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Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia

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IGPNicki
11/06/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
Yikes! I used to live in Colorado Springs where Focus on the Family is based and lemme tell ya, whenever they rear their ugly heads, I can't help but cringe! But I have to admit, this one's pretty imaginative. Having just done a piece on dystopian futures I have to say that a liberal dystopia was one that didn't not even cross my mind.

[www.igp-scifi.com]
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Shevek
11/06/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
I guess I'm some kind of liberal wacko since I don't find this either interesting, funny, or intriguing. This letter isn't a story or even much of an idea. It is a piece of trash that should be universally derided as hateful propaganda. The essential message is that Obama will destroy everything. If it were tongue-in-cheek, satirical, or even if it were a good story, this would be worthwhile. However, all this is a pathetic attempt to slander a man and a political movement (those anti-American American liberals). I'm not saying no one should be allowed to express these sentiments, but I also think we should see them for what they are, refute them, and point to them as educational tools.

On the other hand, I'd be greatly interested to see io9 cover the history of propaganda, dystopia/utopian fiction, government/politics, and science fiction. I imagine some kind of history covering authors like Zamyatin, Vonnegut, Rand, Le Guin, LaHaye/Jenkins. Perhaps examples pulled from tv and film? One could even stretch this over early utopian fiction (some use time travel, others travel over sea to a distant land, which can be considered as space travel). In the Inferno, Dante encounters two men so evil, their souls reside in hell while their bodies are occupied by devils. Early body snatching!

I guess my basic point is that I'd be a lot more receptive to reading and learning about such things if we could actually take it seriously as science fiction.
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Comish
11/06/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
Ummm, I get the "fiction" part, but how is this *science* fiction? Let's leave aside the fact that you're painting all conservatives as extremist and disaffected based on one group's ideas, which is exactly what you're criticizing Focus for. I'd prefer that io9 not turn into some moronic political blog. If I wanted political discussion, there are better places than here.
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Front_Towards_Enemy
11/06/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
Actually, what most americans are tired of of is polarized politics. We've got an entire new game here folks, instead of continuing the rant, why not just work together to fix the porblems ?

No wait! you'd all just rather continue the nonsense because your right is the *only* way.
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firstanointed
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
ROFLMAO.

Meanwhile, a whole 10 book apocalypse themed series could be penned about the Right Wing Dystopia. I've already got a synopsis, check it: "In 2035, in a divided world where the concept of God has been replaced by the latest currency, the Amero (this is real BTW, look it up) and the nations of the world are run by a Republican political singularity, a former teacher, now a contracted gun runner, struggles with her family to survive in the last Michigan suburb as the petrol, weapons and money fueled civil war raging across the mid-west threatens to spread northwards. When she is penalized by the Tax Collection League for tax delinquency, she, in a desperate act of survival, attempts to smuggle her family into Mexico--now a part of The United Socialist States of Canada. But when The National Guard--now a freelance mercenary force--catches her son at the border and discovers that his name is on the International Enemy Combatant Ledger, she is forced to fight her way across the hostile terrain of a militarized dog-eat-dog America to save her son from the horrors of an indefinite term in the World Penitentiary.

I believe that pwns the pedophile troop masters of the "Obama Regime".
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RAHfanboy
11/05/08

@firstanointed: What makes it right-wing? It certainly is dystopic (DRINK) but it doesn't seem to be particularly right or left, if you just take out the word "Republican."
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jajbowler
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
i'm pretty excited to live in an ObamaNation.

also, rabble rabble rabble!
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travtastic
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
I don't see anything wrong with covering this story on i09. It is sci-fi; and if Focus On the Family is going to honestly peddle this kind of garbage, let's be sure it's done out in the open.

Personally, I'd rather see it get the lulz and ridicule it deserves, than have it fester in some screwball right-wing websites.
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epoch9
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
I for one, welcome our new Obama overlord.
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EthnicRedneck
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
Here's an idea for the future - morality-based and private-industry-funded public policy organizations will dry up and fade away as people realize that they are basically the same whacko's that protest every other advance in human development, just with bigger megaphones.
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KarlB
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
I take it that by "creative and intriguing" you mean "utterly retarded".
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Annalee Newitz
11/05/08

@KarlB: Dude, whatever. I thought The Turner Diaries was creative and intriguing too. Just because I violently disagree with something doesn't mean it's retarded. Though sometimes it does, I'll grant you.
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RAHfanboy
11/05/08

