Talk:Orson Scott Card/Archive 5

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1 ← Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7

Removed party affiliation from infobox

I've removed the "Political Party: Democratic" from the infobox because it's misleading and unnecessary.

I'd removed it back in 10 September 2011 (see discussion at [1]) but it was added back 23 July 2013 for reasons unclear.

OSC may have claimed to be a registered Democrat but has in recent years generally supported Republican positions and candidates. While that doesn't make him a Republican - these labels are, after all, self-declared - calling him a Democrat creates an incorrect impression of his views. He's not a politician and has no formal ties to the party, so there's no real reason to put it there (most people's entries don't have it). If people want to read about his politics they can go to that section of the article, but it doesn't belong in the info box. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bennetto (talk • contribs) 05:20, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Reply -

Paraphrase: "OSC may be Dem'crat but generally supports GOP-ers."

WP is not in the business of shielding readers from "pluralisms"/diversities but that of reporting actual facts. Just as a novelist needs to somehow "explain" to readers unexpected character traits (an in ways soft-hearted assassin or whatev) to sort of keep reader's "trust" in the novelist's narrative; likewise, a reader of the infobox of the Card BLP will be able to find below within the body of the article the details of Card's actual political beliefs. So what, Card is that relatively rare political individual who is religious conservative but at the same time is rather so-called statist and non-libertarian. These are the facts that readers of his BLP will just have to deal with. As examples, compare OSC's with the political self-indentification of Card's fellow political commentator, the rather "Log Cabin Republican"-ish (or more specifically, the Roman Catholic and UK "Tory" -influenced) Andrew Sullivan. Sullivan is quoted below. LINK

I [Sullivan] prefer smaller government in general; I too believe in a robust defense; I have few issues with the free market; I think marriage and family are critical social institutions; I’m still a believing Christian; I have deep qualms about abortion and abhor affirmative action; I’m a fiscal conservative; want radical tax reform, cuts in unfunded entitlements, and culturally, I’m a libertarian, with a traditionalist streak alongside radical tendencies (so, for example, I both love the Latin Mass and intend to go to Burning Man next month). I haven’t renounced my precocious devotion to Thatcher and Reagan, even as I have out-grown them, as the world has as well.

But I am now regarded as a leftist by much of the right and to some extent, they’re right.

And now for quotes w rgd Card.

  1. ... Card’s politics are unconventional, blending some elements of liberalism and conservatism while rejecting others: “I grew up Republican but left in 1977, nauseated by the growing Reagan-worship,” he says. “Though the Democratic party was already on the road to extremist madness at that time, there were still Democrats like Daniel Patrick Moynihan — intelligent, capable of nuanced thought, and not given to hero worship.” Years later, Card came to admire George W. Bush: “the most honorable president of my lifetime,” he says. “No president since Lincoln has governed so well in the face of such vitriolic, dishonest, and hypocritical opposition.” He has served on the board of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that has become a hate object of the Left for opposing same-sex marriage. Card remains a registered Democrat but believes his own party is committed to “insane social experiments.” He sees the GOP as anti-immigrant and racist. “I really am a man without a party,” he says.

    Maybe it’s best to call Card ornery — he even blogs at the Ornery American (www.ornery.org), a website he runs — and recognize that creative types don’t need to be systematic political thinkers to engage the rest of us. ...

    John J. Miller in Nat'l Review

  2. "I [Card] once received a Libertarian award. While I didn’t decline it, I was baffled: Who could read my fiction and think of it as anything but to-the-bones communitarian in perspective?"

    Interviewer's question: "Can you define communitarian for me?"

    Well, the word I used to use was communist – small-C communist. Marxism/Leninism was by no means communism, they knew that themselves. What they were was climax capitalism. One owner. Capitalism where the capitalist owner is the state.

    OSCard, interviewed by David Larsen in New Zealand Listener

    Whooah! Card is "proto-Communist"? ...Eg, as anti-homosexuality as Russia's Putin, but likely might be more aligned with the ACLU than Putin w rgd religious freedom issues? (...As long as such religions are anti- free love, we'd imagine?) Alas, such are the realities we crowd-sourced encyclopedia contributors have to deal with. Given the reality that political parties are not perfectly aligned w/ ideology (eg see pro abortion repubs, anti abortion Dems, etc etc) and the of Card's actual political views, what in the world is misleading about Card's party membership?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:04, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Since he's not a politician, I don't know why we include it in the infobox at all. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:42, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Dunno. However, Card is a (sometimes) political commentator within N. Carolina "secular" media and also once was a quite active so-called anti-gay (um, or "pro- family values," if you will?) activist, published in various venues of Mormon (viz., of course, "Salt Lake City based based, LDS denomination - specific") media.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)--(Plus minor copyediting.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:52, 15 September 2014 (UTC))
Lots of writers and actors have known political views, though. Including the party in the infobox for non-politicians doesn't seem to be standard. (even for people primarily known for political commentary!) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
...and to the extent he is known for his political views, he is not known as a Democrat. His statements in support of the party are pretty few; I don't see how a statement like "I am a Democrat and for good reason, as long as you define 'Democrat' the way it was defined in 1977" even counts as support. Bennetto (talk) 16:05, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
Further cmt - Hmm. Well, do allow me to apologize on behalf of the not insubstantial number of Middle Americans impersonating genuine Democrats (see such blue doggers as Utah's Jim Matheson, etc etc. Hmm. I myself am a Dem who probably dragged my feet before joining the gay marraige band wagon.... <shrugs>) Anywho, be alla that as it may: Card himself happens to NOT be that kind of Hollywood guy who shades Libertarian (think Jon Voight, Clint Eastwood, etc)--if he WAS, he wouldn't have become involved with the National Organization for Marriage in the first place--rather, Card is what he is, a culturally conservative yet otherwise non-isolationist progressive/liberal (even if such philosophical consistency should render him susceptible to an Emersonian hobgoblinism...).

See the following qt, in the current Nat'l Rev, by Jonah Goldberg): "Liberals[...]are quite open about their desire to use the state to impose their morality on others. Many conservatives want to do likewise, of course. [But...]when conservatives[...]do it, liberals are quick to charge 'theocracy!'"

Or, obviously, this qt by the NRO's Rod Dreher: "Orson Scott Card is...more like a blue-dog Democrat."[2]

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:47, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
This is all irrelevant. It's a parameter that appears only to be used for politicians, regardless of users' own personal feelings about BLP subjects. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:34, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
See Jonette Engan, Scott Ashjian, Harold Windingstad, Mike Erlandson, ad infinitum. There's a reason for wp:OTHERTHINGS. Don't delete information from infoboxes based on a citation of bogus appearances. Edit by guidelines, which indicate infoboxes should briefly highlight important information about its subject...which ought in my opinion include, in Card's case, party membership, indicating so well some of the iconoclastic nature of this writer's various political commentaries/activisms!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:56, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
What point are you trying to make? I pointed out that this infobox parameter is used for politicians, and you linked me to a bunch of politicians where it's used! This seems to be repeatedly coming back to "I personally find it interesting that he's a registered Democrat since his views are those of a Republican," but personal interest does not supersede policy. What sources prove that his party affiliation is "important"? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:22, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
And you seem mesmerized by the subjects obsession with countering SSM; but let's accept a truce regarding personalizing our arguments. Is Card a "conservative" or a "liberal"? This is beside the point. What is important are sourced facts such as Card's stated views, their resulting controversies, and his ongoing political affiliations.To any not too bored to consider the sources: Card has a history of disliking Goldwaterisms of unregulated free enterprise and to otherwise be a fan of foreign interventions of of political philosophies of collectivism and statism. (To the left of JFK? More along the lines of LBJ?) Probably any number of Middle American Democrats (Card lives in N. Carolina and teaches at a sectarian bible college in Virg.) hold similar views/predilections. And perhaps there are not just a few such individuals who possess Card's tin ear regarding personal sexual liberties.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:41, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
You haven't addressed my point about community practice at all. The talk page is not a venue for you to expound on your personal views about Card. Now, please explain which sources make such a big deal of Card's party affiliation that we can supersede our usual practice, or allow edits to be made that bring the article in line with our usual practice. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:12, 18 October 2014 (UTC)
So an article that mentions his party affiliation once, another that doesn't mention it at all, and a reader-prompted erratum? This is weak. You haven't produced the sources to back up your edit and you haven't produced evidence that it conforms to community practice. Give it a rest. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:55, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Ehrm, community practice is us and the edit removed longstanding information on the basis of non-cited guidelines (obviously impossible to cite owing to the fact it does not exist).

Let me see if I understand the editor who deleted mention of the party membership in the infobox correctly. Because Card joined the (Catholic-dominated) National Organization for Marriage in 2009, replacing his fellow-Mormon Matthew S. Holland (who quit just prior to Holland's accepting the post of president of a Utah public university), it shall forevermore be considered "misleading" to call Card a Democrat? WTF!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:24, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

More - The cited "correction" wasn't really reader- (in the singular) driven. Dreher said a number of NRO readers acquainted him with non- cherry picked examples of Card's politics. Heck, it dunt take so great of googling smarts to navigate to Card's own, himself-scribbled bio!: "[... ] In the Card family, Broadway was always only just next door, and because in those days the Mormon Church also greatly encouraged the production of plays, he was surrounded by the flurry of rehearsals and performances.

"When Willard Card took a position at Arizona State University in 1964, the family moved to Mesa, Arizona, just in time for the 1964 presidential election. This was where Scott was first initiated into political activism. When the organizers of a mock political debate in the junior high school turned up not one student who admitted to being for Lyndon Johnson (Mesa was one of the most conservative towns in a pro-Goldwater state), Card volunteered and did his best to present LBJ's case to the student body. It was Card's first experience with the notion that it might be possible to be a Democrat.... [...]"

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Card: "I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.

    "But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.

    "To all intents and purposes, when the Democratic Party jettisoned Joseph Lieberman over the issue of his support of this war, they kicked me out as well. The party of Harry Truman and Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- the party I joined back in the 1970s -- is dead. Of suicide."

    --Card qt., ca. 2006

    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:42, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Introductory blurb on a Mormon blog, from 2008: "OSC never ceases to surprise me. He is a Democrat, a self-described “communitarian” who favors the Iraq war, opposes SSM and opposes Mitt Romney. LINK"--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Card interview from 2013: "...(in) 1976 I was a Daniel Patrick Moynihan liberal Democrat — and without changing any of my principles, I’ve now become quite a right-winger in the eyes of the left. And I’m a little baffled by it because I’m a liberal and they’re not. They’re repressive, punishing, intolerant of the slightest variation, absolutely the opposite of what it means to be a liberal. But that’s the way it goes. They still get the label. I am the fact of what it meant to be a liberal." LINK--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:50, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Card commentary from 2007: "...consider carefully: Senator Harry Reid of Nevada is also a Mormon. As far as I know, he’s a Mormon in good standing. And he’s a Democrat — a liberal Democrat, on most issues.

    If Salt Lake City is telling Mormon politicians what to do, they’re sure giving Harry Reid a different set of instructions from those they’ve been giving to Mitt Romney.

    Like Harry Reid, I’m a Democrat. If my own party nominates somebody that I think would make a better president than Mitt Romney, I’ll vote for the Democrat. If my party doesn’t, and the Republican Party nominates Romney, I might well vote for him." LINK--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:55, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Card commentary from 2012:

    ...I’m not a Republican, and there were lots of things in the Republican Convention that reminded me why I became a Democrat in 1976.

    But in this year of continuing economic decline — a decline that at this point is almost entirely caused by government “remedies,” just like the Depression of the 1930s — the contrast between the candidates could not be more clear.

    Romney and Ryan stand for making the tough, grown-up choices and fixing broken government programs, so that the safety net will actually be there when today’s young people need it — without taking it away from those now depending on it.

    They stand for creating a climate in which people can — by their own choices and their own work — raise themselves and their families to ever-higher levels of achievement.

    Obama stands for keeping certain groups in permanent victimhood, so they will always feel entitled to take what they “deserve” from others.

