Good news, ladies and manginas: Apparently some MRAs don’t think it’s time to go out and start shooting people. At least not quite yet.
Some background: In recent days numerous MRAs have taken up the cause of a man named Thomas Ball – who burned himself to death outside a courthouse in Keane, New Hampshire in a protest against what he saw as unfair treatment in family court. Ferdinand Bardamu of In Male Fide has declared him “a martyr for the cause of men’s rights, a casualty of feminism’s stripping one half of the population of their humanity.”
Before killing himself, Ball wrote a long manifesto outlining his grievances and suggesting that the time had come for men “to start burning down police stations and courthouses,” describing the inhabitants of such buildings as “[c]ollaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War … So burn them out. “ (He offered specific advice on how best to do this, including tips on how to select the proper bottles to use for Molotov cocktails.)
All this has inspired some in the MRA to start talking ominously about violence. On The Spearhead, W.F. Price has responded to this talk with a piece suggesting that the time isn’t quite right for the MRAs of the world to take up armed struggle. Not just yet, anyway. As he puts it:
It is never a good idea to pick up a gun and start shooting to address some vaguely defined injustice — that is savagery. Before the American Revolution, for example, patriots took pains to spell out a long list of grievances that justified rebellion. …
We have to make our own lists, air our grievances, and give the state the opportunity to redress them. … Before anyone resorts to the same methods the state uses against us, we must put every reasonable effort into working with the law and the political system we have. Because this effort is still in its infancy, any calls for armed resistance are entirely premature and counterproductive, and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Obviously, the flip side of this argument for delay is a justification for killing people if these “grievances” aren’t dealt with in the way that those in the MRA would like. Price’s reference to the American Revolution is an interesting one, because of course the central issue of that struggle was, you know, taxation without representation. The colonists couldn’t vote out the king if they didn’t like his policies. In case anyone has forgotten: we actually do have the vote now, which was kind of the whole point in the first place.
Of course, many of Price’s readers are a bit more impatient than he is. In a comment that drew (last I checked) more than 40 upvotes and only two dissenting downvote, Taqman took issue with Price’s call to delay the armed struggle:
Tell that to men who are facing imminent imprisonment for failure to pay child support.
They don’t have the luxury of time and can’t wait a couple of decades for the manginas of the world to wake up and decide that a gentlemanly form of armed resistance is now acceptable.
The ironically named Firepower, meanwhile, took a little swipe at Ball’s own actions, but didn’t challenge his advice for the rest of the men of the world:
What IS crazy is having to point out that setting YOURSELF on fire is a ridiculous way to “win” anything.
Set your enemies on fire. To even have to remind this questions the long term chances of victory for such a pathetic lot.
Jean Valjean suggested that political action was pointless — due to all those damned women who vote:
No amount of “stoic logic” will make politicians see our point of view.
Politicians are in the business of getting re-elected rather than the business of good governance. So long as women are the majority there will only be tyranny of the majority.
Peter-Andrew:Nolan(c) — you knew we were getting to him, right? — expressed his profound disappointment that more Spearheaders weren’t willing to embrace a violent solution:
Gee you guys are whimps and tiptoe around the ‘use of force’ like freaking ballet dancers. Are you so scared to speak about this when it is CLEAR the guvment LOVES using force against you and lots of other people too?
And he made the argument personal, explicitly denouncing, by name, the judge he claimed had “criminally abused” him with his rulings:
Judge [name redacted’s] life is now in my hands. He lives by my consent and my consent alone. …
And, like Ball, he declared judges to be essentially treasonous:
These judges pretended to be your servants. They are evil, evil people who deserve the kind of treatment reserved for those who commit treason.
There is more to Nolan’s comment(s) than that, but to get into it would require going down the rabbit-hole into his particular brand of crackpottery, which seems to involve him setting up his own courts to try judges he doesn’t like. (I frankly don’t understand his belief system and don’t care to.)
