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.
This is the funniest shit ever.
“Okay, so I did it, but you’re all bastards for believing that I did it.”
…If he wasn’t your sock, how come Mr. Butthorn mysteriously stopped posting the instant David outed him as a sock?
…Also, for fuck’s sake, you’re socking right now, you went a good long time without telling us who “Steele” was.
…Also, I don’t understand how being accused of sockpuppetry (wrongly or rightly) means you can’t possibly keep a blog any more.
“Regardless of the fact that I actually did the thing David said I did, you should not have believed him.”
Let’s see. Somebody who has never lied to us (except in jokes) tells us that someone we’ve seen twist facts beyond all recognition in order to back up his illogical points has sockpuppeted.
We should believe the troll instead of the site’s owner… Yeah, I got nothin’.
Do you think that you’re the only one who has ever sockpuppeted on this blog?? We did not “blindly accept” David’s assertion that you sockpuppeted, we accepted his assertion in good faith due to the numerous other occasions that David has revealed a sockpuppet and has had the evidence to support his assertion.
@Steele: I at least accepted David’s identification of you as a sockpuppet because he has identified others, and because *as far as I can tell* he has always been truthful with his minions. IP identification is usually accepted as a fairly good bit of evidence for someone posting with two different names, i.e. sockpuppeting.
LOTS of the trolls around here attempt to sockpuppet; after they are found out through IP, they often learn how to use the anonymizers. It’s commonplace, so we’re not surprised when it happens (though I admit to wondering about the dogged insistence on commenting here no matter what).
You, on the other hand, apparently lie through your teeth and very badly (“oh, I didn’t mention I’m really Varpole?).
“Become the Batman”
If this person is a troll he’s a genius. If not, oh dear.
From anxdiety…”The level of raw hatred is inexplicable.”
Well that’s an unexpected moment of honesty, albeit probably unintentional too. It really is odd for anyone to be so convinced that children are property that they’re willing to kill the government officials who’re just doing their jobs and trying to protect the children. Even if you think that a government official’s decision was completely wrong, most people don’t go from “you’re wrong” to “so I’m going to kill you”,
CassandraSays – What I’m wondering now is:
If two men split up (and the children are adopted, so neither one has a “I’m the biological father” claim), who does the judge have to give custody to? How does the judge avoid death threats from angry men then?
Yes, that is very telling, isn’t it.
Or, what do they think happens when two lesbians break up? Do they assume the kid goes with the biological mother, or that the judge offers to cut the child in half like the biblical story, or do they just not think lesbians (the real kind, not the porn for straight men kind) exist?
Men Going Their Own Way baffled by lesbians, refuse to believe they exist
Violence has absolutely no place in the MRA movement. These guys on Reddit who are encouraging violence are only making the MRA movement a mockery and allowing feminists not to take us MRA’s seriously.
Writing books are much more effective in conveying the MRA position than any violence. Books such as “Loving men, respecting women” by Tim Goldich and Warren Farrell’s “The Myth of Male Power” are good books to read on the MRA perspective.
Also organization such as the National Coalition for Men ,The Mankind Project, and The Good Men Project are much more effective in helping MRA’s than any violence could do. These guys from Reddit just don’t get it.
I thought you were going your own way, MGTOWMRA.
The National Coalition for Men endorsed Tom Martin, who believes some 10 year olds are whores. You might want to have a word with them about that.
“Whether or not I actually sockpuppeted is beside the point; the point is, Boobzland blindly accepted Futrelle’s assertion that I did. This is very telling.”
*Sigh* I already explained this to you once Varpole — we believed David because, unlike you, he is trustworthy in these matters. You may recall where we asked if you (Steele) were a repeat troll, and since your current IP does not match previous troll IPs, got told you were not (or at least, were not the troll we were guessing).
As for “silencing” you…damned thing is called a comment policy, most places have them, and this one includes “especially, or persistently, offensive, disruptive, or tedious” — and you’re trying to violate that in all manners possible (would you like to go for especially offensive?)
And fuck, pecunium’s traveling and thus not here to confirm, but didn’t you threaten to mod him? As in threaten to “silence” him?
And for far less than the thousands of comments you’ve posted here in under a week?
David, I’m curious now, what’s Steele’s post count up to? Can you check that? And what was NWO’s again?
Actually, can we maybe just ignore Steele? He’s acting like a toddler whining for attention, and in that case reinforcing the behavior usually doesn’t work out well.
aworldanonymous: DKM (aka Meller) has also ridiculed the pain of cancer patients and to me to euthanize one of our cats because she scratched me (it’s hardly her fault that the line between ‘pet me, pet me!’ and ‘if you touch me again I will fucking scratch you’ is very, very thin). A regular fountain of goodwill and empathy is Meller.
Meller also has this insistent thing where he believes that as long as you only wish horrible doom on some people, instead of all people, you are wise and just. See, “murder everyone” would be terrible, but “murder blue-eyed people” shows great discernment!
wait, the thing your indignant about now is that we trusted a person who has a history of not lying to us? in what world does that make sense.
like it says a lot more about you than you think that youre now like ‘harumph. believing the words a person said. typical manboobz behavior.’
I’m visualizing this literally happening and it is hilarious.
Anyway, I’ve just caught up on this thread, and my position on trolls is the same as most of you: they’re not a bug, they’re a feature. I don’t know why they continue to show up, but I’m glad they do. And, yeah, I really only censor/moderate when they go after individuals in a really nasty way. NWO is definitely staying on moderation, because he still does that from time to time.
I’m a bit stricter when new trolls show up; if they say something really obnoxious or tedious in their very first comment, which is automatically moderated, I don’t let them post here at all.
I think my issue with Varpole is that he’s no longer entertaining. Reading his comments in the “omg misandry is totally institutional, but not really, but yes because my teacher told me I was a shitty writer” thread was like trying to walk through treacle. It was just so boring.
MGTOWMRA: I much prefer http://mensrightsactivism.com/ to any of those you mentioned.
And doesn’t Warren Farrel’s book use those horribly flawed false-rape studies by Eugene Kanin? I am incredibly suspicious of any book on gender politics that I first heard of being praised on the Tom Leykis Show.
Farrell is a bullshit artist who as a rule lies like hell. The most iconic example is “Men predominate the top *and the bottom* of society”, wherein he pretended women did not do dangerous work throughout society, do not predominate the poor, etc. Sure, mention the coal miners, but don’t forget that girls were in there with the boys. Or the early (And ongoing) textile industry. I think that one is in fact “The Myth of Male Power”. Either way, anyone mentioned in the same breath is as suspect as he is, in my book.
The fucker is laughed at by sociologists for a reason.
Oh hey, and he’s on the boob roll. That’s about right.
Know of any good critiques of “The Myth of Male Power,” Rutee (or anyone else)? I am in the mood for some solid anti-bullshit reading.