CHUD.com Community › Forums › POLITICS & RELIGION › Political Discourse › Orson Scott Card Insanity Watch
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Orson Scott Card Insanity Watch

post #1 of 56
7/30/08 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
I've long since stopped paying attention to him, but occasionally I get pointed in the direction of just how insane he's become:

http://mormontimes.com/ME_blogs.php?id=1586

Quote:
The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.

These judges are making new law without any democratic process; in fact, their decisions are striking down laws enacted by majority vote.

...

Why should married people feel the slightest loyalty to a government or society that are conspiring to encourage reproductive and/or marital dysfunction in their children?

Why should married people tolerate the interference of such a government or society in their family life?

If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?

What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

Biological imperatives trump laws. American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.
Yes, he's advocating treason against the US over gay marriage. Holy shit.
Reply
post #2 of 56
7/30/08 at 5:51pm
I love how people being given the freedom of marriage translates to dictator-like government.
Reply
post #3 of 56
7/30/08 at 5:58pm
So you're saying that on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being "as much as possible," Card hates gays what...like...a 5? 6?
Reply
post #4 of 56
7/30/08 at 5:59pm
We have enough people already. We aren't going to go "Children of Men" because gay people want to get married. Get the fuck out of here.
Reply
post #5 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soul Ahn Ice View Post
So you're saying that on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being "as much as possible," Card hates gays what...like...a 5? 6?
27.
Reply
post #6 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:00pm
Is he still writing for Marvel?
Reply
post #7 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:06pm
Seriously, did I entirely misread the intensions of Ender's Game? I haven't read any of his other books, but his rants seem to be diametrically opposed to every 'moral' I got out of that book.
Reply
post #8 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:12pm
Ender's was written a while ago. I assume his crazy has matured.
Reply
post #9 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:14pm
He is crazy in his hate of gays. Half of his books are about how great Mormons are, so none of this surprises me.
Reply
post #10 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:15pm
I don´t know who this guy is.

But substitute the word gay with blacks and married with white and you would have had a valid argument for segregation 50 years ago as well.
Reply
post #11 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:15pm
ENDER'S GAME sucks. I figured out the whole game/reality angle about 40 pages in. Card is an abortion of a writer, and hopefully he'll quit before he furiously puts his eye out.
Reply
post #12 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:20pm
Quote:
These judges are making new law without any democratic process; in fact, their decisions are striking down laws enacted by majority vote.
Just like that annoying Brown vs. Board of Education decision!
Reply
post #13 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan View Post
... substitute the word gay with blacks and married with white and you would have had a valid argument for segregation 50 years ago as well.
This is the leap of logic that constantly eludes homophobes. Actually, maybe it doesn't elude them, maybe they would, in fact, say the same thing about anti-miscegenation laws ...
Reply
post #14 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan "Nordling" Cerny View Post
ENDER'S GAME sucks. I figured out the whole game/reality angle about 40 pages in. Card is an abortion of a writer, and hopefully he'll quit before he furiously puts his eye out.
Probably because the original story was written as a novella.
Reply
post #15 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:23pm
I read the first couple of Ender's books and really liked them, but he wrote a book called Lost Boys that is super creepy. Extremely so, esp. in light of the maturation of his crazy.
Reply
post #16 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:23pm
I've yet to hear any of these "sanctity of marriage" people come out and demand that divorce be abolished.
Reply
post #17 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:25pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Dickson View Post
I've yet to hear any of these "sanctity of marriage" people come out and demand that divorce be abolished.
Any time you mention facts, their arguments shut down.
Reply
post #18 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan "Nordling" Cerny View Post
ENDER'S GAME sucks. I figured out the whole game/reality angle about 40 pages in. Card is an abortion of a writer, and hopefully he'll quit before he furiously puts his eye out.
I'm not sure I'd go as far as you do, but it's certainly not all that good. I think part of its appeal rests in the fact that a lot of young sf geeks like to fantasize that their videogame actions have some consequence in the real world. But The Last Starfighter delivers that sort of video game wish fulfillment minus the serious-as-a-heart-attack tone and simplistic moralizing. And 100 percent more "Death Blossoms."
Reply
post #19 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:34pm
I haven't thought much about Card since the last time there were rumblings of an ENDER'S GAME movie. Didn't know he was one of those "sanctity of marriage" idiots.

