect in a child,” so enraged Jim Baen that “he didn’t want to have any part in propounding it anywhere on his site, even something as small as the infinitesimal amount to which he would be footing the bill.

    Does anyone know why Baen became so upset about this personal topic?

  12. @Laura Resnick

    the groups that broke into the Capitol, killed a cop,

    Groups broke into the Capitol. Later on, Brian Sicknick died. There is no evidence that the rioters killed him, and this has been public knowledge for over two weeks.

    CNN said on Feb 2:
    “Investigators are struggling to build a federal murder case regarding fallen US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, vexed by a lack of evidence that could prove someone caused his death. . . medical examiners did not find signs that the officer sustained any blunt force trauma.”

  13. There is no evidence that the rioters killed him, and this has been public knowledge for over two weeks.

    However, there is no evidence that they did not kill him. Here’s what Snopes currently says about Sicknick:

    “There isn’t enough information from official sources available at this time to state either way what the cause and manner of Sicknick’s death was, or what mechanisms contributed to it. We will update this story with further information when it becomes available.”

  14. Chris Mallory on February 17, 2021 at 8:21 am said:

    When you write a hit piece trying to destroy another’s employment, you don’t get to complain about harassment. How is a person harassed on the internet? Just block the person you don’t like or leave the page.

    That seems to be a sentiment that cut both ways.

    If words on the internet doesn’t matter, then why are you or anyone else upset over what Jason Sanford wrote?

    See, words do matter. I believe so, you believe so, everyone commenting here believe so, and all the barflies believe so.

  15. I remember talking with an author who was setting up their own website, maybe twenty years ago. They were going to have a blog and things like a bibliography and official announcements. Then they said, “And a discussion board where people can talk about my works and chat with each other.” Another person and I looked at each other and both said, “No, you don’t want to do that.”

    Even back then any sort of discussion board or comments area was just more trouble than it was worth and that was before things got really nasty. You either have to heavily moderate* and keep people on topic or it becomes a wild and organic thing that you have no control over. I’ve seen cool places like that, but they are few and far between. Online toxic cesspools are a quarter for a gross.

    And heavy moderation can be its own special awful for those who remember how regimented the Pratchett newsgroup eventually became back in the Usenet days.

  16. If you’re robbing a bank and I’m in the bank at the time and drop dead of a heart attack, I’m pretty sure you can be prosecuted.

  17. There is no evidence that the rioters killed him, and this has been public knowledge for over two weeks.

    I see you’re an insurrection truther.

    Officer Sicknick was assaulted during the riot and collapsed and died that day when he returned to his office. To suggest that his death from a stroke had nothing to do with the stress and combat that cops experienced beggars belief.

    If you get into a fight with your neighbor and he drops dead soon after from a heart attack, you can be charged with murder. The same principle applies here. There were 140 cops injured by rioters who attacked the Capitol. The rioters who assaulted Sicknick bear responsibility for his death.

  18. @rochrist

    If you’re robbing a bank and I’m in the bank at the time and drop dead of a heart attack, I’m pretty sure you can be prosecuted.

    But if you die of unknown causes a full day later, you can’t be.

    @rcade

    I see you’re an insurrection truther.

    The truth is that there have been no official statements released about how Sicknick died, or even if his death was a homicide. Saying that rioters killed him is premature. It may turn out to be true, it may not.

    Officer Sicknick was assaulted during the riot

    You don’t know this. The Capitol Police press release said only that he was “injured”, not that he was assaulted.

    died that day when he returned to his office.

    He died the following day (Thursday evening) in a hospital.

  19. @Peace is My Middle Name:

    They have spent a lot of time driving diverse voices out of their spaces and squashing any kind of dissenting opinions. They haven’t had to try to convince anyone of anything because they inhabit a monoculture of their own creation. I think that if they ever had the skills of listening to people and composing cogent and compelling arguments aimed at someone who does not already agree with them, they have atrophied.

