Really?

[james_davis_nicoll]

"leftist SF critic James Nicoll"? Leftist?

Comments

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I guess it depends what you think of as "left". Red == Commie == Left-most position in ROYGBIV. Admittedly, not very scientific.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's just all somehow been turned around, apparently by use of colors on Election Day maps.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

If you press them hard enough [1], most Republicans will eventually admit to being secretly communist; see, for example, their endless faith that the Soviets would conquer the world or the telling manner in which so many of them are unfamilar with the basic principles of the religions they claim to belong to.


1: I recommend using lots of small paving stones so you don't put your back out piling them up.

[pickledginger.livejournal.com]

1: I recommend using lots of small paving
stones so you don't put your back out
piling them up.

A large tub and a hose would be more ergonomically correct, don't you think? Of course, one would need to have made plans in advance for re-storing the water or making use of it locally in some environmentally appropriate manner.

/straight face

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

Had that explained to me in 1982 by a (terrific) high school history teacher, who was fond of beard-stroking ironic pauses: "In the 1950s, we were all required to sign oaths that we would not mention ... communism. This was, so I understand, because communism was considered so superior to capitalism that if you were, in any way at all, exposed to it, you would instantly and forevermore reject your American values and become ... communists."

I think he rather enjoyed that lesson. But I would not, of course, allege that he enjoyed it that much.

[rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com]

This is also the sometimes-revealing attitude toward homosexuality. "Well, of course everyone *wants* to have gay sex, better not tell them it's a possibility--much less a non-stigmatized one!--or they'll all romp off and do it, because who wants to deal with the icky opposite sex if they have a choice?"

[eyelessgame.livejournal.com]

In my less-intersectionally-aware moments, I am halfway convinced that every single person who says "homosexuality is a choice" is bisexual. How otherwise could they believe it?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

They may desperately want to believe it because to think otherwise might have (to them) completely monstrous implications. I'm not sure that's the same as them being bisexual.

[rachel-swirsky.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's obviously not true of everyone.

But I've definitely met people--usually female?--who are clearly bi, or probably even gay, and who are very policing of their daughters consequently because they think it's normal.

It stands out to me because as a kid I was normally a parent-pleaser, but these people were very wary of me, even tho I was nominally straight.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

A few days back I read a bio of Bob Brown (Australian politician who's just resigned leadership of the Australian Greens). It mentioned that he'd spent years going through electroshock 'therapy' trying to cure himself of homosexuality, and several times considered suicide before a counsellor finally told him that maybe he'd be better coming to terms with it.

Then yesterday I saw somebody commenting that he wasn't fit to represent people because his "lifestyle choices" meant he'd never know what it's like to have a family.

...I am not a violent man - and nor is Brown - but comments like that make me want to talk to these people about their "choice to be punched in the face".

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the only logical conclusion? After all, if you only have one option, there's no choice...