What was so creepy about "Lost Boys"? I never read it. Just lots of the usual sweaty boy-flesh that those anti-gay crusaders find so irresistible?
Reply
post #20 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
I'm not sure I'd go as far as you do, but it's certainly not all that good. I think part of its appeal rests in the fact that a lot of young sf geeks like to fantasize that their videogame actions have some consequence in the real world. But The Last Starfighter delivers that sort of video game wish fulfillment minus the serious-as-a-heart-attack tone and simplistic moralizing. And 100 percent more "Death Blossoms."
I'd so put THE LAST STARFIGHTER over ENDER'S GAME. TLS has Robert Preston.
Reply
post #21 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:42pm
Thread Starter 
Card wrote some short fiction at the beginning of his career that's really quite good, bizarre, often terrifying and/or sickening, evocative, and mostly devoid of moralizing. You'd never know it was the same guy who wrote the unadorned Ender's Game, let alone his recent hate-filled screeds.

Seriously, every time he pops up again with one of these, people start to ask "how is this the same guy who wrote Ender's Game?" but the more you look at his writing, the more you really do wonder what the hell happened. People change, obviously, but there have been (only partly tongue-in-cheek) theories that he hasn't even READ Ender's Game, let alone wrote it.
Reply
post #22 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:45pm
Speaking of crazy. I saw an interview with William Peter Blatty around the time the movie was re-released. You couldn't keep that guy on a topic long enough to get a clear answer.
Reply
post #23 of 56
7/30/08 at 6:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan "Nordling" Cerny View Post
I'd so put THE LAST STARFIGHTER over ENDER'S GAME. TLS has Robert Preston.
And Xandoxans. And a kick ass score. And, most importantly, Dan O'Herlighy:



Advantage: Last Starfighter
Reply
post #24 of 56
7/30/08 at 7:00pm
Wait. You are comparing a made movie to an unmade movie?
Reply
post #25 of 56
7/30/08 at 7:02pm
Hmmm...I always thought The Last Starfighter and Enemy Mine were in the same universe.
Reply
post #26 of 56
7/30/08 at 7:05pm
So is Enders' Game the Atlas Shrugged of Sci-Fi or something?
Reply
post #27 of 56
7/30/08 at 7:07pm
Homosexuality exists in nature outside our own species.

Gays win.
Reply
post #28 of 56
7/30/08 at 7:52pm
I have never understood why this guy is so revered as the golden boy of science fiction. Robert A. Heinlein he ain't.
Reply
post #29 of 56
7/30/08 at 7:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
So is Enders' Game the Atlas Shrugged of Sci-Fi or something?
If it is I totally missed the point.
Reply
post #30 of 56
7/30/08 at 9:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
So is Enders' Game the Atlas Shrugged of Sci-Fi or something?
I alway thought that Atlas Shrugged was the Atlas Shrugged of Sci-Fi. it just really old Sci-Fi.
Reply
post #31 of 56
7/30/08 at 9:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cruikshank View Post
I have never understood why this guy is so revered as the golden boy of science fiction. Robert A. Heinlein he ain't.
One of Card's redeeming qualities is that he didn't write 'To Sail Beyond the Sunset' or 'The Man Who Sold The Moon'. I really, really hate Heinlein's snooty superior more-elitist-than-thou characters, and I really, really hate the token stooge who always has to come along so Laz Long can lay the benefits of his libertarianism on us.

