On the menu today are the various elected officials who have made verbal threats of official executive or legislative action to block new Chick-fil-A locations in their cities, in response to comments made by their CEO, Dan Cathy, and donations made to groups and organizations opposing marriage equality and homosexuality itself, both by members of the Cathy family personally and by the Chick-fil-A corporation.
In the first instance, Dr Douglas is upset by a tweet between me and Aaron Worthing, discussing something The Mayor of San Francisco, Ed Lee, tweeted. Here's Donald's version of the story:
So far all the reports out indicate that San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee has warned Chick-fil-A about opening a store in the city.There's a whole lot there.
See the San Franscisco Chronicle, "Mayor Ed Lee warns Chick-fil-A against coming to San Francisco":
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has joined in the growing chorus condemning Chick-fil-A for the national chicken chain’s much-publicized anti-gay views.The mayor's tweets are embedded at the report.
After mayors in Boston and Chicago recently expressed their disapproval with Chick-fil-A and its intolerance, Lee followed suit and took to his Twitter account late yesterday, firing off two successive tweets. The first one conveys his disappointment with the chain’s lack of values, and the second one takes it up a notch, suggesting that Chick-fil-A don’t even think about opening in San Francisco.
It's clearly threatening. And the Los Angeles Times agrees, "San Francisco is the third city to tell Chick-fil-A: Keep out":
First Boston. Then Chicago.Pretty straightforward, obviously.
The next city to tell Chick-fil-A to keep out? San Francisco.
Edwin M. Lee, mayor of the progressive city, tweeted Thursday night: "Very disappointed #ChickFilA doesn't share San Francisco's values & strong commitment to equality for everyone."
He also added a warning to his subsequent tweet: "Closest #ChickFilA to San Francisco is 40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer."
Until Thursday, San Francisco had stayed mum on the debate, which began when Chick-fil-A's president, Dan Cathy, went on the record as saying his Atlanta-based chicken chain operated on biblical values and opposed same-sex marriage.
But not for fascist hate-blogger Walter James Casper III, a.k.a Repsac3, who attacks Aaron Worthing on Twitter with denials of the threat:
First off, if Donald Douglas believes that this tweet (or indeed any of the ones Dr. Douglas failed to include between Aaron and I, which I'll get to below) constitutes an "attack" on Aaron Worthing, it's obvious why he runs to legal and political authorities to protect him from unwanted blog comments, rather than deleting them and moving on, which is what most bloggers do. And obviously, the other characterizations of me are just as unsubstantiated and therefore nonsensical as they always are. No surprise there, either.
While we're on the subject of words, I note that both of the articles Dr. Douglas cites characterize the Mayor's second tweet as a "warning," rather than a threat.
I definitely concur that it was a warning. And, contrary to the way Donald Douglas is relating the difference of opinion between Aaron and I (whether because he did not read all the tweets, and shot off, uninformed and angry, or read them all, but did not understand the dispute, which once again calls his reading comprehension into question), it could be considered a threat, as well.
Here's the conversation in full. See if you can spot the parts that Donald Douglas failed to grasp:
AaronWorthing: The mayor of San Fran, the latest fascist to use official power to stifle unpopular speech ----> @mayoredlee pic.twitter.com/HodPQ6Ay (Picture link is to Mayor Lee's tweets--and particular to our purposes, the second one, where he says "Closest #ChickFilA to San Francisco is 40 miles away & I strongly recommend that they not try to come any closer.".)
repsac3: @AaronWorthing @mayoredlee Those there are just words, Aaron...and they don't even contain a threat of official action, far as I see
Up to now, Aaron has made an allegation that the Mayor has threatened to us "official power" to stifle unpopular speech, and I replied by questioning his allegation that there was any threat of "official action" by the Mayor. I thought at the time that Aaron's next tweet was continuing the discussion of threats in the context of "official power" or "action," but reading it over now, maybe he wasn't...
