Month: July 2017

Today I had occasion to weigh in on the Magnus Diridian controversy in a closed group on Facebook. For those who don’t know, this is about the guy who created Arkansas, a fursuit character with a confederate flag (or General Lee) pattern, and is sometimes seen walking around with a pro-Trump sign as part of his act.

I wasn’t really surprised at the hateful, bigoted comments coming from the furs who don’t like this guy. It’s par for the course these days. But, you know, that’s still not ok. And I think it’s time a lot of people in this modern world were ripped a knew one, and told to their faces just how stupid they are. The following response may be considered my first contribution to that cause.

I don’t know if anyone has brought this up before, but has anyone stopped watching reruns of The Dukes Of Hazard because they find the car offensively racist? (Actually you can’t even watch that show anymore, which is one of the things Arkansas was created to protest.)

Has anyone considered condemning anyone who comes from The South as racist? This flag does not represent racism. It represents identification with a certain area of the country.

All this picture is saying is The South supports Trump. I don’t know if that statement is true or not, and I don’t think that’s the point the fursuiter is trying to make. I think the statement being made here is that, if you automatically assume people from The South, (or people who support Trump) are racist, then you’re the one that’s displaying prejudice and ignorance. And the more hateful you are in your condemnation of the image, the more ignorant and bigoted you make yourself look.

This could be called trolling the SJW’s, or you could call it a good old-fashioned artistic statement. Either way I think this is something that’s needed. We need to have our own prejudices challenged. We need to be encouraged to look deeper than the surface of things. We need to stop acting like a country full of fragile snowflakes, scared to death of our own culture and history.

The South existed and still exists. Get over it. That’s why the confederate flag is still around and still widely used. Seriously, are you going to start burning Lynyrd Skynyrd records and banning them from the radio because they used this flag on their album covers and concerts? Are you going to condemn Southern Rock as a racist music genre just because it references The South? Hell, why stop there? You could ban Country Music all together as the music of Rednecks. And then you can have Antifa show up to try to shut down Jeff Foxworthy performances.

You might think I’m being facetious here. But America has already gone so far off the deep end that no one would ever have believed Americans could be so stupid. Why now should anyone put any extent of stupidity past you?

Growing up in the MD/VA/PA/DC area in the 70’s, The Confederate Flag was a common sight. There was no controversy about it. There was not even that much controversy about Nazis. It was not at all uncommon to see planes sporting full Nazi symbolism at air shows, and no one was triggered. And even today, you Anime geeks see Imperial Japanese imagery every day, and you’re not triggered.

As I mentioned above, The Confederate Flag fronted an entire genre of music, which was not at all controversial. Southern Rock was considered uniquely American, the end product of all music considered to be indigenous to America, much of that music having been the invention of black people. Indeed, as Billy Joel once suggested, there is no American music that does not have black people at the root of it.

Much of 70’s Rock that has stood the test of time, whether it was made by American or UK artists, was a direct homage to said black people. And that is, to a great extent, why those black people are remembered so well today.

Well, I should say, remembered as well as they are. Because I don’t think the typical SJW knows anything about music history. To them, what Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton did with the music of Robert Johnson was “Cultural Appropriation.” Something the UN is currently considering making a crime worthy of jail time.

In other words, if you’re black, you’re not an American. You’re not related to anybody else in this country. You are a segregated group that has to make everything for itself. And no matter how good what you make is, nobody else can use it.

I don’t think this country was ever that stupid, or that racist. I mean, that is carrying racism to an extreme that would be impossible to practice. How are they going to prevent people from being influenced by the people of other colors and distinctions they live with?

Well there are only two possible ways to do that. One is complete segregation. Everyone is forced to live in a special reservation for their particular distinction, in which they can have no contact with anybody else. Total racism.

And the other way is to destroy all distinctions through interbreeding. So that there are no white Americans, no black Americans, no Jewish Americans, no Muslim Americans. Universal genocide.

Again this would seem almost impossible to pull off. But when I suddenly look around and realize I’m not seeing a heck of a lot of white people in this part of the country, I begin to wonder if somebody isn’t determined to give it their best shot.

I don’t for one minute believe this sudden embracing of SJW BS is an accidental and uncalculated thing. I mean, seriously, the opposition party is in power. It should be hard as hell for SJW’s to get any support, particularly while openly flying greatly offensive Communist flags. But you’re not allowed to condemn Communist flags in the hands of American SJW’s, even though a more open and shut case of cultural appropriation I never saw.

You can take your pick of the conspiracy theories that have been predicting this BS for over a century, and decide for yourself who you want to blame it on, but it’s generally pretty obvious that we’ve been getting screwed by somebody for a very long time, and just letting it slide. So much so that people are now saying it’s too late to care. We let freedom slip away and we’re never going to get it back again.

But, you know what? That’s BS propaganda too, meant to inspire complacent submission. Submission to what? Communism, apparently. Or something even worse, being as SJW’s understand Communism about as well as they understand anything else.

So, what do Americans traditionally do in a situation like this? Yep, they wrap themselves in The Confederate Flag and go out to make a protest.

Why The Confederate Flag? Why not The Stars And Stripes? Maybe because, to a lot of people, myself included, The Stars And Stripes has come to represent everything I regard as bad about America; it’s crooked politics, it’s bad government, it’s class policies and unrepentant worship of the root of all evil. The people of America have come to look on The Stars And Stripes as the emblem of their oppressors. And that is exactly the reason Magnus Diridian gives for the creation of Arkansas. It’s a rebellion against the tyranny represented by The Stars And Stripes.

