Baen Books is a well known name, but not one generally associated with political controversy. The main reason I ever used Baen was to buy e-books by P. C. Hodgell, a feminist author who writes the Kencyrath series. Now, bizarrely, their forum has been accused of, “Being Used to Advocate for Political Violence”, by an obscure self-publishing Patreon writer called Jason Sanford. It is a serious allegation, and as far as I can tell, many of the posts he relies on as evidence do not advocate violence. Others are mere hyperbole. I analyse some of the evidence below, exposing Sanford’s unethical behaviour. His purported evidence mostly does not support the case and the article is so unethical as, in my opinion, to call into question Sanford’s suitability to be employed in journalism, such as in his day job at the Ohio News Media Association. Having analysed the evidence, I provide contact details for his employers for those who wish to politely complain.
Jason Sanford’s Linkedin images are shown here for the purposes of criticism and review. Sanford, who works for the Ohio News Media Association, is clearly not the snappiest of text writers and either his head is weirdly elongated or the aspect ratio is slightly off. His job is to do … marketing content, including graphics. (Click for full size)
Political violence is the fear du jour. Last year the United States was devastated by riots associated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. On January 6, 2021, there was a rowdy protest / occupation in Washington DC. The violence on that occasion was serious, but was nearer an Occupy style protest than a BLM riot. Mr Sanford, an obscure Patreon creator who appears to have a day job to make ends meet, has published an article alleging that the web forum, “Baen’s Bar”, associated with science fiction publisher Baen Publishing is being used to publish political violence. In the aftermath of the allegation, the forum has temporarily been taken down.
In his article, Mr Sanford claims that he presents “evidence”. Okay. I went to law school. I know of what I speak. I took a look at the so-called, “evidence”.
Much of Mr Sanford’s evidence, assuming he has accurately described the posts, cannot support his contentions. Consider this –