As for Card's work, I moved on long ago. I gave up on him around the time they got to Earth in 'Homecoming'. It was really good up to that point. I'd probably enjoy 'Speaker for the Dead' were I to bother reading it again.
Reply
post #32 of 56
7/30/08 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Powers View Post
If it is I totally missed the point.
Well I meant it's a reviled book by most but somehow revered by a hard core group of crazy people.
Reply
post #33 of 56
7/30/08 at 10:02pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by EdHocken View Post
So is Enders' Game the Atlas Shrugged of Sci-Fi or something?
Not at all. It's really short.

Actually, I still looove Ender's Game and half of its sequels, but they're not classics or anything.

edit:
Quote:
Well I meant it's a reviled book by most but somehow revered by a hard core group of crazy people.
No, it's liked by many, hated by a few, and usually hated for the writing, not any political stuff. It's closer to, I don't know, the Batman Begins of sci-fi than the Atlas Shrugged.
Reply
post #34 of 56
7/30/08 at 10:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cruikshank View Post
Robert A. Heinlein he ain't.
Heinlein wasn't exactly a model citizen or anything. He wrote plenty of useless stuff. Have you read, Stranger in a Strange Land? Its really really a lazy mess. Yeah, it coined a term used by many a geek. But, once you get past that, there's not much else to it.

I just wanted to use one example, but he ain't all roses and fillet mignon.
Reply
post #35 of 56
7/30/08 at 11:07pm
Yeah, fuck Heinlein. Starship Troopers is the only movie I've ever seen that I enjoyed more than its literary counterpart.

Now what was this about gay marriage...
Reply
post #36 of 56
7/30/08 at 11:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DaveB View Post
I'm not sure I'd go as far as you do, but it's certainly not all that good. I think part of its appeal rests in the fact that a lot of young sf geeks like to fantasize that their videogame actions have some consequence in the real world. But The Last Starfighter delivers that sort of video game wish fulfillment minus the serious-as-a-heart-attack tone and simplistic moralizing. And 100 percent more "Death Blossoms."
...and it's got Grig making it a clear winner....

Reply
post #37 of 56
7/30/08 at 11:21pm
Card's unstated reason for opposing gay marriage (or maybe it's an assumption) is that homosexuality is a conscious choice, or in the words of one Christian Fundamentalist "gays don't breed, they recruit!"

He is afraid that if courts "mandate" gay marriage, teh Gays will come to his town and recruit all the young lads and lassies to their evil cause. You see your teenage son walk into what you think is the Navy Recruiting office, then he comes home wearing a dress and a feather Boa singing show tunes....
Reply
post #38 of 56
7/31/08 at 11:19am
I appreciate his fundamental misunderstanding of our system of government. Knowing that he's a smart (but crazy) guy, I have to assume that it's an intentional misunderstanding, designed to support his argument. That kind of lazy and deceitful debate style really pisses me off.
Reply
post #39 of 56
7/31/08 at 11:28am
Quote:
Originally Posted by billylove View Post
Wait. You are comparing a made movie to an unmade movie?
I was comparing a made movie to a published book, actually.
Reply
post #40 of 56
7/31/08 at 11:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bancroft Agee View Post
Homosexuality exists in nature outside our own species.

Gays win.
This is the whole reason I never understood the anti-gay's crowd enthusiasm for the "homosexuality is unnatural" argument. All you need to refute it is to show that it occurs in nature outside the rational organisms, which is really easy to do.

Furthermore, as far as the Abrahamic faiths are concerned, one of the most recurring and prevalent messages is that nature is bad/evil/corrupted/unpleasant. It's the whole point of the of the accounts of creation: we fucked up, so now we occupy a fucked up world. Even the very definition of a miracle is an act in which God overrides the laws of nature. Because, again, we corrupted the world and sometimes need the Deity to save us from its machinations because of that. Wouldn't it make more sense and be more thematically and theologically consistent for them to say that homosexuality is natural and is one of the effects and signs of a corrupted world? Of course, that takes blameworthiness off the table for them...
Reply
post #41 of 56
7/31/08 at 1:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Krish-0 View Post
Yeah, fuck Heinlein. Starship Troopers is the only movie I've ever seen that I enjoyed more than its literary counterpart.