Now, it should be noted that a few Spearheaders actually objected to Nolan’s violent talk. But the last I checked, the comment I just quoted had more upvotes than downvotes. W.F. Price took more flak for suggesting men wait a little longer before taking up arms than Nolan did for, well, you saw what he wrote. That tells you a lot about The Spearhead, I think.
EDIT: Added quote from Ferdinand Bardamu; removed similar quote from The Spearhead.
*points and snickers at Crack engaging aMiRA*
I’ve been waiting for something like that to happen since aMiRA showed up here! I was very close to being able to say ‘ROFL’ and mean it. Ah, the simple pleasures.
Hey, where did aMiRA go? I was hoping to get some actual intelligent discussion going on here!
Dude. Dude. Duuude. Can I call you “Darling”?
Magic: The Gathering is a card game some dude dreamed up to teach his preteen children about math. A card game. Card. Game. It deals with the same fantasy elements Dungeons and Dragons does but in card-game form. If it’s a cult then so is poker.
Or, to put it another way, imagine if chess pieces had scenes from medieval life painted on them to make them more decorative.
Same. Thing.
Of course, Cracker probably also thinks that chess players are cultists.
should i feel insulted or grateful that the loooooooooooooooooooooong-ass reply i gave Crack, he COMPLETELY ignored?!
ah, well – Ami, is *your* cult recruiting? is there any way to get a copy of your newsletter?
😀
Also, what flavor is the Kool-aid? I hope it’s grape. I love grape.
I made your card Denelian (I think this was what you asked for) it’s on your FB, if you like it, I’ll put it here :]
aw, Crack is gone? I wanted to ask him for his specific definition of cult, since he seems to be using a different one than the rest of the world.
Also, he totally ignored me when I said his research technique often leads to confirmation bias.
Also, Mr. Crack was very critical of peoples’ insistence at proving him wrong…I just want to point this out
“The Crack Emcee | June 26, 2011 at 12:27 pm
…Somebody here is going to admit to being a liar – I came to win.”
One could perhaps argue that this mindset (“I came to win”) is more about winning than asking questions or having a discussion…
@Denelin:
Don’t worry, I too gave a long-ass reply, and he picked a single sentence out of the whole thing and responded to that. It’s almost more insulting than not responding at all, since it proves he at least read my comment. Oh well.
Crack and aMiRA… Words cannot express how much I am laughing right now…
Watch out, fyymyynyysts (did I put enough ys in there? Gotta show that hatred of the y gene by using ys at every opportunity, because that makes total sense!), you’re totally gonna be sucked into a DEATH CULT for enjoying Ami and her orsum cards of orsumness or anything other than Crack-sanctioned entertainment/leisure activities/internet sites/world. AND THEN YOU’LL KILL THREE PEOPLE (BY PROXY AND VERY CONVOLUTED, WOW YOU SURE ARE A BAD MURDERER) AND CRACK WILL HAVE TO RAVE ABOUT IT.
Y’all just better straighten up coz Crack is on the case now.
It’s just too sad that he’s a child abuse advocate as well as a disingenuous asshole and all-around douchebag. BUT HEY DID YOU GET THE MEMO? HE TOTES WON! (Won what, you ask? If you don’t know, you weren’t important or orsum enough to even take part, that’s what.)
He comes in here, starts by saying that a little girl who got hit in the face until her lip bled by her father was not abused.
Why?
Because! Why he was hit with boards with nails in them and various other shit by his mother whenever she felt like it BUT IT WASN’T ABUSE, it didn’t in any way contribute to him being a paranoid and delusional obsessive (yoga is a gateway to cultism? Tell me, is Harry Potter also a gateway to Sorcery and Satanism?) asshat. Nono, he’s just fine and dandy. Why, look at how good he turned out.
Crack, you’re not exactly coming off as the poster child for well-adjusted, reasonable maturity here. You’re a cautionary tale as to why people SHOULDN’T be allowed to abuse children the way your mom abused you.
It figures that you and aMiRA would get along like a house on fire.
Also LOLFOREVA @ Ami being a totes mean alpha bitch cheerleader.