    Here’s the choice: Let’s say you make ten thousand dollars a year less than your family really needs. Life is a constant scramble of trying to find extra work, of doing without things, shopping for bargains, borrowing and scrimping. You don’t know how you’ll be able to get your kids through high school, let alone get them into college.

    Here come Romney and Ryan, and they promise that they’ll create an economic climate in which you have a decent chance to get a better job, or at least earn the extra money you need; you’ll get raises, and in three years you’ll have that additional ten thousand a year.

    But other people will probably make fantastically more money than you. You’ll get enough, more than enough — but a few other people will get ridiculously rich.

    Next, Obama and Biden show up and, from their track record, you know that in three more years, you’ll probably be making a little less than you are now — but at least you can chop those rich people down to size, so that nobody is making enough.

    In fact, that’s why you can’t make more money — because the economy is shrinking as “excess” money is taken away from the “greedy” people whose “selfish” spending fuels the whole economic jalopy.

    Your life will be even harder — but at least the rich won’t be so rich, either. (Unless they happen to be really good friends with Obama or his buddies, but the press won’t tell you about them.)

    In other words, Romney and Ryan promise you the Politics of Prosperity — as long as you work hard to try to improve your own situation.

    While Obama and Biden promise you the Politics of Spite — you won’t prosper, but at least the people who have more than you do will be cut down to size.

    Which would you rather have in the Olympics of life? A decent chance to run your own race? Or the “satisfaction” of seeing the people who are ahead of you in the race get tripped up or shoved out of bounds?

    Prosperity or Spite — that’s the choice this November.

    Unfortunately, a Republican victory will bring a lot of other Republican nonsense into play as well. But we’ve had the Democratic nonsense for the past three-and-a-half years, and frankly, I’m not impressed.”

    LINK

    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:11, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

  • Third opinion: It does not make sense to describe party affiliation unless the biographed person is a current member of a party and either holds office or runs as a candidate for the party. Even if he is a current member but does not speak as a candidate or office holder for the party, his affiliation may not be sufficiently relevant to include in the lead or infobox.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:38, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Fourth opinion: Where "politics" makes up a major part of a BLP (one major section directly, and about a third of the rest tangentially including the entire "opinion" section), it is reasonable to include self-identification relating to politics. This is not a person who hides his political views at all, thus the affiliation is relevant. Collect (talk) 19:56, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
This would be the case perhaps if the person was notable for his or her politics, or if the identification was consistent. Tagging someone who is merely self described as a democrat but who is not an actual affiliate of the party and tends to vote against it as a party member in the infobox is a clearly misleading and an abuse of the purpose of the infobox which is to provide information at a glance. This does not work when reality is more complex than a single word. Selfidentification is a requirement for categorization, but it is not always enough.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
If he is not noted for his opinions, why do they take up a third of his entire BLP? Collect (talk) 20:58, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Why was this listed at 3O? There were already three opinions in this discussion and two of them were that the parameter did not belong. HSG has got to do better than posting endless walls-of-text about his personal OSC fanaticism - he's got to either get community consensus to change how the parameter is used across the encyclopedia, or achieve local consensus to supersede it here when we don't do it for people who are actually known for their politics. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:01, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Geez, Empirically, no such community decision to delimit party to pols had been reached. Entered "infobox", "columnist" into WP search box. A handful of entries down list of results? "Lizabeth Scott." Gotta be a gazillion such non-pol instances thru-out the project, yeah?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:02, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Support inclusion of political party in infobox. The only guidance we have from the documentation of {{Infobox person}} says concisely, "If relevant". I think it's all too clear that Card's political party is relevant. I don't think any reader expects that the infobox will tell a complex and nuanced story, but it is their right to get basic facts such as this, as long as the article tells the rest. Elizium23 (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
I think that determining relevance requires consultation of how we handle this elsewhere. Based on how infoboxes are used in articles about LPs that individual users aren't obsessed with, "if relevant" seems to me obviously to imply "if a politician." We're not labeling George Clooney or even Rush Limbaugh in their infoboxes. I think this sort of change can't be done piecemeal across a bunch of random BLPs; some consensus to greatly broaden the use of the parameter would have to emerge first. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:12, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
Is there some kind of a consensus against it? Has it been discussed at length on Talk:George Clooney and ruled out as an option? It seems to me that the phrasing "If relevant" leads to a large spectrum of interpretation. For instance, I don't agree with yours. I think that if you want to narrow the scope of the field then the onus is on you to achieve WP:CONSENSUS to do so. Do it on WT:BIO or MOS:BIO if you want broad discussion. Run an RFC or something. Currently you have no consensus here. Elizium23 (talk) 21:40, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
I disagree that the person advocating the status quo is the one who needs to go out and seek support for it. The prevailing interpretation of the infobox is that it's for politicians. I think you'd probably have to make an argument for including Card's affiliation even under a broader prevailing interpretation of "if relevant" since, as Bennetto pointed out, his unusual political opinions are of more note than his party. Now, I've reiterated my points several times and I see little point in continuing, so I recommend that if you wish to change the status quo, you continue to try to seek consensus. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:56, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
It might be helpful referring to the conversation from the previous time I removed it mentioned in at the top of this section. At the time someone had changed the info box to say he was Republican based on his writings. Others had argued that no, he's claimed to be a Democrat, that's what he is. I suggested removing it from the info box entirely, a couple people agreed, I did, and that was it for a couple years until Hodgdon's secret garden added it back (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Orson_Scott_Card&diff=next&oldid=565497684). So I'd say I returned it to the prior consensus (albeit belatedly as I didn't notice the change).
In terms of the WP policy: as was pointed out above the question is whether the information is relevant. It seems to me that means that anything in an infobox should, standing alone, significantly adds to someone's understanding of the subject. The names of OSC's parents are valid infobox fields, for example, and are listed in the article, but aren't included as the names alone have little meaning. That's true for party affiliation as well. It's a self-identification he's made a very few times amidst his extensive writing; if anything it creates a false impression. Is anyone honestly claiming that telling most people OSC is a Democrat (without including more discussion) will help in their understanding of him? Bennetto (talk) 18:50, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
Wall-o'-text(!) reply - Hi Bennetto. Thanks so much for the belated explanation. Yes, I suppose your edit now at least makes a modicum of sense: If readers are to equate Card with extremist or otherwise borderline politics, then the mere mention of his political affiliation might be misleading.

That said, I think this premise I've posited itself to be bogus. I don't think Card's politics should be assumed to be that far out of the mainstream, across the "spectrum." Sure, Card's has loudly vocal his angst regarding the "homosexual agenda" etc. etc., whatever those things mean for him. And, a good way to advocate on behalf of gay rights is to marginalize people such as Card.

Such politics words. People like David Duke are marginalized so that others avoid the same fate and the culture progresses. That's how it works. Sociology 101, I suppose. Thus, of course, we assume D.Duke "out of the mainstream" despite whatever Duke's actual views may be about whatever mundane politcal issue outside the part of the spectrum dealing with civil rights. And, during the Red Scare, those on the left who in some way had been fellow travelers of, say, Leon Trotsky were successfully marginalized in the United States as well.

But it's not an encyclopedia's business to align its articles with such subtle shadings, in my opinion. Rather, it is simply to report the facts and reveal complications, allowing readers draw their own conclusions (...eg Hitler wasn't mean to his pet dog and we must make of that whatever we will...).

... ... ...

So, if Card isn't "out of the mainstream" across the Conservative or Liberal spectrum(s), what ARE his politics? I quickly one of Card's own website for such a characterization and the first one I surfed across, by a "commenter", is what follows.

"[...Card] believe that a benevolently authoritarian dictatorship is preferable to a pandering democracy. Card's a socialist, which is why he opposes the Republican Party's financial stance; however, he's also a committed member of the Religious Right -- and therefore feels alienated from many of the social libertarians who've fled to the Democrats since the '60s. [Bill] Clinton, as a social libertarian and economic conservative, must have been Card's worst nightmare -- and I think a lot of his [Card's] lingering nastiness towards Democrats in general is just a symptom of the loathing that Clinton seemed to inspire in many such people. [...]" LINK

I observed that Card seems, in some sense, to be looking for some kinda "inspired" authoritarianism(...?). After all, Card has been greatly influenced by his religious beliefs (and conservative culture) in his politics. That said, Card is a self-described liberal (meaning a "blue dog"/moderate?).

In any case, what follows is a Card qt. I found rgdg his politics, from a decade ago:

"Is [Card's fellow Mormon] Mitt Romney the Best Candidate?

"I have no idea. I don't know enough about the other candidates -- or about Mitt Romney, for that matter. Just as I hope no one will reject him because he's a Mormon, I am not going to support him just because he's a Mormon.

"I'm a Democrat. I would be really grateful if my party would nominate somebody who doesn't make my skin crawl just thinking of them in the White House (i.e., someone who isn't Hillary Clinton). I'm still looking long and hard at Barack Obama.

"If there were a chance that Joe Lieberman could get the Democratic nomination, he'd be my candidate this year no matter whom the Republicans nominated.

"On the Republican side, I'm looking long and hard at Giuliani. McCain, on the other hand, is so volatile, so unreliable, so self-serving that despite his noble war record and his ironclad stance on the need to win the War on Terror, I would have a hard time choosing him over anybody but Hillary.

"In short, I'm still making up my mind."

By the way, in this same essay, Card went on at some length about his observations regarding Mormonism and politics.

"[...] I'm a Mormon public figure, of sorts, and I know a few others. And I'm aware of exactly how the Church hierarchy deals with public figures.

"A writer like me is a constant target of meddling middle-level bureaucrats who seem to think that their job in life is to afflict me for anything I write that wouldn't be appropriate to put in a Sunday school lesson. But in all the years of low-level harassment, the actual Church authorities, in Salt Lake and locally, have always stood by my right to do my job as I see fit.

"Government figures are more like sports figures in the way they get treated: Mid-level Mormons suck up to them mercilessly. But, once again, the higher-level authorities leave them alone to do their jobs.

"Do you want proof? Look at the career of Reed Smoot. He was as reactionary a Republican Senator as you could hope to find back in the early 1900s -- a tariff-loving protectionist. He was also not just a Mormon, but a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the second-highest governing body in the Church.

"At the time, the President of the Church, Heber J. Grant, was a Democrat. Other leading Church authorities were Democrats. Nobody told Smoot how to vote in Congress.

"Or a more recent example: Ezra Taft Benson, who served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower. Benson was also one of the Twelve, but if anybody thinks he paid the slightest attention to anything the other Church leaders said to him, you don't know anything.

"Even today, when the Church seems to have adopted the Republican Party as their favorite stepchild, there have been prominent Mormons who are obviously not being told how to vote or govern. My proof: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a Mormon and a Democrat, and some of the stuff he's done just makes Mormon Republicans insane.

"Frankly, folks, I'd be a lot more worried about George Soros telling a Democratic President how to govern than the Mormon Church trying to control a Mitt Romney presidency.

"But let's suppose that the Mormon Prophet did tell Mitt Romney what to do. What would their instructions be? What do Mormons want the United States to do?

"Well, the most important political goal of the Mormon Church is for every nation on earth to have freedom of religion, so people can freely learn about, teach, and choose to join or leave any church.

"And since Mormon missionaries don't go into war zones, the Church would also appreciate it if we could avoid war whenever possible.

"Beyond that, the Mormon Church would like the tax exemption for religious buildings and enterprises to remain in place."

"The Mormon Church believes that abortion should be far less available than it is, and that marriage, as recognized by government, should be exclusively between a man and a woman.

"Think about that. If Mitt Romney is elected President, and he does what the Mormon Church tells him to do, we'll have peace and freedom around the world, religions will continue to have a tax exemption, marriage will continue to mean what it has always meant unless the people vote otherwise, and the federal government wouldn't be in the business of protecting a woman's right to kill unborn babies right up to the moment of birth.

"There are millions of people who want that exact list of things! And they didn't even need the Mormon prophet to tell them so.

"The Mormon Church doesn't tell its members whom to vote for, and doesn't tell elected officials how to do their jobs. Except that they should be honest. So I guess Bill Clinton would have had a problem. Good thing he wasn't Mormon. [... ... ...]" - Orson Scott Card, March 18, 2007 LINK

Hmm. So, Card could have been a Guiliani guy? who is social liberal and pro-business conservative? But, Card greatly preferred Joe Lieberman (left-of-center guy both socially and economically who is definately not a pacifist/isolationist)? ...

