In a
recent post, Donald Douglas once again claims that a "criminal" "troll" (yours truly) has "harassed" him over the internet, "coordinating" actions with others. Donald wants so badly to be seen as a victim that he invents "obsessive email stalking campaigns," and periodically lashes out at me by name with imagined slights, even when (and I suspect, BECAUSE) I don't post anything about him at all.
But as frequently happens when dealing with Dishonest Donald Douglas, the facts are far different... In a nutshell:
Dishonest Donald Douglas is whining and whinging and begging for the sympathies of his ideological tribe because up until ten months ago-- (Yes, pretty much everything Donald is complaining about took place in the first two months of 2012, if not earlier. Some incidents took place as early as 2008...and he's still going on about them.) --I submitted a reasonable number (read "one," generally) of on-topic rebuttals to the public comment section of his moderated blog--most often at posts where he discussed me by name--against his expressed wishes. Donald is also upset because I had the temerity to call out and expose his self-reported pleas to
Google,
two California police departments, the FBI, one or more lawyers, and
his congressman, all done in a misguided attempt to have them enforce the rules he laid out for his blog-- (rather than, y'know, just not approving the comments held in the moderation queue, like pretty much every other blogger who screens his comment section does) --for the anti-free speech nonsense it always has been. That's the whole ball of wax. Everything that follows expands on these few sentences.
1) I have never "
harassed" Donald Douglas. I used to submit public comments to his blog, often disagreeing with his posts. I did not submit an unreasonable number of comments, either at individual posts or to the blog in general. (If I did submit more comments to a particular post than others, it was because I was responding to the points of several other participants who had all addressed me.) I did not engage in crude language or ad hominem attacks any more frequently than did other participants or Dr. Douglas himself. My comments were on topic disagreements (or occasionally, supportive agreement) with what Donald or one of the other comment area participants had to say.
Once Dishonest Don began deleting posted comments and moderating his comment stream before the fact to weed out content with which he did not approve, I restricted my comment submissions to blog posts where he lashed out at me by name, making sure to keep a record of the submission and post a copy of the comment where Dr Douglas could not make it disappear. I did not make repeated submissions or otherwise abuse the comment system. I was a member of the public submitting comments to an area open to public comment, in rebuttal of posts attacking me by name. And just to be crystal clear, I have not attempted to submit a single comment to the American Power blog since sometime in January, 2012.
A quick word about
RS McCain's term "Troll Rights:" the "
antisocial belief that [one]
should be able to say anything to anyone in other people’s privately-owned online space, without regard for the proprietors’ rules or even basic human decency."
I don't know about "troll rights," but free speech rights as understood here in the US anyway, suggest that yes, one ought to be able to submit one's point of view to the comment area of a blog that accepts public comments. It does not mean that those comments must to be PUBLISHED by the blog owner--and I've never said otherwise--or that free speech rights absolve the commenter for hateful, disgusting comments or genuinely harassing behavior, as either is legally or socially understood--and I've never said otherwise. But one
does have the right to submit one's comments, and to make note of the ones the blog owner chooses to keep hidden, as well--especially when one is the subject of the blog post in question. One also has the responsibility to stand behind one's words and the reactions one receives for doing so, both positive and negative. And while Donald Douglas apparently disagrees, I'd be surprised if RS McCain says he is similarly opposed to this use of speech. (I suspect RS was conceding as much by saying that
"troll rights may be an interesting legal concept..." Indeed they are, McCain. Free speech rights (including the speech of those some might (incorrectly) label internet trolls) are seldom called on to protect popular, pretty speech.)
2) Nothing I've said or done as regards Donald Douglas has been "
criminal." While Dishonest Don
cited a whole series of laws in support of his claims, he also took his so-called "evidence" to lawyers, police officers, and congressmen, all in an effort to criminalize my speech and stop me from posting. AND...Nothing came of any of it. No individual or office that Donald complained to has ever contacted me in any way, shape or form. (I did initiate a conversation with the officer at one of the police departments Donald contacted, who assured me that she had seen no evidence of my running afoul of any law.) And according to the internet lawyer I spoke to in one of those "you pay nothing unless we win" free consultations, Donald's repeated claims that I had broken the law were far more actionable in civil court than anything I had ever done as regards Dr Douglas. Needless to say, I declined the lawyer's offer to file a suit for libel.
3) When did "
troll" get redefined to mean "disagrees with me on the internet," anyway?
That ain't it, kids... And for gosh sakes, stop being so damned thin-skinned.
Almost all of my internet comments have been on-topic, or at least reasonably related to what someone else has said. I have never dropped a single provocative bit of prose into a comment section or message board and then sat back and watched the chaos ensue. I've never been unwilling to defend the positions I've taken or to admit when someone else has a valid point. Once upon a time, THAT (or "not doing those things," I guess) was the definition of trolling...
Reasonable folks can certainly argue that it is impolite to submit comments to a moderated blog after the blogger in question has stated that he would prefer you do not do so, but being impolite isn't the same as trolling.
4) There has been no "
obsessive e-mail campaign." I sent three comments via e-mail in response to blog posts...
because that was what Dr. Douglas requested:
And finally... It doesn't take much to figure out which of us is actually the obsessed aggressor... It's been almost a year (1/5/12, for those keeping score) since I last authored a post at American Nihilist that was not responding to an American Power post where Dishonest Donald Douglas mentioned me by name (often in posts where he shoehorned my name into posts ostensibly about other topics). I do still read his blog, and I sometimes follow the links or discuss the same topics in other venues, but it isn't me who is periodically lashing out in some crazy desperate plea for attention and relevance.
Like I said in my earlier post, I feel very sorry for Donald Douglas. I can't imagine what it must be like to hate so many people for such petty reasons.
Life's too short to waste much time on him... but I do reserve the right to respond to Donald Douglas' attacks on me,
when and where I choose:
[Dr Douglas is] not going to run my life. And I am not going to spend every waking hour responding to [his many] lies. I’ve come to realize that there is no point in worrying about the latest defamation from a tiny and already discredited [man]. Put simply, I’m not going to spend my life obsessing over [him] — even if [he] insist[s] on being obsessed with me. Unlike [Donald Douglas], I have a life apart from the Internet.
That said, I am also not going away. And if I feel like setting the record straight on a particular point, and have the time and motivation to do so, I will.
Threats just give me something new to talk about. At a time of my choosing.
[Donald Douglas has] tried to intimidate and threaten me for over [four] years now. No threat [or lie he's told on the internet or to "the authorities"] will stop me.
I am not going away.
Links:
American Power: Cyber-Stalking Harassment Troll Bill Schmalfeldt
Donald Douglas Abuses His Google
June 3: Bill Schmalfeldt Begins Cyberstalking Aaron Walker : The Other McCain
Criminalizing the Internet - The Ongoing Saga
I’m not a troll—why does everyone on the Internet keep calling me one? - Slate Magazine
American Power: W. James Casper's Demonic Band of Progressive Totalitarians
American Power's Cyber-Stalking Harassment Troll Donald Kent Douglas
Patterico's Pontifications � Stacy McCain on Cyberstalking
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An
American Nihilist X-post
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