Today, in the Men’s Rights subreddit, we find Demonspawn, a long-time fixture in Reddit’s MRA circles, getting dozens of upvotes for a comment in which he advocates murdering family court judges and other government officials:
Demonspawn is responding to a post from Robert Franklin on Fathers and Families about Dan Brewington, “[a]n Indiana man fac[ing] five years in prison because he criticized the judge and the custody evaluator in his divorce and custody case.”
Or at least that’s how Franklin wants to frame the issue. While conceding that Brewington “often used intemperate language” on his blog, Franklin downplays what seems to have been a relentless four-year harassment campaign from the troubled father. According to a report on the case on the Eagle Country Online website:
[P]rosecutors argued that Brewington took his postings beyond being critical of the court system. They became personal against anybody who became involved with his case.
“This was sick revenge dragging my wife and kids into the matter,” Humphrey said during his testimony. “I don’t know of many cases where a subject has more clearly expressed his intent to do harm.” …
Brewington … called [custody evaluator Edward] Connor a child molester and prostitute in his “Internet rampage,” contacted the Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky where Conner is involved as a board member, and sending mass e-mails to Connor’s colleagues and legal professional around the area. …
Connor’s wife, Dr. Sara Jones-Connor, reaffirmed what her husband shared with the judge.
“For over four years we have dealt with his attacks on a daily basis,” Jones-Conner said.
And Franklin leaves out the most serious of the accusations against Brewington: that he threatened to murder the judge.
Brewington’s cellmate at the Dearborn County Law Enforcement Center for two-and-a-half months, Joseph McCaleb, had sent a letter to jail officials on September 25 after being concerned with what he heard from Brewington.
“He talked about following (Judge Humphrey) home, shooting him, and dumping him in the river,” McCaleb said of Brewington’s alleged “detailed and thought out” plan.
I should note that after testifying that Brewington’s threats seemed serious, McCaleb later concluded that they weren’t; and Judge Brian Hill did not take his testimony into consideration when sentencing Brewington.
Was Brewington’s sentence fair? I don’t know. But Franklin’s posting was misleading, to say the least, if not dishonest. And while a few people raised questions about it, no one on the Men’s Rights subreddit bothered to spend the two minutes on Google that would have turned up the story I’ve been quoting from, instead relying entirely on Franklin’s, er, incomplete account.
Whether or not Brewington’s threats were sincere, Franklin’s post had Demonspawn and many others on the Men’s Rights subreddit thinking violent thoughts themselves. Here are some more selections from the discussion there. Note that every single violent comment I quote below got upvotes from the regulars.
Here, Boss_Money invokes the memory of Tom Ball, who killed himself in hopes that his dramatic suicide would encourage other MRAs to start firebombing courthouses and police stations:
Later in that same thread, coldacid suggests that suicide is a much less effective strategy than murder:
Anxdiety, meanwhile, shares his fantasies of violent “retribution.”
Boss_Monkey returns with a miniature manifesto for armed revolution:
And whats_up_doc suggests that violence may be the only solution:
The Men’s Rights subreddit is by and large the most “moderate” of all the major Men’s Rights forums online. But this is the language, and the thinking, of a hate movement. Anyone who really cares about improving life for men needs to call this kind of thing out, and make clear that it is completely unacceptable in any rights movement worthy of the name.
Totally agree about liking the troll-baiting.
@aworldanonymous You’re doing fine. I mostly just post irrelevant videos and say things that I notice belatedly that other people said more eloquently 5 posts up. 🙂
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Manboobz is like an old-style circus freak show. Instead gaping at people with physical deformities, we get to gape at people with horrible, horrible beliefs.
Hey, Steele! How’d you creep back in here?
Alrighty then, Is it bad that I’ve started to ascribe personalities to the regular MRA trolls?
Owly is the survivalist dude with the bunker in the middle of the woods to escape the New World Order, of which I decided a few weeks before starting to comment here that I am the founder, acting president, and only member, or was that the illuminati?
Scrapemind is the one who is almost right, but misses on a few important points that unfortunately kill his credibility.
And Steele is the new guy, just the new guy.
Yeah, not so new. Steele just said he’s Varpole on the Norwegian thread.
Oh, I’ve only been a member of the commentariat for 3 days now, so that makes Steele the stubborn one.
I see Owly as the guy who says “ma’am” really sarcastically. That’s his superpower. You know the guy.
Scrapemind is the person who confuses being smart with being incomprehensible and then wonders why they never get promoted at work.
Ruby strikes me as someone who grew up listening to Dad expound at the dinner table on what Rush and Glenn said that day (and hearing Mom agree with him) and now tries to argue feminism with the same logic.
Steele leaves no impression on me. I guess I haven’t been paying that much attention?
Judging by the conversation in the other thread Steele is that guy who everyone gets mixed up with someone else because he has the personality of a wet dishrag.
From what I’ve seen, the only thing I can say for sure is that Owly is the most vitriolic of the bunch.
Meller is the guy who tries to creep everyone out to amuse himself, but he’s also genuinely creepy so it works a little too well.