Now what was this about gay marriage...
Go read "Jaws." Then you'll have two movies you enjoy more than the literary counterpart.

Orson Scott Card used to be a friend of the family (my family, that is). But as the years have gone by, we've pretty much lost touch with him. That's probably for the best, considering my family's rather liberal point of view.
Reply
post #42 of 56
7/31/08 at 2:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonStrickland View Post
Go read "Jaws." Then you'll have two movies you enjoy more than the literary counterpart.

Orson Scott Card used to be a friend of the family (my family, that is). But as the years have gone by, we've pretty much lost touch with him. That's probably for the best, considering my family's rather liberal point of view.
Possible new thread: movies which were better than the novels that preceded them. I predict "The Godfather", "Ben Hur", and "The Ten Commandments" would quickly join "Jaws" and "Starship Troopers." "Moby Dick", "In Cold Blood", and "To Kill a Mockingbird" ... not so much.
Reply
post #43 of 56
7/31/08 at 2:58pm
I made it through Ender's Game and some of its sequels as a kid, but forgot about Card as soon as I discovered Philip K. Dick. Meh...Orson Scott Card is irrelevant today. My favorite author around that age was Norton Juster with The Phantom Tollbooth.

Though I'm sure to some that outburst was like discovering that Mr. Dressup had a dead hooker in the tickle trunk.
Reply
post #44 of 56
7/31/08 at 2:59pm
I vote for Needful Things. The movie was perfect. The book was way too long. They should have never let S.K. write without an editor.
Reply
post #45 of 56
7/31/08 at 5:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by billylove View Post
I vote for Needful Things. The movie was perfect. The book was way too long. They should have never let S.K. write without an editor.
Sounds like someone's forgotten the face of their father.
"Smack!"
Reply
post #46 of 56
4/30/09 at 9:45pm
For added lulz:

A Mormon front group called the National Organization for Marriage is producing anti-gay ads starring Carrie Prejean, who has already made more of a name for herself than she ever would have as Miss California USA. The ads are intended to show the threat to religious liberty in America if hate crimes against homosexuals become a federal offense.

Guess who the fuck just joined their Board of Directors.
Reply
post #47 of 56
5/1/09 at 12:07am
This is like when I was reading Crime and Punishment, a great novel I have just finished, and towards its end Dostoevsky tosses in, "He wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception."
Reply
post #48 of 56
5/2/09 at 8:11am
I think the most mind-destroying thing for myself in the whole faff is the "Simple majority can and should overrule the non-encroaching rights of others" angle so many fundies and Mormons (redundancy?) harp on about.

That's the funny thing about the so-called Conservative core these days. The objectivist and libertarian founders of the party would just shake their heads in dismay, perplexed as to how the party of liberation and small government became the party of disenfranchising whole groups of people without anything other than moral outrage and fanatical dissonance guiding their actions.
Reply
post #49 of 56
5/2/09 at 9:02am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cylon Baby View Post
Card's unstated reason for opposing gay marriage (or maybe it's an assumption) is that homosexuality is a conscious choice, or in the words of one Christian Fundamentalist "gays don't breed, they recruit!"

He is afraid that if courts "mandate" gay marriage, teh Gays will come to his town and recruit all the young lads and lassies to their evil cause. You see your teenage son walk into what you think is the Navy Recruiting office, then he comes home wearing a dress and a feather Boa singing show tunes....
If he honestly thinks there is no biological component in our sexual preferance, hes an idiot, there is so much scientific evidence to prove he is aboslutely wrong.

His books are great when you're kid, however, the last time I did read a book of his, it was fairly embarassing.
Reply
post #50 of 56
5/2/09 at 9:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nabster View Post

His books are great when you're kid, however, the last time I did read a book of his, it was fairly embarassing.
I'll agree, and to be honest I'll still pick up a new book in either the Ender of Bean series, but his book Empire, was weak and total crap.
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Political Discourse
CHUD.com Community › Forums › POLITICS & RELIGION › Political Discourse › Orson Scott Card Insanity Watch