The Deuce And A Liberal SF Author

I read quite a bit. Some of what I read is Science Fiction. Good SF is hard to find, and you often have to ignore the politics of favorite SF authors in order to enjoy their work. What's really interesting is it can be difficult to judge an author's politics by their novels. John Scalzi is a good example of this.

Scalzi is the author of Old Man's War and several sequals occuring in the same universe. I really enjoyed Old Man's War which has led me to read most of Scalzi's other works. Once I started reading Scalzi I discovered his blog and have read it routinely ever since. His blog is a source of good information regarding other SF authors and their books, and what's going on in the world of SF in general, but it also freely exposes Scalzi's politics, which I find surprising, and distasteful.

His blog entry, The Ripper Owens Syndrome, appears to be a drug induced ( at least one paragraph ) screed regarding the GOP and conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh's role in the Republican Party.

Below is my response to this post.


John, I really enjoy your SF, but this…

“The real problem with Limbaugh is not his political positions, which are the bog-standard GOP sour mash of once-upon-a-time genuine conservatism denatured through three decades of 100 proof Will to Power, which makes sense because it’s not like Limbaugh is interested in or capable of generating original political thoughts on his own. The real problem with Limbaugh is at the end of the day he’s an entertainer, and his shtick relies on political division and dissension.”

…did this actually make sense to you when you wrote it? Me thinks the ganja was talking, not you.

As far as “…generating original political thoughts on his own.” Conservatism is a strict adhearance to the original ideas of the founding fathers as expressed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, along with the individual state constitutions written in the same era. Hardly original to Mr. Limbaugh or any other conservative of the 20th or 21st Century, but not a rational reason to vilify those conservatives, including Mr. Limbaugh. But then modern lliberalism, especially Obama’s extreme version, isn’t original either. But liberalism doesn’t come from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, does it? I think you’re probably smart enough to know where it does come from.

Unlike Mr. Limbaugh, I don’t have to hope that Obama’s bailouts, takeovers and trillion dollar budgets will fail to right America’s economic ship. I KNOW they will fail. Why? Because they fail every time they’re tried. Socialism, and make no mistake that’s what Obama’s ideology is, always results either in abject failure, like that experienced by the Cubans for the last fifty years and the now extinct Soviet Union, or in a slow torturous demise as is now being played out in western Europe.

Double digit unemployment is the norm in most of western Europe. Roughly speaking, five to six percent is the norm in America. National health care in Britain is virtually bankrupt, to the point that health care is starting to be rationed. And how many Canadians come to the U.S. every year for their health care needs? And why do so many Canadians find it necessary to come to the U.S. for medical care? The answer is national health care, which used to be called socialized medicene.


Conservatism IS free-market capitalism. Obama’s policies are not. Obama’s policies are to print money, say the debt will be paid back in the misty future by our children and grandchildren, and use the printed money to infect as much of the American private economy as possible so as to increase governmental control of that economy. Control of the economy is control over the people who make their living in that economy.

Where does this overwhelming need to control everyone and everything come from? Examining history, it’s pretty easy to figure out. Obama, Pelosi and Reid, the triumverate of liberalism in America, actually think they are so intelligent that the power to control all is not only their right, but their duty. They believe that the lion’s share of American people are too stupid to run their own lives; to make their own living; to raise their own children; to practice their own faith; to decide how best to use their own income.

Mr. Limbaugh is not the leader of the Republican Party. Mr. Limbaugh does not even call himself a Republican, though I'm confident he generally votes that way. He calls himself a conservative. He’s a conservative, as am I, because I don’t want to control everyone; because I do believe that I, and most Americans, are fully capable of making our own decisions as how best to exercise our God given rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, with the full knowledge that equal opportunity does NOT guarantee equal results. And we’re good with that. We’re good with that because it was exactly those beliefs that created the United States of America, and made the U.S. what it is.

Obama does not believe as I do, which is to say he does not believe in the rights and the capabilities of the American people. And so, like Mr. Limbaugh, I hope Obama fails and is quickly dispatched to the ash heap of history along with Lenin, Stalin, Castro and all the others who thought they knew better, and were willing to enslave millions to prove it.