Steele is the guy who wants to make a twelve-hour debate over how you said “affect” instead of “effect.” Steele is also the guy who will constantly rip and rag on you and just laugh and go “it’s healthy disagreement, grow a pair,” but the instant anyone insults him OMG THAT IS SLANDERING MY HONOR.
I like NWO because he’s so ridiculously over the top and ineffectual that it’s pretty much impossible to actually be insulted by him. He’s like the Glass Joe of trolls. The first goomba in 1-1. The radroach you shoot with a BB gun on your tenth birthday. The tutori-troll.
Then there was that guy, AWS I think his name was, who had a bug up his ass about people who post in ALL CAPS, so we posted in ALL CAPS until we apparently broke him. Good times.
Though his glory days are long gone, NWO has enough classic material to land him a place in the Troll Hall of Fame. He’s the Bob Dylan of trolls.
princessbonbon —
Yates and similar don’t count because it wasn’t part of a custody dispute gone seriously bad? I can think of cases where a women killed her kids, I can’t think of any that had shit to do with custody though.
aworldanonymous —
His thing is the NWO, usually, sometimes some other group is a pawn of the NWO. And yep, survivalist dude with a bunker is about how I see him — definitely the most hate filled too.
Scrapemind is either a Mr Al sock, or managing to be as boring and creepy as Mr Al (scrapemind now holds the honor of being the only troll to dig up my deviant art account).
Steele is Varpole is (the now defunct) Anti-ManBoobz — though “most tedious dictionary troll ever” works.
Wait until you meet DKM (Meller) — he’s Mr “I love my dolls”, and then gets creepy about how women should be more like dolls.
And then there’s Pell — you won’t you know had a Pell encounter until it’s too late, he’s the amorphous troll — he’s an expert in whatever might make for a decent appeal to authority. A biography of Christopher Pell.
If AntZ ever returns, he’s Mr “ObamaCare is misandrist because the word woman appears more often than man” — he’s generally an annoying one-hit wonder.
One-hit wonder? AntZ is the dude who wants to segregate the US by sex, right down the middle.
He also thinks that VR relationships are better than real ones because your VR partner, not having free will, will never walk out on you or think things you don’t want. Despite this opinion, he’s married, with two sons.
AntZ is TRIPPY AS FUCK
AntZ is also a good example of what you have to do to get put on permanent moderation – without any warning, he posted a link to a horrific picture of apparently mutilated children, apparently to make some superficial polemical point.
Many would have banned him for that, but I think David was right to opt for permanent moderation – it means that AntZ can’t claim martyrdom status. Let’s face it, if he pulled that stunt in pretty much any other forum frequented by reasonable people, many webmasters would consider permanent moderation to be pretty lenient.
Antsy has no set personality. He puts on new hats every few weeks. I can’t remember which was my favorite. We remember the Mississippi plan because it was actually memorable, but I don’t think his transhumanist self was much more than a temporary stopover. He’s been the violent revolutionary, promising war in the name of men’s equality, the ”reasonable’-but-smug go between’ who pretends both have valid points while really only considering one side, the transhumanist who just wants a utopia through technology, the legal activist, he’s put on a faux social justice hat or three…
I missed all the best of AntZ apparently — I’ve only seen him in “ACA is misandrist” mode. Seemed like his main thing, but makes sense that it is only his most recent “main thing”.
Maybe I’m just hoping he took the advice to get a psych, and did so, and will thus now only be ranting about healthcare (like most conservatives). My hopes are probably far, far too high though.
There might be, but I feel pretty safe in predicting that the reaction of feminists would be “That’s horrible and tragic” not “Yay, they all deserved to be killed!”. MRAs – totally not a hate group, though.
So not in the mood to hear the violent rhetoric of these keyboard commandos right now. A guy in Wisconsin just murdered his three daughters to get back at his wife, who divorced him last year. And another guy ran over his child after fighting with his ex in a parking lot. Fuck all these assholes for defending the actions of abusive, violent bullies.
And I just love the way they’re over on the Spearhead, psychoanalizing David and us. Hey, we’re not the ones advocating violence towards our fellow citizens and public officials. That would be them.
Cliff:
I agree with this. I wouldn’t want everywhere to be like that, and I appreciate a strict comment policy at places where it’s what’s needed, and some people (not naming any names here …) allow any bullshit through to the detriment of constructive dialogue — and I think I understand why they do it — but for playing games with the trolls, this is a good environment.
Frankly, mocking misogyny in the posts while being strict about keeping MRAs out of the comments would be an echo chamber. Most feminist blogs, I would say, benefit from not having their comments infested, but here it would quickly turn into “that sure is stupid.” “Yup.” “Yup.” “Yup.” Or Tumblr.
It keeps away certain people on our side, but that may not be a huge loss.
Unimaginative:
I certainly feel I get the benefit of Hanlon’s Razor here. Also, this is the only place I’ve ever argued with trolls and had other people back me up.
“A guy in Wisconsin just murdered his three daughters to get back at his wife, who divorced him last year. And another guy ran over his child after fighting with his ex in a parking lot.”
What. The. Fuck. Is wrong with some people?!
Today is apparently going to be one of those days I wish for a point of view ray and clue-by-4.
Things Freitag is unable to comprehend, entry #589,734,902,811: I’m mad at my ex so I kill children to get back at her.