I have no idea if Card has ever really got behind a N. Carolina Democrat for Congress or statewide office. Gotta google up whatev N.C. names immediately spring to mind...

  1. "My first North Carolina election was Jim Hunt's challenge to Senator Jesse Helms. I watched the debate hoping, as a Democrat, to see Helms go down. But Helms -- who was, by any measure, by far the more extremist candidate in his political record -- appeared amused, avuncular, happy. Meanwhile, he calmly said things that goaded Jim Hunt into getting angrier and angrier." - Orson Scott Card March 21, 2010 LINK
  2. "Kerrey is a credible candidate for the Democrats -- a senator with a real record of service. If he is nominated and wins the election, Democrats won't have to be embarrassed.

    "And as Gephardt bows out -- probably a victim of his own political maneuvering over the campaign in Iraq as much as anything -- it's worth pointing out that just because a career ends with a whimper does not erase the good fights he fought in his many years of public service.

    "The shock to me is that Iowans would vote in such numbers for Edwards, a man who has never actually served in any public office. (He was elected Senator, but his contribution to that legislative body is invisible.) Then again, they are much more likely to know John Edwards than anybody in North Carolina is, since Edwards wrote this state off the moment we put him in the Senate."

    - Orson Scott Card, January 18, 2004 LINK

  • OK, whatever.

    Nevertheless, are Card's politics REALLY necessarily all that complicated for a pundit's? See my quote by Andrew Sullivan up above--who gets on lists as one of the most influential of liberals yet calls himself conservative. That's the nature of the beast. Sullivan's fellow "libertarians" who are Mormon (instead of Sullivan's Catholicism) include: self-described rodeo clown Glenn Beck, who has declined ever to campaign against SSM; John Dehlin, who is very active in his pro-SSM acitivism (tho himself heterosexual); the (also hetero, and Republican) law school professor Nathan Oman, who seems to believe that a case can be made for SSM as something social conservatives perhaps should support(? LINK).

    On the "left" are, of course, pro-life Harry Reed (who only recently changed over to supporting SSM LINK), and ...<laughs> Orson Scott Card!

    (ps - sorry again for my excessive length here!)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:31, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

This sort of thing is why I keep saying that putting it in the infobox seems to be more about your deep personal interest in and love for Card than any semblance of a relation to Wikipedia policy. What are these quotes supposed to prove other than your own personal knowledge of the venues in which Card has published and been quoted? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:19, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Reply to Roscelese - W/rgd "This sort of thing". Hmmmm. Are you using coded language hoping to ghettoize contributors merely hailing from a religious minority in common with that of a blp subject? There's simply gonna be lots of people with LDS backgrounds contributing to this article simply because there are lots of us. Self-identifying Jews equal 1.7% of the US and so do self-identifying Mormons (altho I am no longer among 'em) and about half of the world's Jewry live in the US just as do about half of the world's Mormons. To be safe, see wp:BIAS about sensitivity to the amount of ideological neutrality that will be ideal among WP contributors. The end-all be-all is simply that all those who may be interested in whatever topics are certainly more than encouraged to contribute in a neutral manner to articles upon them, full stop. The "love for Card" was offensive for the simple reason I harbor little. I'm coincidentally also of the leftist but, opposed to Card, am more of the pacifistic or isolationistic variety. I mean, Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson? Jos. I. Lieberman? No thank you, please. In any case, OSC is demonstratably a talented writer. I can only speak myself of his non-fiction tho: I've read his two published tomes on writing; oh and I also used to glance at his Sun. Deseret News Nat'l edition column on occasion, as my mom would have the weekly national edition sent to me. (Many in my family are Mormons altho I'm Buddhist.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
HSG, I think giving you more opportunities to pontificate about your own feelings and Card trivia is counterproductive to achieving consensus. I'm going to start an RFC below, since we're still a bit deadlocked here; please limit yourself when commenting there. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:58, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
I don't know if there's much point arguing here any more, but (lest someone reading this imagine his only conservative stance is his opposition to SSM) a better indication of his views is from his essays at [3]. Nearly every one is an attack on the the "Leftist media," the Left, or Obama, and nearly everyone espouses conservative views. One of the few essays that supports the traditionally liberal side of an issue is about immigration [4] but he still can't bring himself to praise the Democrats or liberals for their views. Instead he says
Here is the punishment that Republicans have already received for their harsh, unforgiving attitude toward illegal immigrants, and the ugly anti-hispanic rhetoric and policies they have endorsed or tolerated: They have lost elections they should have won, and now live in a country much worse governed than it needed to be, because the Democratic Party has been able to count on the votes of those that the Republican Party has shoved away.
In other words, he believes that Democrats being elected has hurt the country. And that's really the point, not OSC's specific views on issues but the relationship with the party itself, or at least its candidates and politicians. You bring up "Jim Hunt's challenge to Senator Jesse Helms" as an example of his support for a Democrat; that was 30 years ago. Kerry and Gephardt were 10 years ago, and his comments on them could only barely be called praise. I haven't seen a single positive comment from him on any current Democrat or word of support on the party itself in recent years. Have you? Bennetto (talk) 17:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Hmm. Well, Card waxes eloquent in praise of Georgia's lt. gov. Zell Miller here. Of course, we contributors to WP are not ourselves sources so follows self-ID in such matters in blp's, other than to quote actual sources' characterizations. Card btw is (1) a critic of unrestrained capitalism (2) is anti-gun (3) is pro-immigration (4) is a critic of fans of segregationism who (use language-coding to) race-bait, etc.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

No one has replied in a the past day, so I reread the entire thread and each of the references at least in part and did some more research on the web and current practice in wikipedia. I think I’ve gained a better understanding of OSC’s opinions but haven’t changed my opinion on the issue.

First, there’s the issue of current practice. Roscelese has requested examples of non-politicians with a party in the infobox, and Hodgdon's secret garden stated "Roscelese, one, you well know that party is cited in all sorts of blp infoboxes, not just those of politicians” and later produced one:

Geez, Empirically, no such community decision to delimit party to pols had been reached. Entered "infobox", "columnist" into WP search box. A handful of entries down list of results? "Lizabeth Scott." Gotta be a gazillion such non-pol instances thru-out the project, yeah?

So I went hunting through Category:20th-century_American_novelists and Category:21st-century_American_novelists, clicking on a few dozen names at random, and found none that listed a political party. I looked for names I recognized there, and found one with a party, the politician Newt Gingrich. No one else I looked at listed a party in the infobox, even authors with politics mentioned in the article such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Philip K. Dick, and Robert A. Heinlein. So this situation of listing a party for an author seems highly unusual.

And I went further, looking through Category:American_political_pundits to find examples, first clicking randomly and then looking at those whose views I knew, going through George Frederick Will, Rush Limbaugh, Amy Goodman, Oliver North, Arianna Huffington and P._J._O'Rourke all without finding a mention of party in an infobox, before finally reaching Ann Coulter. She’s a Republican.

Hodgdon's secret garden has written extensively here on OSC's views but was only able to provide one example of a non-politician with an infoboxed party; I have to believe he hasn’t had more success than I. The only conclusion is that listing a party in an infobox for a non-politician is highly unusual in current practice.

But the page Template:Infobox_person says "If relevant”. Collect said:

Fourth opinion: Where "politics" makes up a major part of a BLP (one major section directly, and about a third of the rest tangentially including the entire "opinion" section), it is reasonable to include self-identification relating to politics. This is not a person who hides his political views at all, thus the affiliation is relevant.

It’s true that OSC is known for his political views so those are relevant, but he is not known party identification, so that is not. And while affiliation might be relevant, OSC doesn’t affiliate with the party at all. I haven’t seen any reference of support for the Democratic party of any Democratic candidates on any level. What I have seen is that

  • Although he’s best known for and most vocal about his conservative views and support of Republican politicians, this doesn’t tell the whole story and he has other views as well. He believes deeply in the importance of acting to help our communities and not merely selfishly (the communitarian thing that HSG calls proto-communist) but I believe that belief exists across the political spectrum.
  • He may share views with blue-dog democrats (a minority within the party) but again, I’ve seen nothing to suggest he supports any specific Democrats matching that label or any group within the party.
  • He states clearly he is not a Republican and expresses distastes for certain (rarely-mentioned) aspects of the Republican party.
  • He was a Democrat, but believes the party has changed its views, saying they “kicked [him] out” and he is “really a man without a party”. He’s upset that they get to keep the label, and he doesn’t.

Of the references HSG lists above (around nine), all but two are ambiguous, either not actually mentioning the Democratic party, talking about past connection while disclaiming it in the present. The remaining two:

"OSC never ceases to surprise me. He is a Democrat, a self-described “communitarian” who favors the Iraq war, opposes SSM and opposes Mitt Romney.”

The link to the original National Review interview is broken, so it’s hard to really discuss this; if someone can find a link that would be great.

And finally:

Card commentary from 2007: "...consider carefully: Senator Harry Reid of Nevada is also a Mormon. As far as I know, he’s a Mormon in good standing. And he’s a Democrat — a liberal Democrat, on most issues.
If Salt Lake City is telling Mormon politicians what to do, they’re sure giving Harry Reid a different set of instructions from those they’ve been giving to Mitt Romney.
Like Harry Reid, I’m a Democrat. If my own party nominates somebody that I think would make a better president than Mitt Romney, I’ll vote for the Democrat. If my party doesn’t, and the Republican Party nominates Romney, I might well vote for him.”

This is in the middle of an article about the definition of a Christian with reference to LDS; it’s about claiming labels. But still, that one statement seven years ago (pre-Obama, who he frequently attacks) is the only place HSG has found where OSC unambiguously said that he is a Democrat. It certainly doesn’t say anything about any sort of support for the party.

So OSC self-identifies as a Democrat, but it’s a pretty weak identification at that (again note his quotes that they “kicked me out” and he’s a “man without a party”). His politics are relevant (I'll support finding a way to describe his political views in the infobox). But his qualified self-identification with a party he no longer supports is not. Bennetto (talk) 18:30, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Bennetto, I appreciate your research. Card doesn't have to unilaterally support a party he claims membership in; he's a essayist/columnist, after all, not a party functionary.(Btw, the reason I put "infobox, Democrat" into the search box is because a lot of articles have no or merely nominal infoboxes and I wouldn't want to run afoul of wp:OTHERTHINGS.) In any case, the original NRO link should be easy to find. I'll be right back. Thanks. --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:44, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
This one? [5]--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:46, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Good summary Bennetto. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:22, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
OK. Here is the full link (pdf) from Nat'l Rev.[6]--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:24, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the link, so the person who unambiguously said he was a Democrat in the first quote I referred to is doing it based on another article you'd quoted, one that stated he was registered as a Democrat but quoted OSC as being "man without a party." So has the same ambiguity. As a final point (since you asked about policy earlier) Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Infoboxes states that "The less information [an infobox] contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." That suggests to me that the default is minimal information and the burden of finding consensus lies on those wanting to add more to the infobox. Bennetto (talk) 06:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
Actually the summary at Millennial Star (w/rgd Card's then opposition to Romney, Card's communitarianism, etc. etc.) summarized an audio interview with Card hosted at NRO, to which indeed the link IS broken. Maybe it can be found. I'll look.

