From andy Tue Sep 28 17:00:54 2004
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CC: "Oliphant, Michael" <oliph@uic.edu>, "a.curious monkey" <atman@neuron.net>, bopcamp@transamoeba.org
From: "andy" <andy@majorpanic.org> Add to Address Book
Subject: Re: How radical is the inclusivity? was: [Bopcamp] Judgement Day Event- Nov 2nd @ TransAmoeba
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 19:00:54 -0500
To: "Joe Dunphy" (my address deleted)
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http://epistolary.org/1378.html
(editorial comment insertion: This one is some vague commentary by Rob Carlson, one of the combatants back in the City Streets argument on the old Baltwash list, that I was a mean nasty person who shouldn't be listened to. The reader is invited to take a good look at what Mr.Carlson claims to be trollage.
Short form: Somebody, generally assumed by others to me, made the accurate and unsuprising prediction that despite one of the many rumors being floated by the membership of that list, that there would not be mass arrests at Burning Man for "indecent exposure", and pointed out why the arguments offered in support of the rumor were pretty darned silly - as they were. The regulars, showing themselves as lacking in personal maturity as Mr.Spencer here, responded by defaming the person they lost the argument to, and then tried to wriggle out of looking as foolish as their remarks would have made them seem by lying about what it was, that had been under discussion. This is the political company that Andy chooses to keep).
http://www.killfile.org/dungeon/why/stats.html
(editorial comment insertion: This comes to us from Tim Skirvin, whose comments you might have seen rebutted on this page. Tim was the guy who was greatly upset because when I posted a request to Mr.Cherry and those writing followups to his posts to please take their anti-NAMBLA thread out of soc.culture.israel, I posted the request in soc.culture.israel. Instead of in rec.arts.cheesemaking, like I was supposed to?
Again, the testimony of somebody who really is a troll, and who has successfully used a display of attitude in an attempt to get some of the weaker minded netizens from noticing the lack of substance in his remarks, and from noticing the way they fly in the face of just basic common sense).
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=joseph+dunphy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF -8&safe=off&selm=zpksroof.fsf%40chonsp.franklin.lugs.ch&rnum=1
(Editorial comment insertion: Click on the above url, which I've kept in white for ease in keeping the attributions straight, and you'll get to a post by one Neil Franklin, in which he attempts to orchestrate a campaign of harrasment against my former provider (Xnet) in what has to be one of the most blatantly censorious attempts at Plug Pulling I've ever seen. Let's take a look at the posts he's complaining about. One finds a philosophical critique of the notion of altruism as it is encouraged in contemporary popular Christian culture, and some of its dystopian consequences (1 2), an explanation of why these arguments were apropo in that location (it was rec.org.sca, and this was a rebuttal to remarks that were seeing a lot of circulation in the Scadian forums), and a defense of what might have seemed a violation of the charter's rule against talking about religion on-group. Yes, that's right - Neil actually has the nerve to argue that a post in which I defend my actions is, itself, grounds for demanding that my access be revoked.
This is 1990s justice for you - treating the very act of defending oneself against a complaint as being something to make a complaint about - and a beautiful example of why the concept of Political Correctness ended up gaining as much notoriety as it did. It is low rent fascism. As Mr.Franklin himself writes,
"Appart (sic) from blaming an organisation of ca 30000 members for the claimed (and not proven) behaviour of _one_ person who may be a member of it (or may not) for what that person did (or did not) being bad form, it is clearly inacceptable to post in such way on Usenet."
Ummm ... Neil, how do you figure? But there it is, we have the man coming out and saying that I should be censored because I shouldn't have the freedom to express the particular philosophical point of view that I have, and saying it in so many words. There's no need to read between the lines on this one.
Mr.Franklin's position was so off the wall that even on rec.org.sca, local Cabal dominated as it was, Neil got ignored at a time when I was a popular target for flaming. Notice that this was a one post thread. And yet Mr.Spencer wants this lunatic in his corner. Birds of a feather flock together, right?
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=joseph+dunphy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF -8&safe=off&selm=19990322211023.00965.00000398%40ng-ch1.aol.com&rnum=3
(Editorial comment insertion: Hotlinked for your convenience.