And, of course, Magnus is not the only one in the fandom doing this. Foxler doesn’t have to keep taking flack for his armband. He could have dropped the armband as soon as the first complaint came in about it. But he’s like, “No, I’m sick of people trying to control my identity. I’m guaranteed freedom as an American and I’m going to demand they make good on it.”

So, if you’re an American with any love for your own freedom at all, thank your lucky stars for people like Magnus and Foxler who are willing to go out in the world, putting their own tails on the line, to stick it to the thieves who are making off with your freedoms every day.

And while you’re at it, be proud of Furry Fandom, which has such people in it. And screw the staff of Anthrocon, The Colorado Furs Group, Dogpatch Press, Deo Taz Devil’s branch of Antifa, SJW’s in general and any other Furry group or establishment that supports the agenda of Communists while trying to tear down the heroes of this fandom.

Yes, we have a Civil War in Furry Fandom. It was forced on us, and we will either deal with it, or be forever oppressed if these despicable Communists are allowed to hold sway. We are a microcosm of what is happening to the country, and if one fandom will stand to shut Communism down, it may inspire whoever is attacked next to not waste as much time as we have recognizing our enemies and dealing with them.

Link to original article
Link to statement by Magnus Diridian

Matt on YouTube wrote: “there is a lot wrong with this fandom we shouldn’t glorify it but at the same time we should not ignore it this fandom has so much shit in it that’s screwed up the porn specifically because there’s a lot of weird furry porn out there and a lot of weird people who enjoy that porn.”

When you talk about what’s wrong with Furry Fandom these days, my mind goes to rampant intolerance, exclusionism, forcing politics on people who aren’t here for that, general nastiness, and a sudden rush to basically condemn all the good things the fandom has tried to demonstrate all these years. The fact that we have porn, like every other fandom, doesn’t even raise a blip on my radar.

You know what does set off my radar? People saying the fandom needs fixed because there’s porn in it. That is either somebody who doesn’t comprehend the nature of fandoms, or somebody trying to lay down a foundation for censorship.

This is a fact of life in fandoms and on the internet in general. People are going to draw what they want to draw. Whether they do it to express some aesthetic they find pleasing or because it seems an easy way to make money, you can’t just be coming down on people and saying “You can’t draw what you want to draw because it makes us look bad and we think there’s something wrong with you.”

Though often what it usually boils down to is, “You can’t draw what you want to draw because your fetish is sick and my fetish isn’t.”

I used to be one of those people who said “We need to lock up all this porn for the benefit of those fans who just like cartoons and don’t want any adult stuff.” But after 15 years I’ve realized that such people are not here. They’re at Disneyland. We’re the adult alternative to the kids anthro fandom, which really doesn’t need any help from us. It’s far more successful than we are.

But any time something is specifically for adults, there’s going to be porn in it. And a lot of that porn is going to be weird. That is normal for geeks. Geek communities usually involve a lot of young, sexually obsessed or sexually repressed people. Nature and society create that situation. To fix it you would need to fix society. And society is only getting worse.

So, yeah, we got problems. But people drawing what they want to draw is not a problem. People going on FA without their filters on, seeing something they don’t like, and then making a big noise about how something needs to be done about this . . . That’s a problem, because FA has already put the filters there in acknowledgment of this complaint. They’ve even gone so far as to make sure their porn isn’t accessible through search engines.

So, any problem with the porn has already been dealt with. But you’re still not happy, because you’re still seeing this porn you don’t like, because you don’t use the filters. And there’s only one reason why anybody would not use the filters. Because they are there to look at porn just like everybody else. Maybe they like something else as well, but they don’t want to be excluded from the porn, because they might miss something they’d like.

And if everybody is there to look at porn, then everybody’s taste in Furry porn has to be catered to. And you can’t be saying, “This is some sick stuff here. This has to go.” Because somebody else will be looking at the porn you like and saying the exact same thing. People will say that about anything Furry, even if it isn’t porn. That is why we don’t get to make these choices for other people. Because if everybody could just make everything they don’t like disappear there’d be nothing here for anybody.

Now, I realize there is a new mentality these days. Maybe certain types of Furry porn “Trigger” you, and you think you ought to be able to make anything that “Triggers” you go away. Maybe you think Furry Fandom ought to be your safe space. But you’re a little late for that. All Furries regard Furry Fandom as their safe space. It’s a place they can feel secure about being themselves without being told they’re sick and need to be marginalized even further than society has pushed them out.

That doesn’t work. If you don’t like freedom of expression, tolerance and letting people be themselves so that your right to be yourself can be protected, you’re in the wrong place. You’re violating our safe space. But that’s ok, because we know well that some people are not happy unless they’re making totally unnecessary drama. And their free speech is protected in Furry Fandom as well, even though it makes us look bad, even though most of us think being a drama instigator is pretty sick. We’re like, “If that’s what you need to be happy and express yourself, we’ll put up with it as far as we can.”

Why do we do this? Because that is what we do. That is why The Furry Community is a thing above and beyond a gathering of people who just like to watch talking animal cartoons. Tolerance, it’s what we are, it’s what we do. If you can’t deal with tolerance, this community is going to “Trigger” you every day of your life.

So you can either get used to living in a constant state of being “Triggered.” Or you can realize that allowing other people to like things you don’t like is actually good for you. It promotes diversity. It creates a position for you to defend your own uniqueness. And it doesn’t stretch the patience of the people you want to deprive to such a point that they ride you out of the community on a rail, which is what I expect will happen to all the SJW’s currently trying to vilify Furry tolerance.