So it can be agreed then that there exists no prohibition on political affiliations in non-pol infoboxes? (I.e.--wp:OTHERSTUFF be damned--we observe from the list I first gave after seconds of searching included a non-pol or two after about its third or fourth link; then my second super quick check produced another; and then finally, your own very quick check found the blp for Coulter.) Another way to check community practice, however, is to examine feature articles. Here is one for Jack Warner (who, like Card, is noted for his political views, per Jack_Warner#Political_views.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Nope, the link to Nat'l Review's Miller's podcast with Card is broken at the NRO. LINK--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 16:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)


(non-trivial!...) Sources rgding Card's (self-described) "communitarianism", resulting, per Card, from worldview adopted from his faith

  1. Notre Dame poly sci prof. David Campbell, John C. Green and J. Quin Monson, on Mormon "communitarianism"[7]--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:52, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  2. From "liberal" Utah intellectual journal SunStone (incidentally, venue at which Card at very first broached[8] his anti- "gay agenda" views):

    "[...] The uneven and inorganic nature of capitalism's development in the U.S. along with the persistence of an agricultural economy and culture well into this century, allowed for developments on the periphery of capitalism not unlike the emergence of socialist movements in Russia and China at the end of the last century and in the first decades of this century. This unevenness also allowed for an uneven and, in the best reading, critical appropriation of Enlightenment ideas. Thus we see, in Joseph Smith and others (perhaps most notably Orson Pratt), an Enlightenment materialism combined with the "magic world view" (as D. Michael Quinn puts it). Incidentally, I believe that this combination--perhaps we should call it "magical materialism"--is best worked out in Orson Scott Cards Alvin Maker and Ender Series. This theology, developing in Joseph's day and again today, was coherent (for the most part) and corresponded to certain significant structural features of the U.S. frontier--which was why Mormonism was successful in ways other new religious movements ultimately were not."[9]

    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:12, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  3. "But on economic matters, I’m a committed communitarian. I regard the Soviet Union as simply state monopoly capitalism. It was run the way the United States would be if Microsoft owned everything. Real communism has never been tried! I would like to see government controls expanded, laws that allow capitalism to not reward the most rapacious, exploitative behavior. I believe government has a strong role to protect us from capitalism. I’m ashamed of our society for how it treats the poor. One of the deep problems in Mormon society is that really for the last 75 years Mormons have embraced capitalism to a shocking degree." --Card, in Salon magazine, 2004[10]--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

  4. "I once received a Libertarian award. While I didn’t decline it, I was baffled: Who could read my fiction and think of it as anything but to-the-bones communitarian in perspective?

    -- Can you define communitarian for me?

    "Well, the word I used to use was communist – small-C communist. Marxism/Leninism was by no means communism, they knew that themselves. What they were was climax capitalism. One owner. Capitalism where the capitalist owner is the state.

    "Whereas what I believe in – you have to realise that growing up Mormon we all live in these little villages. Our Mormon wards, our congregations, our parishes. For instance, right now in my ward, I’m second counsellor in the bishopric. That means that I’m involved in the key decisions in the ward, and I understand how absolutely powerless the leadership is without the willingness of the members of the congregation to do what they’re asked to do. To get excited about even the humblest of what we call the callings. And some people get confused and think they’re on a career track, ever rising. Those people are going to be very unhappy, because almost no one in the church has that kind of career track. What we have is, one moment you’re in the leadership, then you’re teaching a class, then you’re being a clerk, then you’re helping put a roof on somebody’s house, or doing yard work for them. I find that as a bishopric member, I’m as likely to end up going round the church building after everybody else has gone, emptying all of the garbage cans and taking them out to the dumpster – you begin to get a sense that you’ll do whatever it is the community needs. That’s what we’re raised on, in the Mormon church. We go out into the world, we might have lovely, splashy careers, or very humble careers. But Mormons tend to end up in middle management – every now and then there’s a Mitt Romney, but even then he was helped along. You can find an occasional phenomenally rich Mormon, but most of the time Mormons rise to a certain position in a company and then they refuse to accept a job promotion that requires a transfer. And why? Because their kids are in high school. Their priority is their family, their kids don’t want to move, so they don’t move. They turn down the promotion because their life isn’t about their worldly career, it’s about their life in the community, it’s their life in their family.

    "That’s the perspective I bring to my fiction – that that is the ideal life. In a way, whether we know we do or not, I think we all live in those communities, it’s just we’re trained by our culture to pretend we don’t, to be rugged individualists, or to try to have careers where we get to dominate other people. But that doesn’t work. What works is making sacrifices for the good of the whole, as long as everyone else is also making sacrifices. That’s what works. So without meaning to, that’s what I’ve found myself writing. I don’t have to preach it, because honest storytelling for me will always lead to that place.

    "So: what it means to me to be a communitarian is you find a good community – and immediately we hit the philosophical problem of infinitely receding definitions of “good”, it’s impossible to define good without using the term in its own definition, which means it’s not a definition at all, but we won’t go into logic 101 here. What matters to me is you have a community you believe in and care about, and then you subsume your own interests in helping bring about the continuation and expansion of that good community. Furthering its goals. If the community is not good, then you try to repair it. If it becomes irredeemibly not good, then you leave it, and you find another, or try to build another. So the communitarian is not a blind believer in the community. He still has individual standards, and he judges the community by those standards. But to the degree possible he tries to shape the community so it fulfils those standards, and then if it can’t, he tries to build a separate community or a community within that one, that keeps the standards."[11]

    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:25, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Cmt - Don't think it much a coincidence Card's politics align so well with those rather consistently expressed by US Roman Catholic cardinals: pro-immigration, sceptical of excesses of free enterprise, less than careful in verbiage rgding homosexuality. I'd term Card is 80% "Archbishop Bergogliovian" (ha ha, my humorous after the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires) with an additional admixture of 20% Norman Podhoretzianism. (Catholic bishops aren't that big on war.)

    So-called nat'l security issues are extremely important to Card, apparently. (Indeed, he'd surely consider his fellow "socialist" Noam Chomsky a panderer to terrorists. But truly, rather than to Podheretz, Card would likely hold more common political viewpoints with Dem. activist Alan Dershowitz. See on WP, Alan_Dershowitz#Views.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:52, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

His views are stated as "anti-gay" as if it was a fact

The page doesn't make it clear that this is the ref's opinion on his views - written that way, it is stated as a fact. Forgive me if this is the 1000nth time this question is asked, but what is the standard approach that Wikipedia adopts to prevent that any opinion expressed by any ref. is taken at face-value? I propose that either "his anti-gay views" is renamed as "his views" or it is somehow made apparent that it is the ref's opinion. Immanuel797979 (talk) 18:06, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The edit in question is here in the "Views about homosexuality" section. The section starts with "Card has publicly declared his opposition to homosexuality..." and the line is referenced, so the use of "anti-gay views" later in the section does not seem out of line. Publicly stating that you are against homosexuality seems anti-gay (it's certainly not pro-gay, or even neutral). I'm not going to quote them, but some of his past statements are clearly anti-gay.
The disputed line "An LGBT group, Geeks OUT!, proposed a boycott of the film due to Card's anti-gay views," refers to what Geeks OUT! is saying, and both references use the term "anti-gay" or "antigay". It's not the refs' opinions so much as their report of the claims of Geek's OUT! The line could be reworded to clarify that Geeks OUT! is interpreting Card's views as anti-gay, but it seems like hair splitting to me. Opinions? Meters (talk) 19:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
The obvious point being that gay people and homosexual behavior are not the same thing. Traditionally, the reason why religious conservativism is hostile to homosexuality is because of its inherent sterility - the same criticism applies to heterosexuals who willingly choose not to procreate.
But I'm digressing. Bottom line is, I don't think O.S.C. is against people with homosexual tendencies. We could potentially change it "proposed a boycott of the film due to Card's view on homosexuality" or "proposed a boycott of the film calling Card's view anti-gay". The distinction may seem trivial, but it's what some activists use to imply the difference between opinion and hate. It's pretty important. Immanuel797979 (talk) 22:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
"Is he against gay people or does he only think they're pedophiles and criminals" is a pointless line of inquiry. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
(e.c.)Do religious conservatives suggest that heterosexuals who willingly choose not to procreate should not be "permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens..." (as Card once said of some homosexuals)? Isn't your digression a bit like claiming someone doesn't dislike, say, pedophiles themselves, only their actions? Or that someone doesn't dislike Protestants/Catholics/Jews/Muslims/Mormons/women/men/the elderly/children/Blacks/Whites/Asians/etc., only when they act protestant/catholic/jewish/muslim/mormon/female/male/old/young/black/white/asian/etc.?
Your opinion of what Card is or isn't against is really not the point. Do you have sources to show that he distinguishes between his opinions of homosexuals and his opinions of homosexual activity? If so let's use them. The two refs discussed above call his views anti-gay, and at least one of the other sources used in this section calls him anti-gay. Based on what we have in the article it does not seem unfair to use the term. I don't object to using either of your proposed clarifications of the statement, but I'd like to see other editors' opinions before we do so. Meters (talk) 23:24, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
There's a source right here: in his (in)famous essay The Hypocrites of Homosexuality that you quoted above, Card clearly distinguishes between tendencies toward various degree of 'sin' (as defined by the Latter-day Saints Church) and the person; he writes,
"I am walking a middle way, which condemns the sin but loves the sinner. Apparently this cannot satisfy those who either hate the sinner or love the sin; both are equally enraged by my unacceptable posture."
and
"I learned that being homosexual does not destroy a person's talent or deny those aspects of their character that I had already come to love and admire."
One can disagree with a person over their lifestyle without actually hating him/her.
As for your examples, tendency toward a certain behavior does not automatically imply that behavior, just like most people attempt in various ways to control their instincts when aiming for specific goals. Immanuel797979 (talk) 23:58, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
I have no issue with the proposed change by Immanuel797979. Seems to present the same point without the possible pov issue described. Morphh (talk) 17:38, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the input. It's been more than long enough for anyone who opposed the change to state it, so I've made the change. Meters (talk) 17:52, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

RFC: Should we include his political party in the infobox?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure, which states that an involved editor may close a discussion in the case of a reasonably clear consensus, I will close this as consensus not to include Card's political party in the infobox. This is more or less a procedural close as the 3:1 consensus has already been implemented on the page. If you feel that this close was improper and would prefer to have an uninvolved admin close, please feel free to undo. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:34, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Should the infobox at the top of the Orson Scott Card article contain a parameter identifying his registered political party (Democratic)? Users in favor argue that Card's political views have received very significant notice in the press and that the parameter is thus relevant to include in the infobox, while users opposed argue that it is extremely unusual to include this parameter for non-politicians and that sources talking about his views do so without dwelling on his party affiliation. Previous discussion at Talk:Orson_Scott_Card#Removed_party_affiliation_from_infobox is deadlocked. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:04, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


