An Offer Of Violence

The coarsening of our culture continues apace.  That includes within the SF/F genre.  

A little while back there were legitimate questions raised about a conservative-leaning author making a thinly (very thinly it turned out) veiled reference to tossing communists out of helicopters.  It raised a stink.

Seriously, I think we should do the media next. Put the fear of Americans into them.

Saint Augusto bless us.

Anyone has helicopters?

To be clear, it should raise a stink.  I had initially pushed back a bit in part because I was unfamiliar with the reference to Pinochet's army tossing communists out of helicopters.  I remain steadfastly opposed to patent threats of violence.

Parenthetically, I'm also opposed to the tactic of miscategorizing dissenting speech as "violence".

The latest example of casually threatening speech come courtesy of Steve Davidson.  Mr. Davidson is an editor of the Amazing Stories Anthology series and is significantly involved* with the company that owns the trademark to "Amazing Stories".

Via his Facebook page, Mr. Davidson offered the following bit of authoritarianism.

sorry, but I have to say it, even if I get banned because of it:

Yesterday, member's of the Idiots Party - also known as Republicans" conducted a mass march protest through the Capitol to register their displeasure with the new mask mandate.

That action, by "elected leaders" makes me start to believe that that "Eugenics" thing Hitler was promoting might not be an entirely bad idea...maybe its even a good idea that's been tainted by bad history.

Hardly anyone would object to isolating someone with, say, smallpox, and apparently, a fair number of people in this country are infected with mental smallpox.  We ought to have the means to protect ourselves from them - and the sooner we get rid of them and stop them from indiscriminately breeding all over the place, the better off we'll be.

Yeah, sure, some innocents will get sweapt up in the purge, some will not actualy deserve that fate but, you know what they say about making omelets - cracking a few eggs is mandatory.

Eugenics, exposure on a hillside (presuming we've not exterminated the local wolf population), putting them on an ice floe, summary execution - these are all becoming more and more reasonable solutions, the deeper down this rabbit hole we go.

A veil that thin on a model would move the photographs from a fashion magazine into Playboy territory pretty quickly.  Opining that Hitler might have had a good idea is never a good look.  Or at least, it shouldn't be.  

Comments wandered into approval of using flamethrowers and other bits of nastiness.

Given the modern cultural penchant for black-holing gross behavior, I offer the screenshots, below.  

Unabashedly offering violence to people due to differences of political opinion ought to be something that earns widespread concern and rebuke.

Make no mistake.  This is about a difference of political opinion.  Should the state be authorized to send rough, armed men to your door, hold you down, and inject something into your body; in particular an experimental vaccine?  I think not.

Mr. Davidson's commentary reflects a mindset that is inappropriate for governing a free people.  At the very least, someone ought to offer him tea.

Paraphrasing Mrs. Hoyt, one hundred million eggs and still no omelet.

For some perspective, I have taken the Pfizer vaccine.  The net risk made it a no-brainer for me.  I respect that other people have different risk levels that may cause them to make a different decision.  I also made cloth masks for myself, my family, and several healthcare companies early on in the pandemic.  I now have N95 masks for those rare occasions where such a thing is warranted.  I am much less inclined to go to a cloth mask as our knowledge about the efficacy of them has been evolving; regrettably downward.

And no.  I don't trust the CDC nor the FDA further than I can throw them.

A modest postscript.  Mr. Davidson bought a 30-day restriction from Facebook for the post documented above.  I found the post above well after he became aware of that restriction.  At some point in the last 24 hours, he has either deleted that post or restricted access to something less than "general public".  If he decided to delete it, then he has made the world a slightly better place.

*I looked.  I couldn't find a clear definition of the relationship.  So...vague on purpose!