Sporadic Meme/Vast Wasteland//Features/ Majic 12 Blog
Majic 12 Contents/ / Default Page / Inane Ramblings

Complete Transcript of the
Electrolite Affair

Is Patrick Nielson Hayden This Seriously Stupid?

(I've just done what no conservative heckler could ever do: Close down a discussion forum at a liberal site...! And no, I'm not happy about it! I've offered to stop posting there! Don't punish the public because of something that I've done...Jeez...what stupid frells...)

And Why Does His Wife, Known Vowel Thief Teresa Nielson Hayden, Resemble a Fat Gnome?

When last I ventured over  to Making Light, I took the advice  of that Christopher guy and I stopped posting. What's my thanks? All of my vowels have now disappeared...(Look under Housekeeping before it all goes down the Memory Hole...)

Big Fat Sigh.

I mean, what is wrong with Patrick Nielson Hayden and his grotesquely fat Vowel Thief of a wife Teresa Nielson Hayden? It's sad I tellya. Just so sad.

Anyway, here's the sorry tale as to why nobody can post at Electrolite from now on. I guess I should gloat that I have this much control over the Hayden editorial function. What miserable stupid creeps....

Here's the whole story. And since I'm confident about my arguments all vowels and consonants shall remain intact...

First a prelude:

Well before we speculate on the evil things I have been accused of saying, it might be helpful if we add a bit of background. Now, here’s what I first said:

“Yup, that cartoon just about hits it on the head. It also points out that something that Richard Hofstadter (who coined the term the "Paranoid Style" and describes the Republican Party quite well...)is still true: Because the Republicans are just the blatant servers of Capital they come off as honest, plain speaking folk, just like the alien baby eating party. Where Dems, torn between their base which has nowhere to go (although the Greens may get a second look from me) and the GOP-lite faction DLC, always comes off looking ambiguous and torn, which comes off as sleazy politician vibe. When, in fact, the dems have to at least wrestle with their base and their conscience before selling out over Social Security or taxes, which the DLC already wants to do...No wonder the baby eating party always seems to win. Does the baby eating party benefit from the fortunate deaths of senatorial candidates just days before the election...?! Just askin'...

So, who you gonna choose America: the straight shooting GOP Anti Christ who wants to start WW3 or some Wishy Washy Dem with their big words (Hofstadter also wrote the fount work "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life", must reading these days) and their "lockboxes"...It's alien baby eating party all the way.

Philip Shropshire

www.threerivertechreview.com

www.majic12.com

PS: When will you comment on the Bush administration filing suit to stop electric car requirements in California...I mean, I guess, it's not only just a war about oil, which must be false gosh help us perish the thought, but it apparently also isn't about squelching alternative fuel sources as well to ensure my conquest of the mideastern oil remains profitable...I feel like I'm in a bad alternative universe and I can't get out, can't get out, can't get out, can't get out...”

So that made it through the Hayden Ministry of Information. Then this guy said this:

From Erich Schwarz,
posted on November 17, 2002 11:50 PM:

"So, who you gonna choose America: the straight shooting GOP Anti Christ who wants to start WW3 or some Wishy Washy Dem with their big words (Hofstadter also wrote the fount work 'Anti-Intellectualism in American Life', must reading these days) and their 'lockboxes'..."
Gosh! And here I thought that having an A.B. from the Ivy League and a Ph.D. in hard science from Caltech made me all intul-ek-shul.
But I voted Republican, so clearly I is stoopid. Muchos thankos por clearito uppo thato.
--Erich Schwarz (writing in Espanol Bushisto”

Now, this is where it gets tricky, because I responded to this argument, which has now been flushed down the Memory Hole. I might point out that for you to make an accurate judgment about the merits of what I wrote or the justification of the censorship, then you would have to have read exactly what I said. But if I recall, I said something like:

“But Bizarro language aside, why did you vote Republican?” And then I mentioned three areas where I thought the Republicans were actually in the way of science  research, most notably stem cell research. I then pointed out, because unlike DLC democrats, I’m not bought off and can vigorously defend myself against the opposition, that I would wait for answer and then determine if he was stupid. This is, and this needs to be pointed out to allegedly sharp editors, not the same as calling either conservative politics stupid or him stupid, or as he calls it “stoopid”.

So then I wrote this:

“Well, first, my apologies. I didn't know that I was commenting at a church. Poor Erich. How I must have wounded him.