    Our culture, including the localized one of publishing, opinions on publishers, discussion forums, etc. has become a collection of such mono-cultures. Not only whatever combination of Baen/Baen Bar/the publisher, we’re all doing it. I’m not defending them, I’m holding them up as a mirror. Stupid and useless, I know but hope springs and all of that. Thing is that if you’re inside something you don’t see that you’re inside it.

    Forget

    and composing cogent and compelling arguments

    What’s needed is what they and everyone has lost, the basic, sometimes difficult, ability to listen to someone who disagrees. Cogent and compelling arguments is a red herring, “Yeah? Prove it!” isn’t listening.

    [My own experience with the polarization isn’t in our field, it’s one I worked in pre-polarization and care about deeply. But believe you me: I’ve self censored and no longer say anything. Here, I stick my neck out now and then.]

    Worth considering is that what we’re dealing with is pretty universal, not just to our genre. There have been a number of studies indicating that the lockdown, thus everyone communicating online instead of interacting with a wider group of people, has exacerbated this, I think three-fold but would have to go through the studies piled up on my computer.

    When Weisskopf was named as a GoH I was looking forward to people running into people and talking enough in the time between DC3 winning the Worldcon and the Worldcon that the edges might start softening. But that isn’t going to happen.

    All of which sucks rocks.

  20. You don’t know this. The Capitol Police press release said only that he was “injured”, not that he was assaulted.

    His brother said that he was hit with bear spray, which is assault. This also indicates he was close enough to violent rioters to be hit by spray, which lends credence to other statements that he was attacked by rioters.

    He died the following day (Thursday evening) in a hospital.

    Thanks for the correction, but it doesn’t materially change the issue of rioters being responsible. He collapsed the day of the insurrection when he returned to his office, was put on life support at a hospital and died the next day. A cop clashed with rioters during a mob attack in which 140 cops suffered injuries. He was assaulted. He went back to his office, collapsed and died.

  21. Chris Mallory:

    “When you write a hit piece trying to destroy another’s employment, you don’t get to complain about harassment.”

    So you are against free speech.

  22. @ Bill
    If you (not you personally, a generic you) have a heart attack while a bank is being robbed, you can die from it whenever you like afterwards; the robbers would still be responsible. Officer Sicknick collapsed on the day of the insurrection, after being injured; one may not want to see a connection with the actions of the mob, but Occam’s razor cuts that way.

    @ Mallory
    A hit piece? What makes it so?

  23. What’s needed is what they and everyone has lost, the basic, sometimes difficult, ability to listen to someone who disagrees.

    That’s a fine principle when we’re talking about a matter of political disagreement, but “kill enough of them that they can not arise for another 50 years” is not a political difference. Even on File 770, I think most people would agree that Baen’s Bar was tolerable as a place where the right-wing, gun-toting, God-fearing wing of SF/F gathered, even if those of us who are liberal weren’t beating a path to its door.

    But this stuff Sanford exposed is way over the line. Toni Weisskopf needs to convincingly put an end to hosting that kind of extremism and send the clear message to the Baen’s Bar community that it won’t be allowed ever again.

  24. It is not Baen Books’ policy to police the opinions of its readers, its authors, its artists, its editors, or indeed anyone else.

    But it is also not Baen Book’s decision whether those opinions and their locations are noted and criticized. Free speech for the goose is free speech for the gander. If the con decides that they don’t want to be associated with the editor of a company that hosts such opinions, or publishes writers with such opinions, that’s also free speech. Other people don’t get to control the content of Baen’s Bar and the commenters and owners of Baen’s Bar don’t get to invite themselves to forums that don’t want them.

  25. If someone is shot, mostly recovers, and dies years later, the medical examiner may conclude that he died of his injuries. At that point the death is recorded as due to homicide, and the case may be turned over to the police department.

    “Yes, I hit him, but he didn’t die until the next day” isn’t a defense, it’s a confession.

  26. @rcade

    His brother said that he was hit with bear spray, which is assault.