  • Support 1. It is well-sourced. 2. It is not "contentious." 3. Where a person has been heavily covered for his political views, the political association of the person is relevant. 4. It is not unusual for people who are heavily covered for their political views to have their political affiliation, if known, to be noted. Collect (talk) 23:09, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The inclusion of political parties in the infobox for anyone other than politicians is not standard practice and is extremely rare on Wikipedia, regardless of how well-known their views are or whether they are primarily known for their views. Sources discussing Card's politics do so primarily without reference to his membership in the Democratic party, except the occasional offhand mention of how it's funny that someone with these right-wing views is a Democrat. Card's politics are incidental to his notability, as he's notable for being a fantasy novelist, but we don't generally use this parameter even for people who are notable for their politics (eg. pundits). –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:31, 29 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. MOS:INFOBOX and H:IB both say that the content in an infobox should be "relevant", though they stop short of the language used for categorization ("defining characteristic"). If he were a politician, it would be relevant. For a science fiction author, I'm not entirely sure that it is. We generally don't make such a big deal of religious or political affiliation in an infobox. In this case, it seems uncontroversial to say that his religion is a major part of his notability and life. His political affiliation? Not so much. Like Roscolese says, it's usually mentioned as a "isn't that strange" footnote when it is even mentioned. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 00:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Party information in the infobox is rare for a non-politician. OSC has shown no support for the Democratic party or any candidate or politician in recent years (while he has voiced support for Republicans). Although he has stated he is a Democrat, he also stated the party "kicked me out" and that he's "a man without a party", so the self-identification is ambiguous. There may be cases where it's appropriate to list party in the infobox for a non-politician, but not for someone who offers no support for or connection with the party of any kind and only qualified self-identification. Bennetto (talk) 06:55, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose as irrelevant minutia. We already have language in the article to note Card's political views so there isn't a need to clutter the infobox with contentious claims. gobonobo + c 07:08, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Note [12] shows self-identification as a Democrat. [13] shows his distaste for Republicans, and calls himself "a Tony Blair Democrat". Collect (talk) 12:05, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Cmt - Trivia for a non-activist? (Also would not the info in the article body itself regarding Card's affinity for George W. Bush be "man bites dog" absent Card's well-established political history as a liberal? As, for what it's worth: the GWB years coincide with Card's newfound status as a so-called "bluedog" w regard to national US politics.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 16:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose I agree with everything Collect stated, but is it important to cover in the infobox? His party affiliation seems well covered in the politics section. I haven't followed or read the prior discussion, so I'm weak on the issue, but per Roscelese's argument, I lean toward removal from the infobox. Morphh (talk) 15:01, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose — this is not unambiguous information, as attested by both the discussion on this page and the couple of paragraphs that deal with it in the article. I do not support including ambiguous information in infobox's, especially on BLP. —Asterisk*Splat→ 19:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Meh It's not a big deal either way. The article has an entire section on his political affiliation, and after reading that I wouldn't sum it up as simply "Democrat". ~Adjwilley (talk) 03:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. Card's views the page presents deviate from those of a typical Democrat to the point where classifying him as such in the infobox would put the credibility of the entire article in question as far as I am concerned. Iaritmioawp (talk) 06:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - Usually I'd say no but since there's an entire section on it I see no harm having it in the infobox. –Davey2010 • (talk) 00:31, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - unless he starts campaigning for democrats, he's not generally considered a politician. It isn't relevant, and unless he does some action to change this, it isn't unambiguous enough to fit a clear answer in the infobox. ssd (talk) 06:11, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose We should definitely include Card's political party in the infobox—as soon as he joins one; until then, it's nothing but a piece of trivia akin to his height or his weight. If he were a basketball player, we'd want these two in the infobox, but he's not, and so we don't as per WP:IBT. We should also remove him from the North Carolina Democrats category. Iaritmioawp (talk) 06:34, 2 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Party ID should not be in the infobox of non-politicians. Fraulein451 (talk) 17:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Support - Though he's not a politician, he is a public speaker, columnist, and political activist, and politics play a significant role in each of these professions. Including his party affiliation in the info box will improve the page. Also, there is an entire section on politics––it obviously holds weight to have a section, so why no inclusion in the info box? Meatsgains (talk) 18:52, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Cmt At this point (other than the four of us originally involved in the discussion above, two on each side: Collect, Hodgdon's secret garden, Roscelese, and myself): there’s been one Support for the party in the infoxbox, one Meh, one Weak Oppose, and seven Oppose. And at the risk of over interpreting the comments, the Support seemed pretty weak (“I see no harm”) and the Meh seemed like it wanted something to change (“I wouldn’t sum it up as simply “Democrat””). So while the outside comments weren't complete consensus, they seemed a good indication that removing the party was the best course.

Instead Hodgdon’s secret garden replaced it with "Democratic (1976[2]–present; often votes independently).” This is neither verified (he’s never said anything about his voting record, only his support) and misleading (his support isn’t simply often independent, it is, in recent years, 100% for Republican candidates). After a month of argument he made the change with even an edit comment, let alone comment on the Talk page.

I think the only approach now is removing it until we can find something else to put in the infobox. HSG, if you’d like to suggest alternate wording, please do so on the talk page and we'll try to find consensus. Something like “Self-descibed Democrat; consistently supports Republican candidates” might work for me.Bennetto (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 17:10, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

  • cmt - Pt. taken, Bennetto, rgding support vs. voting record. In any case, you've probably read this summary of Card's politics here? Thanks.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:31, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose mentioning in the infobox given the inability to provide context, but perhaps mentioning it in the lede alongside a summary of the political views section would be appropriate. His political views due seem worthy of mention in the lede and thus his party affiliation would be a part of it.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 00:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)
  • If his politics (which I find personally reprehensible, as a background to what I have to say) are notable, then they should be included, no matter where on the spectrum they lay. What I mean is, if he has a history of campaigning on behalf of a given political party, and that activity has been reported on in a notable way, then it should be included--even if it makes the side I nominally support look bad. If, however, his political activity is NN or restricted to "I vote D in elections," then it doesn't seem particularly germane. Count me as support/oppose depending on which of those is the case. Ipsissima Verba (talk) 05:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
That seems to me to be Oppose, then. Not one has found any record of him at all of campaigning for any candidate, or any record of him verbally or financially supporting a Democrat over a Republican in at least a decade. He doesn't even say he votes Democrat, he just says he is one, and there is evidence (I don't know how current) that he registered that way. Bennetto (talk) 12:33, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
OK, I would take Ipsissima Verba's !vote as a Support, owing to Card's repeated vociferous advocacies on behalf of Sen. Jos. I. Lieberman (ind. D., Conn.) and of various other Democrats over the years. By the way, Sen. Lieberman never resigned his Dem. party affiliation; and, so that's indeed why there remained a "D." after his name; and, the "I" stood NOT for his party but to indicate Lieberman ran against his own party's nominee in the general (and, so, had to count on a plurality including any number of, yes, unaffil., but, also, Republican- and, also, fellow Democratic-party voters, in order to retain his seat. Note such a "D." in the designation would still be used even if a "Josiah F. Vonliebermann" had gone the 3rd-party route and had run as the nominee of some party named the Connecticut Farmers & Laborers party, then thereafter had changed his affil. to Dem. during the course of the next Congressional session. Namely, the "D." or the "R." after a senator's name only describes affil. and not whether or not some party or other had put the candidate on its line in the general election he or she had won. I'll come back with some "cites." Thanks.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:20, 15 November 2014 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

From the Boston Globe:

Lieberman, a Democrat who won reelection as an independent, also said he wants to be called an Independent Democrat.

A strong backer of the Iraq war, Lieberman was returned to office on Election Day with strong GOP support. He ran as an independent after he lost the Democratic primary in August to Ned Lamont.

He said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he will begin his new term as a Democrat because it would make him part of the congressional leadership. The senator is in line to become chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

"I'm going to caucus with the Democrats both because it's good for my constituents in Connecticut, because I retained my seniority, I become a committee chair, but also I want to continue to work to bring the party back to its historic traditions of strength on national security, foreign policy, and innovation and progress in domestic policy," Lieberman said.

He said that because voters returned him to Capitol Hill as an independent, "I am now an Independent Democrat -- capital I, capital D. Matter of fact, the secretary of the Senate called my office and asked, 'How do you want to be identified,' and that's it. Independent Democrat," the senator said.

With many Senate Democrats having campaigned or raised money for Lamont, as the party's nominee, Lieberman acknowledged that it might be "a little awkward" for him back in Washington.

"They played by the traditional partisan political playbook. And I can't say I enjoyed it, but we're all grown-ups, we've got a job to do, and I'm going to do my best to get that job done," Lieberman said.

Democrats will hold a 51-49 edge in the Senate, so Lieberman, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, could find himself courted by Republicans.

He was asked about the possibility that he might switch caucuses if he became uncomfortable as Democrats sought to enforce party discipline, particularly if the GOP offered to keep him as a committee chairman and respect his seniority.

"I'm not ruling it out, but I hope I don't get to that point. And, and I must say, and with all respect to the Republicans who supported me in Connecticut, nobody ever said, 'We're doing this because we, we want you to switch over,' " he said.

"I believe that the American people are considering both major political parties to be in a kind of probation, because they're understandably angry that Washington is dominated too much by partisan political games, and not enough by problem-solving and patriotism, which means put the country and your state first," Lieberman said.

In 2001, Senator James Jeffords [Addition by Hodgdon's secret garden: ("D.")] of Vermont abandoned the GOP and aligned himself with the Democrats, putting them in control of the evenly divided Senate. The switch made him a hero among Democrats and a traitor among Republicans.

Lieberman said Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia listed himself as an Independent Democrat in the late 1970s. Before that, the last senator to use the designation was in the mid-19th century, he said.

link

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:36, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
Note - OK I had to turn to Wikipedia to get a fuller picture: The article "Independent Democrat" explains Lieberman had indeed resigned from the larger Democratic party in Conn. to join a micro Conn. "3rd" party organized for the purpose of Lieberman's run; nonetheless he remained an "Independent Democrat" owing to his micro party's being aligned with the greater Democrat party. Phew! '~) --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:48, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
OK, I move to un-strike (restore) my opinion above. Card has supported Dems, including Lieberman--owing to the fact that the actual timeline of events turns out being that Lieberman WAS a full-on Democratic party candidate for president in '04, one whom Card, of course, very vocally supported. It was after Lieberman had dropped his candidacy for president then had lost his Dem. primary for the nomination to run again for the US Senate from Conn. that Lieberman changed affiliation to so-called independent. From the Daily Beast:

[Lieberman]: "I feel the Democratic Party left me. It was no longer the party it was when I joined it in the image of President Kennedy." Of course, a similar critique could be offered of the Republican Party, which has veered so sharply right that Jeb Bush said both his father and Ronald Reagan would have had a hard time in today’s party, which “doesn’t allow for disagreement.”

An observant Jew with a gentle demeanor, Lieberman was Connecticut’s attorney general in 1988 when he challenged incumbent senator Lowell Weicker, winning by 10,000 votes. He soon proved himself a political cross-dresser, teaming up with Reagan conservative Bill Bennett to crusade against crudeness in pop culture.

In 1998, as impeachment fever was building, Lieberman denounced Bill Clinton on the Senate floor, calling his behavior immoral and deceitful. Some Democrats saw it as an act of betrayal against his Yale Law School pal, who campaigned for Lieberman in his first run for state office in 1970.

But the following week Clinton called him on a Sunday morning, saying he had made a mistake with Monica Lewinsky and was working on it. When Lieberman was named the vice-presidential nominee in 2000, Clinton phoned with what amounted to absolution: “Because of that speech you gave about my problem, Al Gore is free to campaign on our record, not the mistakes I made.”

If Democrats warmed to Lieberman during his vice-presidential campaign —although some grumbled he was too passive in his debate with Dick Cheney—such feelings quickly dissipated when George W. Bush geared up to invade Iraq. As the war effort turned sour, Lieberman doggedly argued for staying the course. He says that withdrawal would have been a “devastating blow” for American credibility.

As some Democrats derided his hawkish stance, “I felt incredibly alienated,” Lieberman says. “It wasn’t just that they disagreed with me, but somehow I had committed just a terrible sin—because I was on the same side as George Bush.”

At the president walked down the aisle for his State of the Union address, “we gave each other a hug. Allegedly a kiss. A kiss did not occur, in my experience.”

Little wonder that Lieberman’s 2004 presidential campaign had been an embarrassing flop; he was simply out of step with a liberal electorate. When he sat down in his Georgetown home to plan his 2006 reelection bid, media adviser Carter Eskew gave him some sobering news.

“I’m worried about whether you’re going to win the Democratic primary,” Eskew said. "I think you should run as an independent."

He leaves the scene as a man without a home, who somehow migrated from being Al Gore’s running mate to a star speaker at John McCain’s Republican convention.

Lieberman replied that he’d always been a Democrat and there was no way he would voluntarily give that up. “If they want to kick me out, let them kick me out,” he declared.

“Words I came to eat,” Lieberman says now.

Eskew recalls the moment. “I don’t think you had to be a genius to realize he was in deep trouble in the Democratic Party in Connecticut,” he says.