Second, I didn't call him stupid. What I said, and I'm going from memory here because I don't expect my messages to go down the memory hole at socalled "liberal sites" (guess that explains that non ACLU link), is that I would determine if he was stupid based on his answer. Now, he might have some very intelligent answers as to why he votes Republican. For example, today, the Senate passed a bill that would have prevented the whiny lawsuit filin' public from taking their grievances to a courtroom against Big Pharma. I'm sure that's intelligent. If you're maimed by aspirin, then of course you shouldn't be able to sue in a court of law. How democratic. Or, perhaps he's from the future, and he knows that only a fascist Earth can defend us from Alien invasion in 2021. Well, fine. It takes the Klingons or the Cardassians to beat the Shadows. I get it. I think that, as well, would be an intelligent reason to go Republican. You just never know.”

Again, I find all of this stuff mild. But there’s the history of our little feud.  So, I started taking the argument over to the oh so Rubenesque Teresa's site. And where I then later found that my vowels had been stripped. Nice touch. Clarification: By the way, I posted that at Electrolite and that was censored and excised so to speak. So I waited until dark, when all vigilantes strike, and posted it several times under a different IP address. I don't consider it spamming by the way but self defense.  The "alleged" reasons he gives for censoring me in the first place are wrong and don't make any sense, especially in the no holds barred arena of message board decorum. (It would not be unlike a television show being cancelled today because a character used the word "Hell".) I've also done this before at well known chickenblogger's site Dr. Weevil. And while I loathe Dr. Weevil, let's give him some credit for just censoring me and not shutting down his whole fucking message board system...even right wing fascists have a right to consort with themselves afterall...Frankly, I thought that's what Patrick would do and we would all move on with our lives. Then he decides to cancel his own message board. Bizarre. like I said before...I'll never get that.

(Oh, one more thing Patrick, I may not have made all the aliases obvious. I have multiple IP addresses. Happy hunting. )

(For Context for these rebuts go here.)(Look under housekeeping..(I decided to take the debate over to his wife's site. I was just about to give her congrats for having more fortitude than her husband when the disemvowelings began...Pathetic and Sad.))


Scott and Allison Scott: You are not attacking the argument when you attack me personally. Otherwise, I have to assume that you wholeheartedly agree with my offer to stay off the message boards here and at Electrolite entirely in exchange for the message boards being brought back on line. I think this is a reasonable solution.

As least Lydia makes a few arguments. Let’s take a look at them graph by graph…

“As my mother would say, Dear heavenly day in the morning. It's been a while since I've seen someone not get it in such a vast and comprehensive fashion. The sad thing about this is that I think that, within your value system, your offer to stay off of the Nielsen Haydens' comments for a year in exchange for letting other people post comments is noble. Unfortunately, it just won't work.”

Is your mum British mayhap? Your whole pretentious style is redolent of buttered scones and tea. However, I do appreciate you recognizing that my offer is noble. I mean, afterall, you’re an articulate poster. Shouldn’t you be allowed to post at Electrolite? Wouldn’t it be stupid to punish you and other writers and suckups because of something that I did. And why wouldn’t it work? If I’m the offensive party, then I’ll simply remove myself. Sounds simple enough. I’ll make sure (really sure)that I post my defenses on my own site so that when Googled in the future people can make their own determinations as to how sound my judgments are.


“How did you come to think that posting via sock puppets was a good idea, or a reasonable revenge? Patrick has made any number of comments in his blog about disliking, but permitting anonymity -- as long as people behaved themselves. The very act of posting as a sock puppet violates that rule. Misconceptions, so many misconceptions. Patrick can't possibly have censored you because his blog is not public property. It is no more censorship to remove one of your posts than it is to reject a submission. It's just editing, that's all. Since it's his, he can decide what to allow on it. The line becomes fuzzier when we start talking about the news media, which have as a role the dispassionate informer of the people. It is reasonable to argue that news organizations have an obligation to the public, not just to their owners. However, Patrick isn't setting himself up as a news source, either.”