Ami, you need to stop being SO MEEN and start showing that delicate gentleness women are supposed to! Coz you’re clearly a ditzy ditz with nothing between the ears except meanness and will lead everyone here to SATAN CULTS with your infernal TAROT CARDS OF EVIL MEANNESS.
(Just have to add: I <3 Ami so much, you make my day every day with something hilarious or profound you say.)
DAMN YOU REAL LIFE FOR MAKING ME MISS THIS THREAD!
It is hilarious that CE thinks Magyc cards are some kind of dangerous New Age device instead of a pretty geeky card game. Or that yoga is a gateway drug for cults! We must all thank him for warning us about the dangers of stretching and mild resistance training!
(Also, dude, if you’re still reading, your [foster]mother who hit you constantly? Was abusing you. Not all children are traumatized by abuse, but just because you – questionably – don’t consider yourself to have been affected by the abuse doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.)
Kirby;
yeah – gods only know what single sentence he *could* have pulled out, but the out-of-contextness would have made it even more insulting.
Kristin: that’s what i said, except it took me 5x as many words. lol
Ami – post it! its wonderful and i ♥ it utterly!!!
“Magyc: the Gendering” wouldn’t be a proper fantasy world setting without some fanfic, so I’ve written some. Trigger warning: contains neither sex nor violence.
Crack did the same with me. I asked some very specific questions (independent of the questions about his character), and he didn’t pay attention to them .
In fact, that seems to be what upset him most. We didn’t just take his word for it. When I look at what he said we should have done, I see what we didn’t let him do.
We, you see, were supposed to accept his expertise. We weren’t supposed to ask specific questions making him elaborate on the details, we were supposed to ask him, “What he meant” and let him explain himself.
What we did was look at what he said, and read it for content, and then asked him to defend the content. He wanted to give new content. We were very unfair to him. We actually held him to consistent standards. Looking at his posts in other places, that doesn’t happen much. As one might expect, he reacts poorly in those places too.
But he came to win… and since he has quit the field, people can now make up their minds on how that played out.
GRA: Watch out, fyymyynyysts (did I put enough ys in there? Gotta show that hatred of the y gene by using ys at every opportunity,
OMFG, an explanation of why the y hatred! Scarily, it makes sense.
Johnny – your “trigger warning” had me LITERALLY loling 😀
Pecunium – i suspect your right. then again, ANY person who shows up, makes a bunch of claims [with no citation other than zie’s OWN work] and then says “look it up for yourself” when challanged, is generally not the sort of person really interested in discussion/debate.
i only looked at his site – and not much of it – because i’m lazy when it comes to people who aren’t looking for anything more than adulation. if you want my adulation, you must EARN it – starting by doing the freaking work to back up your claims. one of my favorite things about manboobz is that EVERYONE here [other than trolls] can and will cite at the drop of a hat – and holds EVERYONE to that standard. i ♥ that semi-official policy 🙂
ah, well, watching your take-down of Crack was, at the very least, amusing. so thank you for that!
@GRA awww ty :3 But I know you’re only being nice to me so I’ll invite you to all the cool parties w/ the jocks and the cheerleaders! xD
I’ve suspected for some time that a lot of the trolls are seeing me as some amalgam of every girl they ever hated in HS or something… it’s nice to have somebody basically say it xD
and he never did answer me clearly what WAS up w/ his hatred of the Magyc cards xD I agree w/ Pecunium, he says vague things, but dodges any attempt at clarity.. then he declares victory xD (also he doesn’t read me… NOPE! NEVER! he doesn’t read a thing I say! xD )
Holy crap! I can’t believe the level of hatred on this site! Having embarked on my farcical journey the family-destructo courts call justice, I can totally understand feeling suicidal. And I never hit my kids (or wife FYI). I’m not sure, but I’m not psychic and can’t determine that this dude killed himself because of a loss of power over his spouse. I think the comments here speak volumes for the posters rather than Thomas Ball.
Yes, he hit his kid and its bad and its wrong. But I’d rather not judge him. I’ll leave that to you since you lot seem better qualified to do so
It was Mary Wollstonecrafts daughter who wrote that:
The more I saw them, the greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see their sweet looks directed towards me with affection, was the utmost limit of my ambition. I dared not think that they would turn from me with disdain and horror.