[... ... ...]

link

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

So you're saying that the fact he supported a Democrat a bit over ten years ago - not against a Republican, just spoke fondly of his in a primary against fellow party members, and likes him still even though he's a little-bit-but-really-not a member of the party any more, and that he shares views with some Democratic politicians he hasn't cared enough about to endorse, and that who supports a prominent Democrat who died ten years ago, is, to quote Ipsissima Verba, "a history of campaigning on behalf of a given political party"? Seriously? Bennetto (talk) 07:57, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
cmt - <sighs> Bennetto, looks as tho editing opinion is coalescing in your favor: a case of the wisdom of crowds' susceptibility to ideological bias?). Look, Card's swan song as a Democrat is an important part of his biography; and, the fact Card tends to praise fellow dem.s (reid, etc) but in passing but rather to on at length run in praise of dem.s likewise in the midst of some swan song (Lieberman ...zell miller?) is also a part of of scott card's personal ideological scenario. This said, Where should a neutral encyclopedia draw the line in determining whether registered dems/repubs are to be considered "genuine"? Only through quoting opinion from sources, otherwise wikipedia must proceed in its regular npov fashion by simply stating the bald facts of actual party affiliations.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
If you want a clear standard, others have suggested the use of party in the infobox should be limited to politicians. While there are non-politicians in wikipedia with party in the infobox, they are a small fraction of the non-politicians who have declared a party. I favor something a bit more broad, limiting it to anyone who has worked or volunteered for the party in a significant way. I'm ok with including it for anyone who has given substantial verbal or monetary support for the party, though that can be a bit more vague. In any case, OSC passes none of those tests and never has, even decades ago when he might have agreed with more people in the party.
I'm not sure I should dignify your accusations of ideological bias, but here's my background: I'm not a Democrat. I share many opinions with Democrats, but not enough to identify with the party. I believe party identification should have some meaning, and believe OSC is using it to tell a story (a story that, I'm guessing, you support): that first and foremost he is a True Democrat, and his disagreement with today's Democrats is a sign that they are are extremist liberals who have lost their roots. By placing party in the infobox without qualification, wikipedia would be in effect endorsing that story, and that would be POV. Better to leave it to the body of the text where it can be discussed in context. Bennetto (talk) 21:29, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
I rather like this sort of proposal myself. While it may well be different in other countries, I think in the US the use of the party infobox parameter should probably be limited to individuals who (1) have sought office as members of a given party through election, (2) have served in significant positions within the structure of that party, (3) have consistently campaigned for individuals of that party to the virtual exclusion of candidates of other parties, and/or (4) have received some appointed office which seems directly tied to their partisan affiliation.
We run into the problem of effectively stating that a given political philosophy is necessary tied to a given party. As most of us in the US know, the political views of parties themselves change over time, and I think simply espousing a certain political philosophy which seems to be championed by a given party at a given time is probably not sufficient cause for us to "brand" someone with a party allegiance. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
Thx all for clarifications re a neutral standard for infobox party affiliations. By the way, I would hold the most neutral would be self-identification of affiliation but respect opinions differing from mine. Would there be any hope for some consensus to adopt concise language finessing others' concerns, say that might communicating some gist of, "Political affil.: Dem. (1976–present; characteristically has supported Republicans)"?

((Full disclosure: Re my personal politics, the one thing I like Ron Paul is his, as enemies term it, isolationism and I feel perfectly at home with the full-on Kucinich, non- Leon Panetta--heck, Ralph Naderish, lol--wings of the Dem. party to which I subscribe. I do, within my personal political/cultural feelings, find political and cultural value in Card as a cultural and opinion leader within the LDS community--if obviously not much outside it these days, other than perhaps among some of his fellow travelers in the Religious Right, these days(*)--in that Card at least lends lip service to the left on economic along with a few, ironically, "civil libertarian" issues. (Eg, if I remember right, Card opposes much outright censorship of sex and declaims too much ado about violence such as in video games.)))
_____
(*)Hmm Vatican had invited to Interreligious Colloquium The Complementarity of Man and Woman, now just concluded, Mormon cleric Henry Eyring http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/11/17/full-text-pope-franciss-opening-address-to-humanum-conference/ .)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:59, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:37, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

  • Oppose details indicate that he considers himself a "KennedyMoynihan Democrat." Those statements seem to me to be more indicators of political philosophy than of exact partisan politics, particularly in light of some of his statements indicating support of individual Republicans, and I cannot see it as being reasonable to classify someone by a party based on political beliefs which are not necessarily tied to that party alone. He has stated some ties to a form of the Democratic political philosophy, but that political philosophy is not so clearly necessarily tied specifically to the Democratic party. I suppose many "Reagen Republicans" might be in similarly positions where their description is more related to individual politics than political parties per se. John Carter (talk) 18:42, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Since none of his offices or candidacies are mentioned in the info-box, his political registration should not be either. It is important for people whose notability derives from their political activity. For example, U.S. presidents' info-boxes should mention party affiliation. Otherwise it is insignificant. In the U.S., many if not most people register as Democrats, Republicans, or independents. I would not like to see this information added to the info-boxes of U.S. biographies. TFD (talk) 19:24, 15 November 2014 (UTC)
Same for Jack Warner? Ann Coulter? etc etc etc?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:48, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
I do not know enough about them and their political activity to tell. Both were more closely associated with the Republican Party than Card is with the Democrats. Coulter worked for Republicans in the Senate and has written books in support of the Republican Party, but whether that is sufficient to label her a Republican in the info-box is something to discuss elsewhere. TFD (talk) 19:22, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
Ha ha well Coulter did famously say that she would have supported a nominated Hillary Clinton in a general election versus a nominated John McCain.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
Who cares? This article is not about her, and as I said, I do not know enough about her partisan activities to form an opinion. TFD (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Political party field should only be used for politicians (specifically people who run in elections, unless they happen to achieve office without being elected). As far as I can see, he is not one. Number 57 00:35, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per user:Collect. It seems well sourced and non-contentious and his political views are relevant to his notability. Article has an entire section on his political opinions. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 21:55, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Characterizations of Card's politics

I've restated the following comment by Bennetto from a thread above, below.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if there's much point arguing here any more, but (lest someone reading this imagine his only conservative stance is his opposition to SSM) a better indication of his views is from his essays at [14]. Nearly every one is an attack on the the "Leftist media," the Left, or Obama, and nearly everyone espouses conservative views. One of the few essays that supports the traditionally liberal side of an issue is about immigration [15] but he still can't bring himself to praise the Democrats or liberals for their views. Instead he says
Here is the punishment that Republicans have already received for their harsh, unforgiving attitude toward illegal immigrants, and the ugly anti-hispanic rhetoric and policies they have endorsed or tolerated: They have lost elections they should have won, and now live in a country much worse governed than it needed to be, because the Democratic Party has been able to count on the votes of those that the Republican Party has shoved away.
In other words, he believes that Democrats being elected has hurt the country. And that's really the point, not OSC's specific views on issues but the relationship with the party itself, or at least its candidates and politicians. You bring up "Jim Hunt's challenge to Senator Jesse Helms" as an example of his support for a Democrat; that was 30 years ago. Kerry and Gephardt were 10 years ago, and his comments on them could only barely be called praise. I haven't seen a single positive comment from him on any current Democrat or word of support on the party itself in recent years. Have you? Bennetto (talk) 17:58, 1 November 2014 (UTC)
Hmm. Well, Card waxes eloquent in praise of Georgia's lt. gov. Zell Miller here. Of course, we contributors to WP are not ourselves sources so follows self-ID in such matters in blp's, other than to quote actual sources' characterizations. Card btw is (1) a critic of unrestrained capitalism (2) is anti-gun (3) is pro-immigration (4) is a critic of fans of segregationism who (use language-coding to) race-bait, etc.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:27, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

For abbrev.d inclusion as public response to Card's political commentary:

Um ... Contentious? Yep. Fact? Nope. Opinion from a source which might be antithetical to Card? Yep. Belongs in the BLP as a substantive claim? Nope. Collect (talk) 16:59, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
  • As opposed to Card's self-characterization as much more middle-of-the-road? such as in 2010 to the WaPo:

    "As a Democrat who would love to have my party come back from its long love affair with insanely self-contradictory Leftist ideology, to become again the party that can contain a true liberal like Daniel Patrick Moynihan was instead of the rigid intolerant puritans like Nancy Pelosi, nothing could be better than to crash and burn. It allows the rediscovery and remaking of a once-great but now-incompetent party.

    "Meanwhile, I can only hope that the rigid intolerant right wing of the republican party can be contained long enough to allow them to provide the Democrats that great service of showing that intolerant Leftism is a dead end.

    "The center, the center! Which party will reach for and achieve the center? Neither one seems inclined to want to try.

    "So for now I remain that rare bird: A Tony Blair Democrat." link

    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:07, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
Weigel's polemics are wonderful...and effective: Card's polemics on behalf of the conservative side of the official Mormon position on SSM have been successfully marginalized. (See https://www.google.com/search?q=orson+scott+card+affair&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb .) Indeed, Reid, Obama, Hillary C., Biden, etc., etc., now surely hold Weigel's position, having abandoned their former, more nuanced version of Card's view, in oppo. to SSM. Hmm: Weigel's cafeteria approach to his conservatism is almost exactly in opposition to Card's cafeteria approach to his liberalism, by the way. Which may well have contributed to Weigel's willingness to use the Nazi card against Card. Imagine a glass cylinder where Weigel imagines himself to occupy a position in the policial center but that Card occupies a position on the opposite side of the glass cylinder, where the far left meets the far right: "national socialism" (i.e ethnic-based authoritarianism or totaliarianism).

Weigel himself has been castigated by the right wing blogosphere etc, esp. during the https://www.google.com/search?q=%22weigel+affair%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=nts so-called "Weigel affair," for Weigel's then WaPo column's having being labeled (ha ha, mislabeled?) conservative. I.e Weigel may well have supported Paul during the primaries but--as did the "libertarian conservative" Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic... or the Mormon, "libertarian conservative" Nathan Oman did--but Weigel had then voted for Obama rather than McCain in the general. (Update: Weigel voted for Huntsman in the primaries four yrs later then the Libertarian Pary candidate in that general election.) See David_Weigel#Political_affiliations.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:28, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Self-description as communitarian; pro immigration reform; miscellanies

Currently the political beliefs section is all about his "strange" Democrat identity, given his instances of lending support to Republicans. I'm going to try and balance that by expanding on Card's communitarian beliefs some. Eg, @ Salon in 2000:

Most of the program of both the left and the right is so unbelievably stupid it's hard to wish to identify myself with either. But on economic matters, I'm a committed communitarian. I regard the Soviet Union as simply state monopoly capitalism. It was run the way the United States would be if Microsoft owned everything. Real communism has never been tried! I would like to see government controls expanded, laws that allow capitalism to not reward the most rapacious, exploitative behavior. I believe government has a strong role to protect us from capitalism.

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:55, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Here, from earlier this year, and in his usual polemical fashion, Card takes the GOP to task w rgd immigration reform.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:03, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
OK (for background), more commentary by Rod Dreher, in part, with regard to LDS theology and politics re family, is here.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:37, 21 November 2014 (UTC)
Sample - Real Dem or pseudo, in Card's current economics/politics essay, he advocates the--obviously big gov't--idea of a water pipe line from Lk Mich to the Colorado river basin (which already drains into the California aquaducts system).--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:16, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
Searching for a plausible explanations, maybe Card at one point had suffered a bad bump to the head (heh heh: a la that of Reagan's, per the former First Lady's acct)?

"Until he was diagnosed in 1994, there were no symptoms of Alzheimer’s, Mrs. Reagan says. But she does look back to the riding accident her husband had in 1989, a few months after he left office. While vacationing at a ranch in Mexico the former president was thrown from his horse and suffered a concussion and a subdural hematoma. 'I’ve always had the feeling that the severe blow to his head in 1989 hastened the onset of Ronnie’s Alzheimer’s. The doctors think so, too,' she writes.

Nobel laureate nyt scribe Paul Krugman [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/22/when-thought-experiments-encounter-the-unthinking/ in the 22Nov2013 NYT: "I finally saw Ender’s Game the other day, and enjoyed it. But it was a bit of a letdown compared with the book (yes, Orson Scott Card — look, sometimes something goes very wrong with people)."--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:52, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Relevance

The subject of this article is surely, primarily, the author of Ender's Game, yet most of the article is taken up with his views on politics and sexuality. Are these really all that relevant? Sure, he has views, and his celebrity as an author means people take more notice of them than they would otherwise, but how useful is it to parse them in such detail? --Andreas Philopater (talk) 01:26, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree it would be great if contributors might summarize political subsections.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:36, 28 November 2014 (UTC)Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

TEDxUSU spokesperson qt rgdg controversies

"'I think the controversial stuff is pretty far in the past, and he has worked to sort of change the tone of it and reframe it more recently,' [Scott] Bates[, USU associate vice president for research and spokesperson for TEDxUSU]said. 'He wasn’t invited to talk about those things; he was invited to come and talk about the content of his books and his ideas for education.'"--The Herald Journal link
--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:27, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Within a recent edit...

a contributor removed some content from the article (see diff) apparently in order to re-establish a fuller quote with concern Sarah Palin, from:

In a 2009 article Card denounced the treatment of former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin by "the liberal media," although "disagree[ing] with her on at least half the issues that matter to her.[45]

--to:

In a 2009 article denouncing the treatment former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin had received from "the liberal media," Card declared, "And yet, there remains this: I disagree with her on at least half the issues that matter to her. After all, even though I'm a moral conservative, I am a Democrat and for good reason, as long as you define 'Democrat' the way it was defined in 1977."

