In June, a man named Thomas Ball took his own life – literally lighting himself ablaze – outside of a Keane, New Hampshire courthouse. He left behind a manifesto protesting his treatment by the family court.
But Ball wanted to do more than protest what he felt were injustices against men. He hoped to inspire other men to take the law into their own hands; in his words “we need to start burning down police stations and courthouses.”
He wasn’t speaking figuratively: he was talking about real violence.
[T]he dirty deeds are being carried out by our local police, prosecutors and judges. … Collaborators who are no different than the Vichy of France or the Quislings of Norway during the Second World War. … And they need to be held accountable. So burn them out. …
Ball went on to offer specific advice on how to construct the most effective Molotov cocktails to lob at courthouses and police stations.
Nor did he seem overly concerned that people would be killed:
There will be some casualties in this war. Some killed, some wounded, some captured. Some of them will be theirs. Some of the casualties will be ours. …
I only managed to get the main door of the Cheshire County Courthouse in Keene, NH. I would appreciate it if some of you boys would finish the job for me.
Ball has been treated as a martyr by many Men’s Right’s Activists online; his manifesto – including those parts that explicitly call for terrorism – has been reposted on a number of MRA sites.
Why am I bringing up Ball? This is why:
On Tuesday, an Arkansas man reportedly entered the office of the judge that had presided over his divorce and custody hearings, and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle. Amazingly, no one died as a result of his rampage, aside from the gunman himself, James Ray Palmer, who was taken down by police in a gun battle outside the courthouse, according to news accounts. The judge, fortunately, was not there, and the gunman’s rifle apparently jammed. Before heading to the courthouse, authorities say, Palmer set his own home on fire with timed incendiary devices.
Was Palmer inspired directly by Ball’s manifesto? We don’t know. The judge in this case was by no means the first to be targeted by a man angry at the outcome of his divorce or custody case. Judges were receiving death threats – and in some cases actually being murdered – long before there was such a thing as the Men’s Rights movement online.
But talk of violence is common on Men’s Rights sites. Opponents of the Men’s Rights movement are denounced as “collaborators,” while others talk plainly about fighting a “war” against feminism. Angry Harry, a British MRA revered by many of his ideological compatriots on this side of the pond, has offered an explicit apologia for violence against family court judges.
Even if Palmer himself was not directly influenced by the MRM online—as of yet, we don’t know — it is only a matter of time until some unbalanced person steeped in the violent rhetoric of the MRM online decides to “finish the job” started by Thomas Ball. It is only a matter of time until those espousing such rhetoric have real blood on their hands.
If the MRM truly aspires to be a real civil rights movement, rather than a reactionary hate sect more redolent of the KKK than of MLK, moderate MRAs need to step up and speak out against the bullies and the would-be warriors. They need to stop canonizing violent-minded men like Ball. They need to make clear that violent rhetoric – not to mention specific threats or calls to terrorism – have no place in the movement.
Do I expect this to happen? No. I think instead we will get more excuses, more evasions, more apologias for violence — and more threatening talk.
…
Palmer is the guy who went on a shooting spree in the courthouse. You know, the guy half of David’s post is about? Did you… did you even read this post?
“How come then that comments on the spearhead that are endorsing, or even calling for, violence against women get numerous upvotes, while such comments (regarding both anti-women and anti-men violence) get criticised and/or deleted here on manboobz, and many other feminist spaces?”
On manboobz, abuse denial is supported and has been for some time now. (see his debate with paul elam) Most feminist spaces publish misinformation about violence that defends female abusers and invalidates male victims, for years no male victims have been subjected to abuse and silencing on feminist spaces. Jezebelle ran an article and the authors and feminists in the comments section high fived each other for beating their partners. I cant speak of the spearhead because I don’t go there, and most MRA view it as traditionalist and too hardline, misogynist etc,
“MRA’s aren’t so much asked to take responsibility for guys like Breivik, but to refrain from defending their actions and making excuses for them.”
Who defended Breivik, Peter Nolan? Most MRAs were sickend (but not surprised) by the fact that manbooz was exploiting the deaths in order to slander the mrm, Did you not see any of the articles?
“for years NOW male victims have been subjected to abuse and silencing on feminist spaces, that one of the reasons why there is so much resentment”
I should add that the feminist abuse industry engages in abuser protection and abuse denial as well as victim discrimination.
So there isn’t anything that the mrm is slandered with here, that feminism isnt on record doing as a policy.
“I cant speak of the spearhead because I don’t go there, and most MRA view it as traditionalist and too hardline, misogynist etc,”
I desperately want to see these moderate MRA sites. Where the eff are they?
David, are you flattered by the tacit admission that either your blog is so big or the MRM is so small that they pretty much all know about you?
And I’ll have you know that the feminist abuse industry created 10,000 jobs last quarter.