Its a quote from Frankenstein. The monster of Frankenstein eventually goes on to kill all who his maker loved as revenge for being made into a world where he had no one else.
I’ll let everyone here draw what they can from the quote to the case of Thomas Ball.
And I will go on to say that a lot of the discourse here has been very mean-spirited. A man killed himself by immolation, which is typically the method used by those who aren’t being listened to. Would you call Mohamed Bouazazi, or Thich Quang Duc (the burning monk) selfish cowards?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc
Does the act smack of desperation? Someone here tried to make it out like he picked a horribly painful way to die as revenge. That’s sick.
Feminism has been a resounding success. From 1920 to now its been a steady stream of wins. The landscape reminds one of the British Empire in 1760, at the height of its power, and prestige. Also, its arrogance. A lot of people in this thread expressed very little sympathy in his death. How would any of you view an abused Afghan woman who drinks draino to kill herself? If you could relate any more to her, there is a problem.
Taken into context, Tom Ball hitting his child was wrong. No reasonable person would disagree with that. But we have no proof of serial abuse. We know of one single act of hitting. By itself, what do you think should be the punishment for that? How long would the punishment be? He felt the ramifications of a single act for 10 years. In no way is that reasonable, especially since he was ACQUITTED of the charge in court.
His grievance, in case you didn’t read his suicide note was that outside of the court, there was a system of bureaucracy that couldn’t be escaped. He complained about a social worker who didn’t let him see his children because “of his attitude.” Just like that. No judge, no jury. We have a social worker on the case.
How is any of this justifiable? Where is your sympathy?
have you ever been abused? were you, as a child, beaten or worse?
i ask not to mock, or be bitchy, but because it’s not something that one can understand without going through it.
see, most social workers have an intimate relationship with abuse. they know how it works.
in this specific case, is it possible it was a one-off? that he wasn’t an actual abuser, that just one time he did something that was, in actual fact, a non-repeatable accident?
if it had TRULY been an accident, the social worker probably thought, then he’d be penitent, or at least not actively hostile. he’d be upset that he hurt his child, and want to make up for it.
i’m not saying that it wasn’t a one-time occurrence – i’m saying, it’s very very easy to fall into a mindset that tells you “only an abuser would be MAD at this, since only an abuser would have more reason to fear the system than reason to comply with it” because FOR YEARS, for most of them actually, we couldn’t save kids until they were almost DEAD – and even then, if the parent showed “signs of remorse” – however obviously fake – the courts would almost always return custody to the person who almost killed their child.
it’s a sucky job. almost impossible. especially when it’s the job of the social worker to put the needs of the child FIRST but everyone around them whines about the “rights of the parents”. like the parents rights to have their kid trumps the CHILD’S rights to be safe? fuck that.
i don’t know that Ball was an abuser – but i know, just by his own words, that he wasn’t putting forth any effort to not look like one, to not act like one. i feel bad for any parent who has lost a child, however temporarily, to over-zealous social workers – but not anywhere NEAR as bad as i feel for all this kids, including my younger self, who were left in the homes of their abusers because social workers weren’t allowed to do their damned jobs.
Why do people always go to dead threads to post rambling screeds?
Rampant entitlement–they think that what they have to say is so original (they probably didn’t read the whole thread and find out otherwise) that our minds will be blown. I bet they’re a lot of fun at parties.
@denelian | July 11, 2012 at 1:21 pm
The issue with social workers appears to vary depending on location country etc.
For example the Australian system appears to be more about judgement proofing the agency rather than the best interests of the child.
As for the rest of it, well by his own words, Ball refused to submit to a system that judged him guilty even though he was cleared in court.
I am not going to comment on your experiences other than to note that they are yours and encourage you to continue to deal with them. I have no answers except for what would amount to platitudes so I am not going to say more.
@princessbonbon | July 11, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Why do people respond to them?
@hellkell | July 11, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Great mind reading ability. Thanks for sharing.