--albeit with both the shorter and longer versions, no doubt inadvertently, existing simultaneously.

Althought (per Wikipedia:Recentism) I believe Card's opinion with regard to Palin to be somewhat dated, I have restored that fuller quote while also -ing the sourced material deleted by the edit; see diff.

Also with my edit the following content was restored:

Describing himself as a political liberal and moral conservative, Card regards his ideals concerning society—as well as foundational themes within his fiction—as communitarian. In 2000, Card said, "Most of the program of both the left and the right is so unbelievably stupid it's hard to wish to identify myself with either. But on economic matters, I'm a committed communitarian. I regard the Soviet Union as simply state monopoly capitalism. It was run the way the United States would be if Microsoft owned everything. Real communism has never been tried! I would like to see government controls expanded, laws that allow capitalism to not reward the most rapacious, exploitative behavior. I believe government has a strong role to protect us from capitalism." A vocal supporter of the U.S.'s "War on Terror, according to Salon, Card is close to neo-Conservative concerning foreign policy issues.

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Sources for boycott controversies

(By the way): ... The Washington Free Beacon as source may(?) be coup esètique per wp:SELFPUBLISH

Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.

--wp:NEWSBLOG

[...N]ews organizations host columns on their web sites that they call blogs. These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because the blog may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process.[7] If a news organization publishes an opinion piece in a blog, attribute the statement to the writer (e.g. "Jane Smith wrote..."). [...] For personal or group blogs that are not reliable sources, see Self-published sources below.

--etc.

The Beacon on-line news site's managing ed. (whose op-ed I'd cited)'s bio runs as follows.

Sonny [Bunch] is managing editor of The Washington Free Beacon. Previously, he was an arts writer and film critic for The Washington Times, as well as the assistant editor for books and arts at The Weekly Standard. He got his start in Washington as an editorial assistant at Roll Call. He earned B.A. degrees in Politics and History at the University of Virginia where he served as editor-in-chief of the Virginia Advocate. ---thephillipsfoundation.org/fellows/2007/sonny__bunch

Bunch also argues his position here, also at the Beacon; and here, publ'd @ the WaPo site.

"... On the one hand, I agree with Railton that such efforts are relatively dispiriting. Outrage culture is the worst, and efforts to boycott artists for their political views — such as, say, the efforts to punish Orson Scott Card for his statements about president Obama and his contributions to anti-gay-marriage organizations — impoverish us all. ..."

Citations
Original pro boycott citation
  1. SkipEndersGame.com - Geeks Out Wants You to Skip Enders Game

    Ender’s Game author Orson Scott Card is more than an 'opponent' of marriage equality. As a writer, he has spread degrading lies about LGBT people, calling us sexual deviants and criminals. As an activist, he sat on the board of the National Organization for Marriage and campaigned against our civil rights. Now he's a producer on the Ender's Game movie. Do not let your box-office dollars fuel his anti-gay agenda. ... ..."

    Plus a Random add'l "pro" cite:

    The Advocate - 2013 Phobies - award No. 8 (out of 13)

    "When his book Ender's Game was transformed into a Hollywood movie this year, author Orson Scott Card could have helped protect the potential blockbuster film from a threatened boycott by renouncing his antigay past. But he kept mum. All this proves is that Card is a true, ardent homophobe. ... ..."

"Anti-" boycott citations (add'l to nyt op-ed already in wp article)
  1. Nat'l Review - "What Is McCarthyism? ..."
  2. Jim Bennett in the Deseret News - "The 21st century blacklist focused on conservatives"
  3. News Busters - "Author Card Joins New Hollywood Blacklist: Traditional Marriage Supporters"
  4. Amazing Stories - "Of Blacklists and Freedoms: DC, Superman and Orson Scott Card (Editorial)"
  5. Rod Dreher @ American Conservative - "Orson Scott Card: Thoughtcriminal" (See also this piece.)
  6. Volokh Conspiracy - "Question for Supporters of the Boycott of Ender’s Game"
  7. Jerry Bowyer at Forbes - "The Repression Of Ender's Game"
More-or-less conflicted (or else, actually
neutral)
  1. Dustin Lance in the Hollywood Reporter - "Dustin Lance Black Calls 'Ender's Game' Boycott 'Waste' of Energy"
  2. [Tim Worstall at Forbes] - "Perhaps You Should Boycott Ender's Game

    [...] I’ve no dog in this fight. I dimly remember the original story and didn’t like it very much as I recall. I don’t go to movies anyway and Card’s views on gay marriage and or homosexuality interest me not in the slightest. But some people do care about them:'I like shiny things and smart science-fiction.

    'And yet, I’m not going to go see Ender’s Game.

    'Orson Scott Card has toxic politics shot through with not merely a thread but a full-on threaded steel cable of bigotry and ignorance. And so, I’m gonna boycott the film. Now, to clarify, I’m not saying you should or have to do the same. You do as you like. No harm, no foul.Which is just fine: one of the things a market economy does is give us exactly that freedom. We don’t actually have to care about the views of those who produce things for our consumption. Nor their race, nationality, skin colour, religion or any of the other things that have riled humanity over the centuries.

    [... You should follow your mores in how you spend your money and your time: it’s exactly this that makes the whole market system tick, what makes it work as well as it does. What makes it work better than any other system we’ve ever managed to devise in fact."

  3. Jonathan Rouch at the Atlantic - "The Case for Hate Speech: How Anita Bryant, Jerry Falwell, and Orson Scott Card have advanced the cause of gay rights

    ... I can think of quite a few reasons why boycotting Ender’s Game is a bad idea. It looks like intimidation, which plays into the right’s “gay bullies” narrative, in which intolerant homosexuals are purportedly driving conservatives from the public square. It would have little or no effect on Card while punishing the many other people who worked on the movie, most of whom, Hollywood being Hollywood, probably are not anti-gay (and many of whom almost certainly are gay). It would undercut the real raison d’être of the gay-rights movement: not to win equality just for gay Americans but to advance the freedom of all Americans to live as who they really are and say what they really think. Even if they are Orson Scott Card.

    Above all, the boycott should fizzle, and I expect it will fizzle, because gay people know we owe our progress to freedom of speech and freedom of thought. ..."

  4. Think Progress - "... It would be easier if Card’s books were as bad as his politics are noxious: we could relegate him and his works to the same kook file that we assign Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck’s attempts at fiction. But Card, unfortunately, is a brilliant writer and a visionary.

    ... ... ... Boycotts can work to affect change at the corporate level, but Summit/Lionsgate is alreadyan LGBT-friendly company, as are the cast and crew of the film. Does a boycott make as much sense when it ultimately doesn’t materially affect its target? Would it be better to boycott his books — which could actually affect him financially — rather than the film? Perhaps the point is less about damaging the movie financially and more about making Card so radioactive that companies will think twice before working with him? But then again, Roman Polanski is still making films despite being as well known for his rape of a 13 year old and his flight from justice as he is for Chinatown and Rosemary’s Baby. Does a moral carbon offset — say, a donation to The Trevor Project — make more sense in light of Card’s lack of financial investment?

    I feel obligated to observe that it’s easy for me, a cis-gendered hetero male, to talk about this. Card’s actions don’t affect me the way that they do my LGBT brothers and sisters, friends and family. All I can say is that, to my mind, it’s never going to be a simple and easy answer. I think it ultimately comes down to trying to decide which matters more to you — Card’s hate or the love and compassion espoused by his creation."

  5. [Tony Hicks of the San Jose Mercury News] - "To me, it depends on how much of what the artist represents personally is actually represented in his or her work. As a person who strongly supports gay marriage but has also enjoyed Card's books and gave a positive review to the film version of "Ender's Game," I have no problem supporting the two -- in this case. That's because I didn't see any of Card's views that I find objectionable reflected in his work."
  6. Diane Anderson-Minshall in the Advocate - "Op-ed: Why I’m Going to See Ender’s Game"
  7. Lewis DeSimone at the HuffPo - "Why I Saw Ender's Game"
  8. Buzz Feed - (newstory): "LGBT: The Boycott Of “Ender’s Game” Has Begun - Author Orson Scott Card has been very public with his anti-gay views, which is causing controversy over the film adaption of his novel to be released this November."
    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:27, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
  • 17Oct2013 Rhino Times: "Make Believe Not Allowed":

    For the final [Emendation by WPdian Hodgdon: print-] edition of The Rhinoceros Times on May 16, science fiction writer Orson Scott Card wrote a column where he created a fictitious world in which President Barack Obama becomes a dictator. His column has not been accepted by the mainstream media as a product of his imagination and Card has been highly criticized for writing lies about Obama.

    One of those who has been particularly hard on Card is News & Record Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson.

    ... ...

    So it is somewhat puzzling that Johnson insists that when Card wrote a fictional column for the now defunct Rhinoceros Times, Card believes every word in the column is true, even though Card repeatedly states at the beginning, the middle and the end of the column that it is fiction. Card even goes to some length to describe how an author creates a believable fictional story. It so happens that Card is a master of creating fictional worlds and stories. He is so good that millions of people have shelled out hard earned money to buy his books. They are books full of ideas that were created in Card’s head. In short he made them up, but made them so believable that people read book after book by Card.

    ... ...

    Card never says that he believes that Obama is going to create a national police force to keep the public in line. He says that, in the fictional world he is creating, the fictional Obama he creates could do that to become a dictator.

    ... Card says nothing about the criticism except that people should read the whole column and judge for themselves. One problem is that readers don’t. I was recently interviewed by a journalist who asked a number of questions about Card’s column. I finally asked if the reporter had read the column and the journalist admitted to reading about the column but not the column itself. ...

    Card begins the column: “This is the column where I predict how American Democracy ends.”

    “No, no, it’s just a silly thought experiment! I’m not serious about this! Nobody can predict the future! It’s just a game. The game of unlikely events.”

    Perhaps this was too subtle a thing that this was not a factual column.

    Later he states, “But that brings me to a little thought experiment that seized my imagination a few weeks ago and won’t go away.”

    And just in case the reader missed the part about “a game,” “imagination” and “thought experiment,” Card makes it clear to the reader that he is making this up. He writes, “So as a science fiction writer and a student of history, allow me to spin a plausible scenario about how, like Augustus Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama could become a lifetime dictator without any serious internal opposition.”

    Then and only then does Card begin his tale about how Obama could become a dictator. ... ...

    But at the end just to make sure the readers understand it is simply a flight of Card’s impressive imagination, he tells the reader again: “But it sure sounds plausible doesn’t it? Because, like a good fiction writer, I made sure this scenario fit the facts we already have – the way Obama already acts, the way his supporters act, and the way dictators have come to power in republics in the past.”

    Finally, just for those folks like Johnson who can’t tell fact from fiction, Card finishes the column with this sentence: “Just kidding. Because if I really believed this stuff, would I actually write this essay?”

    All of that and Johnson and other left-wing editorial writers have insisted that Card was writing a factual column about Obama.

    ... ... ...

     ---John Hammer

    --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:06, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Subject of blp racist?