None of what follows should be taken as a defense of Moonphaize, who I've found completely annoying the few times that I've read her. The business where her and some of her fellow newbies enter fights that predate their presence by a good stretch, decide that they're going to resolve them by pressuring one side to stop defending itself, unilaterally, and then whine like mad when they get told "no", is a good example of why. Especially when one of them will say "this isn't what I came into the group looking for", as if everyone present was supposed to drop whatever they've been doing, and devote their time to accomodating these people now that THEY have arrived. How pompous, how utterly self absorbed, do these people have to be, for them to decide to act like Usenet exists for their own personal convenience?
Were they, perhaps, under the impression that Usenet was a product of "Internet, inc.", and that the rest of us were being paid to entertain them? If Dragonlady responds to something that a shezoid has posted, for example, why should she care about whether or not this fight is of interest to some third party who just popped in out of the blue?
Having then been told to stop acting like a fucking idiot, for the very good reason that she has been acting like a fucking idiot, Moonie will then sob about the bad language that her own obnoxious behavior has inspired, in the people who have the good sense to blow off steam, instead of letting their anger build up. I understand that she has taken to persistantly e-mailing people who've told her to go away. People like Moonie are why mailfilters were invented.
This much having been said - Malphas, do you really think that the anti-semitism is necessary? I can understand wanting to offend Moonphaize, but you're also insulting every other Jewish regular on the group, most of whom have not been acting like Moonie. Are you saying that Jewish women, in general, are sluts? Because that is how you're coming across, and it is uncalled for.
Oh, and here are a few testimonials about the behavior of Moonphaize, the person Andy is claiming as a source: 1 2 3 4 5. If you buy Andy's premise that the presence of critical commentary online is automatically damning, and becomes automatically more so if done in any sort of volume (the "google this" argument, with no explanation offered as to how this could be anything but an ad hominem), then how does one avoid the conclusion that Andy is going to a nutcase and seeking her testimony, implying that he, himself, is something of a nutcase? If, on the contrary, one rejects that argument and says that the products of the rumor mill should not be taken on faith, then what is left of Mr.Spencer's argument? One can't have it both ways.
As for my own remarks, which you saw above, which part of them was supposed to be objectionable? The part where I asked "Malphas" to stop talking about "Jewish sluts", or the part where I broke the news to Moonphaize that the rest of the Internet community wasn't there for her personal amusement? What Andy has done is make a sort of bluff - post an url, assert that it supports his case, and hope that enough people will just assume that he wouldn't lie about a thing like that, and not bother to check for themselves. As you can see just by looking at the quote above, that's a very bad practice because some, like Andy, are truly without shame and will lie about a thing like that. Click on the white colored link above, and you'll se that this is exactly what he was up to).
The only genuinely embarassing thing that you can find in all of this is the fact that I once treated the New Agers (oh, pardon me, "Wiccans") as if they were a serious faith community, one worth dialoging with. I would, however, point out that my girlfriend was one of them, at the time, and that dismissing something so important to one's beloved as her religion is not so easy. I would also suggest that he (or she) who has never done anything foolish for love cast the first stone - and then seriously re-examine his or her life, because something very important is probably missing from it.
It goes on in this manner for volumes...
(Editorial comment insertion: Which is more or less the point, isn't it Andy, and one of the more annoying problems with the Internet. To defame by innuendo is easy; to defend oneself against defamation takes real work. I've got way better things to do with my time that go wading through the Dejanews archives and pull up the details on a few encounters I had with a few psych cases online, but as long as so many netizens are so ready to be so conveniently trusting, how else does one lay rumors to rest? This is a system and a subculture heavily titled in favor of its own worst behaved participants).
I am not the only one who vomits up bile every time I see the name "Joe Dunphy"
(Editorial comment insertion: I wonder if his head spins around, too).
- Andy
On Sep 28, 2004, at 4:04 PM, Joe Dunphy wrote:
(full text of my kissoff letter to the list deleted for brevity)
"A true friend stabs you in the front." - Oscar Wilde
(continue)