There’s so much wrong with this I barely know where to begin. Let’s start at the top. First, it’s kind of obvious that I wasn’t disguising myself, unless Avram and Isaac have come back from their respective graves. As far as the censorship issue, this goes to the very core of what distinguishes the left from the right. The left, to me, stands for freedom of speech, and at the very least, freedom to defend one’s position on a message board. I’ve never censored anybody at my own message board and I’ve urged that we don’t censor people over at Warblogger Watch. To me, this is what distinguishes the left from the right. We want to hear what the other side has to say. I would’ve liked to have heard why someone in the sciences thinks the republicans, working to turn the United States into a second rate genetics power, is good for science. Now, we may never know. And quite frankly, if you open up your comments section to the public, then there should be some freedom of expression allowed. Otherwise, when you criticize Fox News, as Patrick has done, it undermines your very argument. For example, here Patrick is quoted criticizing Fox News:” Of course, thinking along these lines, one is inescapably reminded of the endless ritual invocations of freedom and democracy from the chatterboxes of Fox News, a company run by a wizened gargoyle whose willingness to accommodate Beijing's every desire approaches levels normally seen only among professional submissives. But remember, it's liberals who are the enemies of freedom. Of course”. That was on August 7th of this year. Now, anytime he criticizes them again, someone with a memory will point out that he’s a hypocrite and that he simply follows his own agenda, as does Fox News. What’s worse, he’s censoring somebody who agrees with most of his policy points. It’s beyond just plain stupid. It’s absurd. I mean, if I was a right winger I’d be laughing in my boots. So, this is how I close down all discussion at a liberal site bhahahahaha etc…It’s bizarre…


“The phrase "publishes two websites" suggests that you mistakenly think that Teresa's blog is somehow dependent upon Patrick. That's a silly mistake. They're married, they live together, they share a domain, sure. None of this, however, suggests that one of them might be in control of the other's blog. The thing you've missed that I think is most basic is: they don't need you. Patrick can stop comments on his website. Teresa can, too, if she wants. There are various ways (some labor-intensive) to make sure that you don't post, even if they leave comments functional. Your offer to refrain from posting, while sincerely meant, isn't worth anything because you're not offering them anything that they don't already have. “

Look, dearie, you got it wrong. The phrase “publishes two websites” refers to the websites that I publish. Get it? Jeez. And I’m posting over here because I can defend myself and my position which I should have the right to do. It also shows, yet again, the silliness and impotence of censorship. As for they don’t need you well that’s not the argument. Because of something that I’m accused of doing ,which isn’t true and which I find especially galling, you’re no longer allowed to post over at Electrolite! How stupid is that? I guess they do need me or something. I still can’t wrap my head. Furthermore, I’ve offered not to post! It’s obscene what’s being done here. So you and Jane Yolen are no longer allowed to post because of something I’ve done…?

“You could try apologizing for having been rude, though. I've no idea if the apology would be accepted, but it's the one thing I can see that you have to offer that P & T don't already have. Teresa is notably merciful (and just -- scary combination). By all the standards I know, both Usenet etiquette and just plain etiquette, you've behaved quite rudely.”

Sigh. Again, if my comments hadn’t been censored, you would have known that I did offer my apologies. And how do you apply your standards to things that you haven’t read and that have disappeared down the memory hole…? Are you a psychic faux British person as well?

Philip Shropshire
www.threerivertechreview.com
www.majic12.com
(These are my two sites, get it? Good.)

PS: Just for the record, I think the people at Ellison Wonderland were kidding and simply trying to emulate their hero. The friendly folks at Warblogger Watch, who chortle over Paul Wellstone’s death, well, I take their threats seriously.


Quick Rebuts:

Mr. MacDonald: Nice literary putdown. It’s always good to meet an opposition that’s literate. One big problem: you’re quoting a poem that is widely thought to be pro war and was very popular in WWI when lots of Shropshire lads were dying. This Shropshire writes for Warblogger Watch and opposes not only invading Iraq, but the whole methodology of the War on Terror. I might be annoying but I'm not that guy. I’m also not British.

To Kate: How can you comment on something that you haven’t read? Are you a faux British psychic as well? Read what I actually wrote first, and then declare your loyalty and allegiance to the Hayden mantra of the hour. That would be much more effective if you ask me.

From Philip Shropshire,
posted on November 21, 2002 08:58 AM:

Is that it? Shameful. Let me reiterate my offer: I'll be happy to withdraw from commenting here or at Electrolite in the forseeable future. If you have a problem with me, then you should deal with me, Patrick. Don't punish your readers.

Philip Shropshire
www.threerivertechreview.com
www.majic12.com