Consensus is that it should not be included as proposed. 1) The subject should not be referred to as racist in WP voice as that is an opinion (we can attribute it in some cases if consistent with BLP policy). 2) There is a lack of a high-quality sources sufficient for BLP concerns to make such a claim even attributed. While biased sources can still be used for facts if the source is reliable, an opinion about such a highly contentious issue of calling someone a racist needs a very high quality of sources directly claiming that about the individual, not sources that openly acknowledge their bias against the subject or say that the story is racist. 3) What is said by what everyone acknowledges is a fictional story about what might one day happen cannot be known to be the opinion of the author currently. --Obsidi (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Commentators continue to reference/allege Card's piece involving a fictional, future Obama's coup d'état by way of urban guirillas

"... Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama's enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people 'trying to escape' -- people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama." --Orson Scott Card link

--as racist (eg see here in Slate, 2013; here, HuffPo, 2013; here, Wired, 2014). Should our article mention this aspect of controversy with regard to the piece here: "Orson Scott Card#Politics"?

(Also see a 2013 blogpost by M Aspan citing this from Card in 2000 rgding allegedly non-racist use of nigga'.)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:49, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Ideally, RfC's are supposed to take place after previous discussion, and I'm not seeing where any previous discussion on this topic may have taken place. Having said that, particularly for someone who writes a lot of "alternative histories," like Card with the Prentice Alvin books, I would have to say that a characterization of an author based on an interpretation of a single fictional work is probably excessive weight for a biographical article, although it might be relevant for an article on the work in question, which I'm assuming is notable enough for its own entry. John Carter (talk) 21:47, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Jn Carter. IAC a modicum of discussion took place here: Talk:Orson_Scott_Card/Archive_4#Noteworthy_current_Card_blog_essay. :'~( --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:55, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • It is not useful or possible in an article to describe a living person as "racist" unless they identify as such themselves. If it is a common and significant view that a person or specific actions of theirs are racist then it can be included with attribution, preferably in text, to the persons who have described the person as such. Mentions on tumblr does not do anything to establish notability of a view. Slate and the huffpost might.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Those who seek to accuse authors of being "racist" for works of fiction should first read the Notice to Huckleberry Finn :

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

Any such speculation is basically "opinion at most" and likely totally useless. Collect (talk) 21:54, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

  • I can't get to the Wired piece, but the Slate and HuffPo piece do concur in calling it (not Card himself) racist. Worth a sentence with attribution as per Maunus. Correlating it with one use of a word in a work of fiction, based on a blogpost, is out.--GRuban (talk) 21:57, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • You don't have to label a person "racist". Just let them say what they say, and let readers make that determination if they want. Now, if there are significant opinions that level that criticism, and the opinions are reported in reliable sources, we can add it with full attribution. - Cwobeel (talk) 22:02, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • If we have a section on the critical reception of that short story, then certainly we should mention that some have called it racist. As things stand, I'd incline to think looking for a way to somehow shove it in gives it undue weight. If the story is notable enough for a stand-alone article, that would be the best place for it. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 22:19, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • I agree with earlier replies. It seems very similar to the discussion we had on using the term "anti-gay". If the subject uses the term to describe himself or his writings it's fair game. If reputable sources use it we may use it by attributing it to the sources. Otherwise we let the readers decide for themselves. It's not Wikipedia's place to label writers or their works as anything (racist, anti-gay, pro-choice, feminist, misogynistic, or whatever, and no, I'm not suggesting any of those labels apply to Card.) I also agree that it's not appropriate to consider labeling a writer racist for the use of a racist term in a piece of fiction. That's a very big stretch. Meters (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia cannot label a writer as "racist" based on their fictional writing, at most wikipedia can present what was written. Fraulein451 (talk) 22:232 19 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:BLP compels us to "[b]e very firm about the use of high-quality sources." Blog sites, whether low-profile ones such as tumblr or high-profile ones such as The Huffington Post, are not high-quality sources. The article at cracked.com whose title calls Card "a [g]oddamn [l]unatic" is not a high quality source either due to its author's unashamed bias. The article at wired.com has a similar problem as its author makes it clear from the very first sentence that he's biased against Card. The only "high-quality" source we have is David Weigel's article which refers to a small portion of Card's essay as a "detour into racism" [emphasis added], indicating that this particular aspect of it is of marginal importance. There's no good reason to include it in the article. Iaritmioawp (talk) 23:08, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
Bias does not directly correlate to the unreliability of a source. See WP:BIASED. Sometimes biased sources are the best. However, in this case, cracked.com being a humor site, is not really a reliable source for anything but what raunchy jokes were funny two Thursdays ago. Elizium23 (talk) 23:14, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
I didn't comment on the reliability of any of the sources; rather, I commented on their quality. Adding contentious material to a BLP based on what unambiguously biased sources have to say defies the policy which requires us to write biographies of living people conservatively. Iaritmioawp (talk) 00:22, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
All sources are biased in some way. Even heavily biased sources may be the best sources for use in any article, including and especially WP:BLP. It's just that the bias can't be transferred to Wikipedia's voice. Elizium23 (talk) 00:27, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
Could you be more specific as to exactly which of the sources presented by the originator of this RfC are, in your opinion, suitable for supporting the allegations of Orson Scott Card's supposed "racism" in our article on him? Iaritmioawp (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

I notice that none of the sources explain why the writing was racist. Presumably the readers would be able to figure it out, but we need something more explicit. Also, I do not see the comments as significant. TFD (talk) 02:34, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

  • Here's my two cents on the matter. When it comes to stuff like this we should avoid calling the person racist unless s/he identifies as such, although that seems to be a pretty common consensus so far. What we can do is say something like OSC has been the focus of allegations that he is racist over several statements he has made and over specific content in his stories. The key word there is allegations, since OSC hasn't said whether he is or isn't a racist. The only problem with all of this is that I don't really see where there has been an overwhelmingly huge focus on OSC and racism. I do see some things from Instinct magazine, Wired, and the AV Club, but I'm a little leery about making an out an out racism section because so far there just isn't a whole lot about OSC and racism that isn't an outright opinon piece. I do think that there is potential merit in including a brief 2-3 sentence section about it in the politics section, but it would have to be very carefully worded. My reasoning for this is that when it comes to coverage in RS, the sheer bulk of the content focuses almost entirely on OSC's statements about Obama and even then not all of them outright say that the statements came across as racist. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:29, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose A fictional story cannot be used to define a person. For example, Steve Colbert has made many (what would be) controversial statements while in character which no reasonable person would say applies to him directly. Also, I am not seeing what is racist about the comments. Arzel (talk) 20:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

  • That's mostly why I'm thinking that this belongs in the politics section. There are people who are accusing him of racism due to the story and statements, but on OSC's end these are political statements and not ones based on race per se. I don't think that he intended anyone to draw "OSC is racist" from them. Whether he is or not is somewhat irrelevant to this because all that really matters is whether or not OSC has identified as racist and whether or not there is enough RS coverage about others perceiving him as racist to warrant there being a section about it. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 06:50, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose, for now with comments below:

The question posed was "Commentators continue to reference/allege Card's piece involving a fictional, future Obama's coup d'état by way of urban guirillas [...] as racist [...]. Should our article mention this aspect of controversy with regard to the piece here: 'Orson Scott Card#Politics?" Iaritmioawp pointed out in his opposing response above, "WP:BLP compels us to '[b]e very firm about the use of high-quality sources.'" WP editors should not make the call on this based on synthesis of low-quality sources (even of high-profile sources of doubtful quality). If high-quality sources make this assertion article should possibly report, following policy set forth in BLP and WP:DUE and citing supporting high-quality sources.
Card is, of course, a highly-quality reliable source about himself. The RFC quotes a snippet attributed to Card citing this piece from the Cracked.com humor website and other sources. The quoted snippet seems to have been taken by those sources from this 9 May 2013 online article, apparently by Card. Not included in the RFC question is the closing comment in that article which reads: "Just kidding. Because if I really believed this stuff, would I actually write this essay?" Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:24, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
So OK if I wrote of an alternate future in which a US President circa 2018 Ann Romney uses ritually slaughtered Irish Setter puppy hides to "homecraft" the First Family's sacramental ("temple") undergarments and later I said I was only kidding that would make it OK?--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:15, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Cmt - Scott Card--who believed circa 2010 that "Obama (had) spits on the Constitution"--apparently had gotten so carried away with his rhetoric and/or literary fancies that he had failed to notice his own so-called dog whistling. Which IMO is kinda ironic owing to the fact that Card himself castigates the GOP for its having developed a tendency (presumably Nixon-on, to one degree or another) to appeal to certain demographics' racial prejudice for political gain. To wit, in a 2003 piece, Card (labeling himself both an "embarrassed Democrat"--and, ultimately, a "Tony Blair Democrat") in his usual inimical style argued that Democrats--or namely "the Left"--had "...long since abandoned patriotism, considering it a dangerous fascist mindset, and now is committed to shredding the Constitution to allow women to evade motherhood no matter when they change their minds, I guess all that's left for the Democratic Party to embrace is apple pie."--adding:

    "... The Democratic Party ought to be standing as the bulwark of the little guy against big money and rapacious free-market capitalism, here and abroad. After all, the [Note: emphasis user:Hodgdon's] Republicans seem to be dominated by their own group of insane utopians-- when they're not making huggy-huggy with all those leftover racists from the segregationist past. (Though George W. Bush seems to be trying to put a stop to that, at least.)

    (See also here.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:09, 22 December 2014 (UTC)Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:57, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
And in a further irony what follows is what Card had to say in 2011 about an incident] of allegedly "anti-Mormon" bigotry:

"In case you want an education in bigotry by a sneering intellectual, here's the link.

"What Bloom hates about Romney isn't his religious beliefs -- he hates Baptists at least as much as he hates Mormons, mostly because Bloom hates all religions that actually make truth-claims.

"No, what makes Bloom hate Romney is that Romney is rich, and the Mormon Church has tons of money, and therefore a Romney victory would mean a victory for the "plutocracy" -- government by the people with money.

"Walter Russell Mead, about whom I know nothing, gave a ringing response to Bloom at The American Interest; if you care about the debate, here's the link."

(Yet if one believes the LDS do have too much money-based political power, would one thereafter not to so allege make for an something akin a "polite fiction"?----- )--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:30, 22 December 2014 (UTC)Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:22, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose based not only on the above comments on sourcing, but also on the simple fact that he has black Brazilian, African, Chinese, and American Indian heroes in his books--although I have not read all of them. He even sticks up for alien bugs. μηδείς (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Oppose Claims are either OR or not sourced to sufficient RS to be inclusive. BlueSalix (talk) 20:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment Summoned here by bot. RfC is so poorly drafted that it is impossible for me to offer an opinion. Please rewrite or clarify. Just exactly what is the text that you want to add, and how will you source it? Coretheapple (talk) 18:40, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Sought general advice: Ought charge of subject's "racism," found in various opinion pieces in regard to his "Obama-dictatorship" fic piece/essay, be included, in any way, in the blp? (and, if so, In what way? Under what conditions? etc etc...).--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:22, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

OSC quote w rgd racial bigotry, anti-immigrant fervor

... ... ...

Segregation was over, I figured — the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts had determined that — and now Wallace himself was declaring that he was no longer in favor of segregation, implying that he’d just been doing what the people of Alabama elected him to do. So in my youth and ignorance, all I saw was a populist candidate running a third-party challenge.

I completely bought into the “not a dime’s worth of difference” slogan and yes, on my college campus I took part in the Wallace campaign, manning the American Independent Party table by the student union building for a few hours one afternoon and attending a couple of meetings.

But the non-student adults working with his campaign creeped me out. It made me uneasy that people like that were Wallace’s supporters. By the time of the election I had drifted away.

Within a couple of years I had learned a little more and was deeply embarrassed at my naivete and stupid enthusiasm. I changed my mind completely. Now I have a deep aversion to bigotry-centered populist demagogues — one thinks, for instance, of the leaders of the anti-amnesty movement. (I’m thinking of Pat Buchanan and, to my disgust, my fellow-Mormon Mitt Romney.)

But if you look at what I was doing in college, there’s no denying it, I was a Wallace supporter in September and October of 1968.

Does that youthful stupidity mean that I cannot ever get credit for growing up and changing my mind? I hope not.

 ---OSC, March 23, 2008: "Michelle (O.) vs. Hillary"

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Orson_Scott_Card/Archive_5&oldid=1151018491"