AaronWorthing: no, that is a clear threat as understood in ordinary English. @repsac3 @mayoredlee pic.twitter.com/NGgaWBpT
Whatever Aaron was thinking though, it's obvious what I was talking about:
repsac3: @AaronWorthing @mayoredlee We disagree. I'm opposed to those who ARE issuing threats of govt action--like anti-abortion TRAP laws, 2me...
repsac3: ...but saying stay out of this city isn't a threat of govt action. It's just speech
(I was limited by the 140 characters (or 280, I guess). But in case it was in any way unclear, my intent in the first tweet was to say that I saw the threats to use legal/political power against Chick-fil-A as the same as those conservative legislators and governors who have enacted TRAP laws -- impossible / costly to meet regulations about the size of janitor closets, hallway widths, staffing requirements, etc, that are COMPLETELY unrelated to the care or safety of anyone involved with the clinic, targeted at abortion clinics exclusively --that are designed to run clinics out of town via excessive regulation, thereby accomplishing what they cannot accomplish by outlawing abortion directly. Whether it's clinics or fast food chicken, government officials should not be employing excessive regulation to stop those businesses they morally oppose. The intent of the second tweet was to say that Mayor Lee hadn't made a threat to use such government action.)
AaronWorthing: Don't be naive. The law isn't. @repsac3 @mayoredlee
repsac3: @AaronWorthing I'll have to wait for the blog post, because that tweet says nothing to me. What threat, and what law?
AaronWorthing: @repsac3 the law of what counts as a threat. Read, e.g. Virginia v black.
(Needless to say, I did look it up, reading (or at least skimming) several sources. All I found concerning "what counts as a threat" was a citation defining “true threats" as "those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals"
repsac3: @AaronWorthing not seeing the def of threat (other than cite of "true threat" which is about bodily harm). More of a pointer?
And finally in that last link, we get to the single exchange that Dr. Douglas highlighted. Did he read the rest, and either "willingly" or actually not understand them? Or did he just not read them, and think he had some kinda evidence that I was denying that anyone anywhere made any threats at all, and was defending, knee-jerk, everyone on my side of the political spectrum, whether right or wrong. (Y'know... like he does...) We may never know what facts he did and didn't bother to learn, but regardless, he was wrong.
My intent was clear throughout. I wasn't saying the Mayor did not issue a warning or threat of any kind, and never expressed any agreement with what he said, either. But there was no threat of "official action;" no indication that he intended to use or abuse his "official power" as Mayor to keep Chick-fil-A out of his town. Elected officials in other cities made such threats, and I spoke out against them. Often. I did not hear the same kind of threat to abuse his power from Mayor Lee. And that's what I said.
The despicable hater Repsac3 is lying again, no surprise.
A threat does not have to warn of physical harm. "Threat" could be financial injury, for example. In other words, a threat is any kind of caution, as Dictionary.com points out:
threat [thret]There's nothing there about a threat requiring violence. But that doesn't matter to Walter James Casper III. He lies about everything.
noun
1. a declaration of an intention or determination to inflict punishment, injury, etc., in retaliation for, or conditionally upon, some action or course; menace: He confessed under the threat of imprisonment.
2. an indication or warning of probable trouble: The threat of a storm was in the air.
3. a person or thing that threatens.
I did not lie.
I also did not claim that a threat required violence. If anyone did that at all, it was Aaron, in citing Virginia v Black and saying that a definition of "the law of what counts as a threat" could be found in that decision. ...though honestly, I'm pretty sure that Aaron was not suggesting that a threat requires violence, either. For one thing, it would weaken rather than strengthen his assertion that what Mayor Lee said was a threat.
I don't know what Aaron was trying to say in citing that decision. (Maybe he cited the wrong case, or maybe he just didn't think I'd bother to look, figuring that only one of us went to law school, and it wasn't me... or maybe there really is something in there in support of his claims, and I'm just not seeing it, not being a lawyer n'all...) I don't know, because Aaron never answered my tweet requesting more information. (If anyone else wishes to read the opinion and figure out what it is I'm missing within, the link follows: Supreme Court opinion, Virginia v. Black)
One can certainly read a threat to abuse official power into what Mayor Lee tweeted if one is so inclined, but it isn't a foregone conclusion or "Pretty straightforward, obviously" that use or abuse of official power is exactly what Mayor Lee intended. He could just as easily mean that the location would be a ghost town given the make-up of his city, and it wouldn't be worth their while to come. One thing I'm sure of, is that compared to the threats made by the people in Boston and Chicago--which far more clearly threatened the use and abuse of official power to stifle speech--what Mayor Lee said was pretty weak, no matter what his intent.
In any case, it isn't a lie to have a different opinion.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Donald's second accusation is downright preposterous:
And he organizes his hate campaigns with others online:
According to Donald, this tweet is evidence of my organizing a hate campaign with someone else online--in this case, this gentleman, Evan Hurst.
Ready for the truth?