    It would be assault only if he was directly sprayed by a protester. But we don’t know how he was sprayed or who did it — cops were spraying as well. What his brother said was, “He texted me last night and said, ‘I got pepper-sprayed twice,’ and he was in good shape”. Officer Sicknick did not say who sprayed him. And “Bear” spray is speculation from CNN.

    Nobody knows (publicly) how he got “injured” (or even if he was injured); nobody knows what caused him to collapse (stress from the incident? pre-existing condition?); nobody knows what the cause of death was; no one even knows if the autopsy ruled his death a homicide or not.

    @Msb

    If you (not you personally, a generic you) have a heart attack while a bank is being robbed, you can die from it whenever you like afterwards; the robbers would still be responsible.

    Only if the heart attack was caused by the robbery. If it happened at the same time, for unrelated reasons, then no. If it happened later, for unrelated reasons, then no.

    I was responding to the statement that “rioters killed Sicknick”. That may turn out to be a true statement, and I wouldn’t be surprised. But right now, it is more than we know. If your belief that correlation is causation for the purposes of his death, then you might as well say that rioters killed Ashli Babbitt.

    So much of the narrative that emerged from the first couple of days after the riot has turned out to be false (it’s pretty certain, for example, that Sicknick was not killed by being hit by a fire extinguisher, despite Joe Biden saying so; or that the “Zip Tie Guy” didn’t take zip ties in intending to restrain Congressmen and Senators; he picked them up after he got into the Capitol).

  27. All of this parsing is fascinating, but I’m pretty sure, when you get down to it, that people are permitted to take offense when other people announce that they and all who they love should be killed and that that would be a good thing.

    There have been too many incidents in the US in the last two or three decades of Rightwing domestic terrorism leading to actual deaths. People who discuss killing Lefties and Progressives are aligning themselves with real murderers.

  28. @Hyman Rosen: You’ve overlooked the rightwing definition of free speech, which is that they get to say whatever they want and everyone else gets to shut up about it.

  29. All states have legally binding dates by which a death from a crime becomes a murder. It varies from state to state. The Capitol Insurrection falls under Federal jurisdiction so I’ve no idea no what the statue of limitations is or even if there is one. All I know is I suspect is that more charges will be forthcoming.

  30. Seantóir: If you go after people in the places where they feel safe expressing their opinions don’t be surprised if they come after you in yours. There’s no halfway house when it comes to freedom of speech. If the freedom of one group to debate, discuss and explain ideas is curtailed that’s the thin end of the wedge that will be used to silence all of us.

    I’m just going to sit here and admire the rich irony of someone demanding a Safe Space for people to threaten mass murder and incite governmental overthrow. 🙄

  31. Speech is not special. It is not magic. Speech can violate consent. Speech can hurt people. Speech can, in extreme situations, kill. It may have heightened legal protections, but it is still actions bound by the same ethical limitations as all actions.

  32. bill –

    Re zip-tie guy. Here’s a quote from buzzfeed about a Federal judge’s decision to keep him and his mother locked up, instead of released on bail:

    “According to prosecutors, Munchel was carrying a Taser when he entered the Capitol, and he and Eisenhart could be heard in a video that Munchel recorded that day discussing stashing other weapons outside the Capitol; they’re also accused of picking up US Capitol Police plastic zip tie handcuffs, known as “flexicuffs,” inside the building.

    The government’s court papers describe how Munchel’s video captures him and Eisenhart urging on other rioters and helping people climb over a wall in front of the Capitol. At one point, prosecutors say an unidentified person can be heard telling Munchel and Eisenhart as they approach the Capitol, “You guys look like y’all ready to go,” and Munchel replying, “Fucking ready to fuck shit up.”

    Prosecutors also noted in the detention memo that when Munchel and Eisenhart came across an unidentified person handing out the flexicuffs from a cabinet, Munchel could be heard in his video saying, “Zip ties! I need to get me some of them motherfuckers.” Prosecutors described the two as part of a mob searching for members of Congress, and argued Munchel grabbed the handcuffs “comprehending that they are instruments of restraint and kidnapping.””