How quickly they give in xD Isn’t Catalogue always saying how he’s leaving cuz he doesn’t want to get involved in piling on and how we’re all lower than him? xD As far as I can tell all he’s doing right now is a) goalpost moving b) accusing others of doing so c) turning everything back to WELL FEMINISTS ARE JUST AS BAD xD
Let’s just start the whole MBZ challenge at this: show us the MRA equivalent of Ami Angelwings 😀 Then we’ll know this is a movement worth looking at! xD
So he’s basically making shit up at this point and hoping it sticks. It was more fun earlier, when he made the empirical claims that were wrong.
“Palmer is the guy who went on a shooting spree in the courthouse. You know, the guy half of David’s post is about? Did you… did you even read this post?”
No not all of it, all Davids Post are pretty the same posts, one lunatic did.said X, there for the mens movement is illigitimate (while ignoring comparable goings on in the feminist movement). Whenever someone loses it in a family court, David will try the blame the mrm, just like how marcotte tried to peg that other shooting on masculinity.
Retaliation by lone nuts against the family courts is inevitable, the mrm is fully aware of that but that doesnt mean it supports it, anyone that listens to AVFM radio will have heard the anti violence segments.
Ami, your site fails the manboobz test because it links out to bigotry and abuse denial propaganda.
Are you expecting us to actually read your comments? Because they’re all pretty much the same comment.
So you’re here to argue about why the post and everyone agreeing with its point is wrong, and you haven’t even read the entire post. Brilliant.
It’s what one might expect of someone who creates their own fallacies as their excuse of not being able to validate their own points, and claim that the fallacy is on the others.
I meant me xD Last I checked, my blogs had names, I’m Ami Angelwings 😀
I like how he can’t find any bigotry and abuse denial in my blog so he has to claim I link to it xD
“David, are you flattered by the tacit admission that either your blog is so big or the MRM is so small that they pretty much all know about you?”
Davids blog quite small compared to the mens movement, the comments section goes round and round because of the arguing style of the regulars giving the blog the appearance of it being bigger than it is, check alexa for traffic rankings and compare them against manboobz.
Although David was written about recently.
“Second, a man named David Futrelle runs a peculiarity called Man Boobz where he seeks out the stupidest assertions he can find from so-called “men’s rights” sites to post to his site with accompanying mocking commentary. The statements Futrelle chooses are often easy pickins’ to mock: generally guys with anti-woman chips on their shoulders. It’s when Futrelle ventures far from the most inane comments that he runs into trouble. Like when he tries to debate Paul Elam. He’s also prone to positing smug, conclusory assertions as if even controversial matters were self-evident and unworthy of any debate whatsoever. Read it for yourself to decide if I’m right. ”
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2011/08/extremist-boobz-taylor-and-futrelle.html
[quote]Retaliation by lone nuts against the family courts is inevitable, the mrm is fully aware of that but that doesnt mean it supports it, anyone that listens to AVFM radio will have heard the anti violence segments.[/quote]
Funny, when you told me about feminists who were terrorists, I didn’t say their actions were inevitable or hint that they were justified. I said it was wrong, and that they shouldn’t do it, because terrorism is never justified, and shooting uninvolved people is similarly indefensible.
That’s the difference. I mean, the family courts aren’t even feminist-biased; you keep asserting this, and a cursory glance at who wins custody ‘confirms’ it. But if you look at *CONTESTED* custody cases, it’s trivially disconfirmed; men straight up win half of them. And that may be disproportionately too many, because we’re still in an unequal society that fobs most childcare work off on women.
But you say that this violence is ‘inevitable’ just the same. Really? Because I wouldn’t say that violence against STEM industries is inevitable just because the industries typically treat women like shit. You know why you don’t see stuff like that? Because feminism isn’t a hate movement that glories in destruction.
“I like how he can’t find any bigotry and abuse denial in my blog so he has to claim I link to it xD”
Ami, you link here don’t you and this site links to many sites that promote abuse denial?
David and the regulars here are prone to abuse denial, so you fail the manboobz test, but it doesn’t matter, there are few to no sites that pass it, the test is nonsense.
I do? XD
You haven’t even LOOKED at my blog have you xD
Why would he substantiate his point with something so feministically biased as evidence?
Still waiting for the MRA angel cat bunny equivalent :3
“Funny, when you told me about feminists who were terrorists, I didn’t say their actions were inevitable or hint that they were justified. I said it was wrong, and that they shouldn’t do it, because terrorism is never justified, and shooting uninvolved people is similarly indefensible.”
Thing is, there were and are feminist that are organised terrorists. There are no mra’s that are. There are just these guys that David Futrelle depicts as being part of the mrm such as Palmer and the guy in Norway … and saying violence is inevitable and stating the reasons why it is, is not the same as supporting it. So don’t slander me.
http://comicculturewarrior.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/danger-girl-deluxe-edition-hc.jpg?w=595
Feminist Terrorists! >:3
“anyone that listens to AVFM radio will have heard the anti violence segments”
There’s an MRA radio show?
Catalogue, again, I didn’t say Palmer or Breivik were MRAs. Did you actually bother to read my posts, or did you just skim them and make a bunch of assumptions? If you’re going to accuse other people of slandering you, you should probably try not to misrepresent my views either.