Evan Hurst writes for Truth Wins Out which yes, is an organization that advocates for gay causes. He recently wrote a post OPPOSING the threats against Chick-fil-A by the Democratic politicians in Boston, Chicago (and maybe San Francisco, too... I cannot recall.) I was one of several people who commented at the post AGREEING with him, saying:
"I see the chick-fil-a issue regarding these government officials as being akin to the government officials passing immpossible/extremely costly-to-comply-with regulations on medical providers in the business of providing a service to which these government officials are opposed--abortions--and thus closing them down, or keeping them from opening. (And unlike the Chick-fil-a threats, these regulations against abortion providers are already in place in several cities and states...)When I went back a day or two later to read what others had said in the comments, the post and all commentary had completely disappeared. I tweeted the author, replying to his tweet "advertising" the post initially:
I'm all for protesting, and for the free speech and right of religious and moral conscience of all involved... ...but I cannot support targeting businesses with legally unnecessary regulations and restrictions because you oppose the business on moral grounds, whether it's anti-abortion legislators targeting clinics or pro-marriage equality legislators targeting fast food chicken."
repsac3: @EvanHurst What became of this honest post about the Boston and Chicago elected officials bad response to chickfila? #disappeardapointed
EvanHurst: @repsac3 It went away. Not by my decision. Sorry. :( If you want a copy, I'll gladly send it, as I did save it.
repsac3: @EvanHurst Would love a copy, thanks. Reader commentary below--both 4 & against--was good, too. Pulling it was BAD, imo. Tell the bosses.
repsac3: @EvanHurst Just occurred to me you may need an e-mail address to pass along the Chickfila article: repsac3blogs@gmail.com Thanks again...
There's a saying that "if you're looking for hate (or bigotry, or racism, or other examples of bad behavior), you'll find it."
Donald Douglas is proof that even when you're looking for it, you don't always find it, however hard you try. That's some kinda hate, there, talking to an author that wrote a post that largely AGREES with Dr. Douglas' position, complimenting him on it--and expressing my disagreement with the idiots that removed it--and accepting his offer to get a copy of the post.
When you insist on behaving as dumb as a bag of hammers in furtherance of your paranoid attacks on those who disagree with you, everything looks like a nail, I guess. Hate and persecution, even in complimentary tweets to an author. Yeesh.
That's something I've mentioned previously, regarding Repsac's intimidation and stalking campaign against this blog.That Dr. Douglas actually believes and so often repeats this in public says far more about him than me.
He's a liar and an Internet predator. People should avoid him, block him on Twitter, and report him to the proper authorities.That, too...
My conduct toward Donald Douglas and pretty much everyone else is posted for the world to see and to judge.
I quote and cite what others have to say, and then respond with what I think and believe. I'm not perfect by any means, but I seldom call folks names or make allegations about their inter-species parentage. Most of my comments are respectful and on-topic.
Given the skewering Dr. Douglas so often gets--the result of fact-challenged attack posts like the one I'm responding to here, generally--I can understand why he doesn't like me. What is less clear is why he keeps lashing out at me unprovoked, in the first place.
I may never know...
UPDATE 7/30/12, 12:25 PM:
Quick addendum to this. After I posted it, I sent Aaron Worthing a tweet letting him know I had posted about our discussion, in case he wanted to clarify or take issue with anything I wrote:
repsac3: @AaronWorthing Blogged about a twitter exchange we had the other day. Read, respond, or ignore, as you wish: http://americannihilistblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/donald-douglas-lashes-out-and-lies.html …
There's been no response from him so far, but when I checked his twitter feed, I noticed that he had uncritically retweeted Donald's dishonest post yesterday:
Even still, I hope he comes by to discuss it with me and show me where I'm wrong...
Links:
American Power: Mayor Edwin Lee Warns Chick-fil-A on Coming to San Francisco — Lying Fascist Repsac3 Denies It, Shills for Left's Anti-Free Speech Thugs
Inside Scoop SF � Mayor Ed Lee warns Chick-fil-A against coming to San Francisco
San Francisco is the third city to tell Chick-fil-A: Keep out - latimes.com
American Power: California Penal Code Section 646.9 on Criminal Harassment and Cyberstalking: Statement of Warning to Hate-Blogger Walter James Casper III
American Nihilist: Donald Douglas - Reading Comprehension
virginia v black - Google Search
VIRGINIA V. BLACK
Supreme Court opinion, Virginia v. Black
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An American Nihilist X-post
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