@Annalee Newitz: Does it make me a bad person that I'm more than a little amused at all the flack you're getting on this post? I mean you're like the Liberal Poster Girl and your own side turns on you like a Pit Viper for even reporting the story!
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Mathmos
11/05/08

@RAHfanboy for one, welcomes his Marxist overlords.: Anything with political overtones can be counted on to elicit hot-headed responses, whether or not the originator has or is taking a side. Sometimes people who seem quite reaonable and interesting on other subjects and basically friendly as people have very odd political ideas whose consequences they don't seem to appreciate. We need to find a modus vivendi and get on with working together as well as we can.
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RAHfanboy
11/05/08

@Mathmos: Agreed.
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Annalee Newitz
11/05/08

@RAHfanboy for one, welcomes his Marxist overlords.: C'mon now. I'm a leftist radical. Liberals are the dogs who grease the wheels of the system.
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Trai_Dep
11/05/08

@RAHfanboy: No one credible is slamming Annalee for posting this. It's the laughably hysterical rantings that we're commenting on; the scorn is all towards Lou Sheldon, not Annalee.

You might want to try working harder at recognizing when someone's covering something versus advocating it. Big difference, that. :)
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matiu(france)
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
Pornography displayed in gas stations, private ownership of guns outlawed... homosexuality legalized, all that sounds good to me i vote for it! and most, most important of all: seeing the Bible be classified as hate speech, that would be the most beautiful of all dreams i ever made...

So, thanks to you, american people who vote for Obama, you did vote for all of us in the foreign contrys.
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cuddlebot
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
Sounds about right.

i mean if you're gay, that means you're also a child molester, right?
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Alexis
11/05/08

@cuddlebot:

Obviously.
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RAHfanboy
11/05/08

@cuddlebot: Not always. Unless you're a priest, then yes, always.
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Klebert L. Hall
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
This isn't futurism, it's infantile politics.

Obama is neither monster nor messiah, he's just a politician. I'm sure he'll do fine, and we'll still have problems.

I disagree with plenty of his positions, but so what? Other people get to have their say too, and I disagree with plenty of the current guy's positions, too.

I see no point to publishing this ridiculous crap, or the ridiculous crap from the other end of the political spectrum. It's about as science-fiction related as a photo of manure.

Now that the election's over, maybe you guys could degrade the site with politics a little less often?

-Kle.
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Alexis
11/05/08

@Klebert L. Hall:

Since science fiction has always been a vehicle of expressing messages (moral and political) I think the two go hand in hand. Plus, it's not like they post off topic stuff, it's related to sci-fi.
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Alexis
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
I, for one, am excited by the promise of porno gas stations. Those places need a little spice. I think its funny when i09 covers stuff like this and I welcome it. I prefer to know my conservative crazies are crazy without subtle subterfuge. Plus on a day like today, it can only make me laugh.

As far as Obamatopia is concerned. As a person who has only been really aware of elections from 2000 and beyond, I have to say, I've never felt anything quite like this before. I've never been proud to be an American, not really, until last night. I know that things won't be perfect, I get that, but damn, what a hell of a leap in the right direction.
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radcap (acct terminated by Annalee)
11/05/08

@Evlsushi: "I, for one, am excited by the promise of porno gas stations."

The really ridiculous thing here is that Porn had been in Gas Station's since the 50's at least. (Remember all those nudie calendar pinups in the local Garage)?

Of course now that creates a "hostile environment". And remind me again - which side complains about THAT? ;)
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Alexis
11/05/08

@radcap:

Both, really.
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radcap (acct terminated by Annalee)
11/05/08

@Evlsushi: No. Political correctness in this arena is decidedly a creation of the Left.
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Alexis
11/05/08

@radcap:

Um, both sides have been against sexually explicit images in public for a while now. If anything, I considered appropriateness in a public space to be a republican value.

In all seriousness, it's not a bad thing. I think you're digging for arguments here.
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RAHfanboy
11/05/08

@Evlsushi: Thank you, Michelle.
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Daveinva
11/05/08

In reply to Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia
"Right-Wing Futurists Are Already Predicting the Liberal Dystopia"

DRINK!
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Annalee Newitz
11/05/08

@Daveinva: But when do I drink? When they do the predicting? Or when I see porno in the gas station?
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Valhawk
11/05/08

@Annalee Newitz: I think when the word Dystopia was added.
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RAHfanboy
11/05/08

@Valhawk: I tried to drink every time the word "dystopia" appeared, but my liver went on strike.

I got better.
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