Jason Sanford attempts the difficult trick of condemning two different Hugo slates while simultaneously trying to defend his own.
For some reason my picks for the Hugo and Nebula Awards are being held up as the opposing slate against the Sad Puppies campaign of Larry Correia, Brad Torgersen, and Vox Day. Evidently my nominations, in some deranged way, legitimizes the Sad Puppy campaign to stuff the Hugo ballot box.
Please.
I’ve never organized a campaign to stuff the Hugo Awards ballot. Have I stated the authors and stories I’m voting for? Yes. I’ve done this for many years. Have I encouraged others to consider the stories I liked and, if they also like them, consider them for a nomination? Yes. Because that’s what you do in the marketplace of ideas and beliefs which we call life. It’s part of what we call “Having a damn opinion!”
And yes, I’ve been overly eager about trying to get people to check out the stories I’ve enjoyed and consider them for the awards. I do this because I love our genre and it’s still a kick that I can nominate stories and authors for awards. In my recent post about my award picks, I even used the word “amazing” four separate times, which as an author I find embarrassing. But I used the word so many times because I’m excited about these stories and want others to share in this excitement.
But I’ve never picked my nominations by race or ethnicity or the author’s political views.
First of all, note that Jason tried more egregiously to “stuff the Hugo ballot” than Brad did with Sad Puppies. Jason has five recommendations for every category, Brad does not. Even I don’t have five recommendations in every category, although I do in all the categories that Jason has recommended thus far.
Verdict: If anyone is guilty of “Hugo ballot stuffing” it can only be Jason Sanford. How on Earth can he claim the right to do what he condemns others for doing? Could he be more blatantly hypocritical? Does he really want to openly claim that no one on the SF Right has the right to express an opinion?
Second, Jason is rightly embarrassed about his repeated use of the word “amazing” after I mocked him for it on Twitter. Like all SJWs, he is forced to resort to the use of superlatives to impress the reader, because what he is describing is not sufficiently impressive in and of itself. But he might consider using different superlatives. That would be amazing.
Verdict: SJWs communicate like inarticulate teenage girls and actresses attempting to curry favor with directors. This is not news.
Third, ballot-stuffing is not a function of the basis by which one decides to stuff the ballot. It doesn’t matter why Jason picked his nominations, the fact of the matter is if the presentation of a slate is deemed to be tantamount to ballot-stuffing, Jason observably stuffed the ballot to a greater extent than me, Brad, or Larry last year.
Verdict: Sorry, Jase, still guilty as charged.
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| The token cuddly liberal |
Fourth, Jason clearly did select his nominations on the grounds of race and ethnicity. Sure, it’s remotely possible that he just happened to select works translated from the original Khoisan and available only in the basement of a small Nigerian bookstore in Peckham, but the odds are against it. Neither Larry, nor Brad, nor I did that; we didn’t justify them at all. Latino Larry nominated both white Brad and Native American Vox last year. Brad may be an Indian-hating cowboy for all I know, as he left me (feather, not dot), off his slate. I don’t even know what race or ethnicity most of the writers I recommended are. Hell, I don’t even know what race or ethnicity most of the writers I edit and publish are.
Furthermore, both the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies slates are observably more politically ecumenical than Jason Sanford’s lockstep leftist list. We both have writers of the right and left. Jason may have had one moderately right-wing writer TWO YEARS AGO, but he doesn’t appear to have any in the slate that is presently being condemned.
Fifth, Jason both predicted and welcomed “The coming Hugo Awards ballot-stuffing arms race” ten months ago. He wrote: “But having everyone engage in this vote campaigning might also be the
only way to force the Hugo Awards to finally change. To force the
reality of our ever-more-diverse genre down Worldcon’s throat. So I welcome the coming Hugo Awards ballot-stuffing arms race.”
Verdict: Guilty, guilty, guilty on all counts. And racist against Native Americans to boot. For shame!