He seems to be under the impression that Bush is conducting some wildly creative crypto-war where our continued occupation of Iraq is winning hearts and minds by the millions across the Muslim world. If the Democrats take control they will demonstrate that we don’t have the heart for a fight and the terrorists will win. But if more EXTREME Republicans take over they will escalate the warfare and that will inflame the Arab world and the terrorists will win. Only George W. Bush can walk the tightrope between these too disasterous positions so skillfully! God bless our President!
He also has a plan to topple the regime in Iran by knocking out their oil production facilities … .
This has been going on for a long time. He has two weekly columns in this publication, where he regularly defends the neo-con point of view. The Rhino Times is unabashedly, extremely biased.
Card is, and has always been, a conservative Mormon. That doesn’t stop me from appreciating his fiction. I see no reason I should care about his politics any more than I care about the politics of any other artist.
So many people I run across seem to think that conservative Mormons are always Republicans; that the Church encourages people to join the Republican part. Not so! There are plenty of Democrats, along with members of other parties, who are both Mormons and even conservative to a degree.
Point taken, but still, this is surprisingly beyond the pale, even as apologetics go. Especially when you know there’s actually real grey matter on the inside.
My impression of OSC (mostly from reading his fiction), is that he can be idealistic past the point of what is realistic. I also think he’s an incurable optimist. Nice guy, basically, his heart is in the right place, but his outlook is way too sunny sometimes. I don’t get a mean-spirited neo-con feel from him so much as a “rah rah, up with people, we can make the world a better place” sort of vibe.
As political commentators go, he’s a good science fiction writer.
It’s always refreshing when you get new data (i.e. the quotes in the OP) that doesn’t force you to reevaluate your existing opinions (i.e. I think Card is a hack).
He dismisses the West’s REAL advantage, for no reason other that trivial personal prejudices, in order to pursue the will-o-the-wisp hallucination of Bush The Master Strategerist. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Here you go. It’s ostensibly about the MA supreme court decision, a topic about which I do think there is some room for reasonable disagreement, but quickly veers off into “crazy and stupid” territory. This article is why I can’t read Card anymore. I don’t have a problem with works from artists whom I can’t respect morally. I still watch and enjoy Roman Polanski movies, for example. But reading this article made it impossible for me to respect Card intellectually. His argument relies almost exclusively on lazy logic and deliberate ignorance. I could read a book by someone I think is evil, and still enjoy it. I cannot, as it turns out, read a book by someone I think is a moron and still enjoy it.
I’m certainly not going to boycott his books over this or anything. But if he’s writing political articles and publishing them in a public forum then it’s perfectly legit to criticize him over his politics.
What stunned me about this piece is the sheer level of delusion. It would be different if he was merely arguing that the Iraq war was a good idea and that the possibility of victory still exists. I don’t agree with that position but I can at least follow the arguments that some have made along those lines. But “the best-run war” in history? The lack of electricity is the result of rocketing demand? That’s just nuts.
I met Card once, BTW, about ten years ago. It was a business lunch to discuss the possibility of making a videogame out of one of his books. Nothing came of it, but he seemed like a nice enough guy at the time.
You’re right. That article is completely idiotic. He actually used the “gays can still marry the opposite sex so it isn’t discrimination” argument.
I had to stop reading when I got to the phrase “war on marriage.” That’s like something Bill O’Reilly would say. I always thought he was more intelligent than that. How disappointing.
To be honest I find Card to be a cruel and vindictive writer, punishing his characters for any weakness whatsoever. It doesn’t surprise me that his politics would tend to this direction. He can tell a story, though.
I haven’t read a Card novel in a while (I got burned out on all the Ender sequels), though I won’t expect this to dissuade me one way or another. But this statement is just so mind-numbingly clueless in its detatchment from reality…
He goes on to emphasize the importantance of a two-parent family - father and mother, that only those raised in such a family can learn appropriate sexual roles, that our society depends on marriage as a reproductive strategy, and that only those who believe as he does are capable of raising children to “loyalty and oath-keeping and self-control and self-sacrifice.” He also issues a threat to stop recognizing the legitimacy of government if it does not enforce his beliefs.
I had not read that, Miller, and, in a way, I’m sorry I have. I shan’t be able to think of him the same way again. This bothers me much more than his equally inane thoughts on the war.