    So, he wasn’t carrying the zip-ties, he was just carrying a Taser when he entered, and then happily took the zip-ties from another person in the Capital after saying he wanted to “fuck shit up.”

    So not really an innocent bystander.

  33. jayn: Sanford seems to have locked his Twitter.

    Yes he has.

    There’s also a comment on Correia’s post by someone who says he is harassing Sanford by calling his boss at Sanford’s workplace.

  34. my dog is named hannah says So not really an innocent bystander.

    What bill won’t acknowledge is there were no innocent bystanders among the Capitol Insurrectionists. They’re all very much actively culpable in what happened there. Without the quick action of the Capitol Police, the death toll would have been much, much higher.

  35. Paul Weimer: Eric Flint defends Baen’s Bar, here

    Oh dear god, that is some of the worst whataboutism I’ve seen in a long time, possibly ever.

    I’m really sad to see Flint defending and minimizing the murder and insurrection threats on Baen’s Bar, and of demonizing people who are very right to be concerned about it, given that this is exactly the sort of online behavior that resulted in the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the U.S. government.

  36. @JJ the “it’s just right wingers mouthing off” REALLY gets my goat, for very very personal and now somewhat well known reasons. Combine with the note above on the Correia post and him being harassed at work.

    So yeah. I really really feel for Jason here, and what respect for Flint I had is evaporated. Permanently.

  37. From Flint’s piece that JJ linked to: And before anyone accuses me of suggesting there’s an elaborate conspiracy involved, I don’t think that for a minute. What I do think is likely is that a handful of jerks got together and thought starting something like this was a bright idea.

    I remember Flint being a little bit of a Puppy apologist, but JHC. On a popsicle stick.

  38. JJ notes I’m really sad to see Flint defending and minimizing the murder and insurrection threats on Baen’s Bar, and of demonizing people who are very right to be concerned about it, given that this is exactly the sort of online behavior that resulted in the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to overthrow the U.S. government.

    I think it’s worth stressing that they wouldn’t have actually succeeded in overthrowing the U.S. government as they’ve have very likely ended up up dead before that happened. Right now right wing terrorism is discovering that annoying federal security forces is a very bad idea.

  39. Cat Eldridge: I think it’s worth stressing that they wouldn’t have actually succeeded in overthrowing the U.S. government

    I disagree. Even though they didn’t succeed, they came close enough that they’ve given a lot of domestic terrorists the belief that it might be possible, which just makes such insurrections more likely in the future.

    The U.S. and its democracy are far from “out of the woods” right now.

  40. they wouldn’t have actually succeeded in overthrowing the U.S. government as they’ve have very likely ended up up dead before that happened

    What scares me is how much of Congress (and their staff) could have been killed before that happened. The insurrectionists wouldn’t have been checking IDs before they did that.

  41. If they’d taken hostages…oof.

    It’s kind of annoying to see Flint brushing off Sanford’s quotes of one of the people expressing violent fantasies on the Baen boards as some insignificant person that Baen has no responsibility for while ignoring the fact that the fantasist was a moderator – hence given authority by Baen over other users. A lot of special pleading, there.

  42. .[L]et me start with the fact that Sanford’s essay was followed in very quick succession by people piling on elsewhere including in File 770, a demand being placed on Baen Books’ service provider that they cancel the publisher’s online access, and loud demands that the upcoming 79th World Science Fiction Convention (Discon III) remove Baen’s publisher Toni Weisskopf as their Editor Guest of Honor.

    Maybe all this is just coincidence, but I doubt it. And before anyone accuses me of suggesting there’s an elaborate conspiracy involved, I don’t think that for a minute. What I do think is likely is that a handful of jerks got together and thought starting something like this was a bright idea.

    Eric Flint looks like a fool for making this accusation. The story went from Jason Sanford’s Patreon to File 770 quickly because Sanford’s report was linked on Twitter and a news post about it was submitted to this site. It spread quickly elsewhere because Sanford has 5,000 Twitter followers and a lot of them are in the SF/F world.

    Nobody has to coordinate reactions to a story about a major SF publisher allowing commenters to advocate political violence. Any SF/F news with even a hint of controversy is going to make it to File 770. OGH is a tireless curator and blogger.

    Complaints about Baen to its service provider (alleged by Flint) and to DisCon are the kind of things that happen any time a controversy grows legs. They don’t require private communication by anybody. Social media is an outrage optimization machine. Just look at all the Karens who go from total anonymity to objects of worldwide shame in the span of a day.

  43. Flint summarises Jason Sanford’s argument as “Baen’s Bar… is being used to advocate for extremist political violence. Evidence will be presented. Comments by a number of the forum’s users will be shared.”

    Now putting aside all of Flint’s various quibbles and objections to other details of Sandford’s report, consider the summary. Is it true? Is it literally true?

    Yes, without a doubt. Sanford is not claiming that every comment or every writer is doing so. Sanford is not evaluating how credible the threats are (but I would add that in this age of stochastic right-wing terrorism the intent of any one writer is a separate question from its impact and Flint should know that).

    The claim of Sanford’s report as Flint summarises it is true and Eric Flint utterly fails to engage with it.

    Irony, jokes, absurdities etc are not a safe indication that the violence is purely “some blowhards jacking off”. The manifesto of the murderous right-wing terrorist who killed 51 people in the Christchurch Massacre of 2019 is literally full of jokes, memes and absurdities. Stripped of its context as the manifesto of a literal mass murderer, much of it looks like the kind of far right comments found on the internet.

    Flint is correct at least that somebody needs to “take a remedial course in common sense.”

  44. P J Evans says What scares me is how much of Congress (and their staff) could have been killed before that happened. The insurrectionists wouldn’t have been checking IDs before they did that.

    That could well have happened. That however does not equal overthrowing the vast deep state, and I use that the term deliberately, that is the federal government. It could well have ended up being much more bloody. That doesn’t mean that they were ever going to succeed overthrow the government.

  45. Shouldn’t a “genius” be able to get something that simple right, mad or otherwise?

    Genius is not constrained by your bourgeois notions of consistency.

    I think it’s worth stressing that they wouldn’t have actually succeeded in overthrowing the U.S. government as they’ve have very likely ended up up dead before that happened.

    There’s a Simpsons bit about attempted murder being an absurd charge, because they don’t give out Nobel prizes for attempted chemistry.

    Not being likely to succeed doesn’t make it not the attempted overthrow of the government, and it doesn’t undo any of the injuries or bring back any of the dead.

  46. A few commenters on Eric Flint’s Facebook page are trying to make the argument that the advocacy of political violence on Baen’s Bar was a serious problem and not an invented vendetta on the part of Jason Sanford.

    One of them, Robert Hood, has experience running a game company’s online message boards and saw how a situation like Baen’s can be a problem.

    Here’s part of what Hood writes:

    Eric, I used to work at a games manufacturer that has had a forum section for about as long as the Bar has existed. During that time, part of my duties there included moderation. …

    The danger signs were there before I was hired. It was a much more freewheeling area than the product forums, with almost no active moderation, and carried a notice to that effect. That is, moderators could be alerted to problem posts, and they would naturally act if one popped up in a discussion they were participating in, but there was no expectation that every thread would be watched. It was also purged on a roughly monthly basis.

    That area no longer exists, because the costs of allowing it to do so became too high. To be blunt, it had the potential to become the same sort of corporate liability that the Bar’s Politics forum now appears to be.

    It didn’t happen all at once. More topics became forbidden, because they ALWAYS led to fights which required moderation. Eventually, the company decided that maintaining it was no longer a viable option. It was costing GCX more in resources (moderator hours) than it provided in benefits, so it went away.

Comments are closed.