Men’s Rights subreddit regular Demonspawn (remember him?) is back again with some deliberately vague but definitely threatening talk about judges and politicians:
Not a lot of “plausible deniability” here, though I am sure various MRAs will try to excuse this as not being what it obviously is: a threat of violence against judges, politicians and others who work for the government.
He’s done this before; I wrote about it here.
And while we’re on the topic of Demonspawn, here’s a little followup comment of his from the thread we discussed the other day. It’s a giant wall of text, I know, but it contains gems like: “When women mouth off to men and get their faces bashed in, they’ll know equality.” At least this comment of his got as many downvotes as upvotes.
I’m banned from the Men’s Rights subreddit, of course, but Demonspawn, despite repeatedly violating the subreddit’s rules about posting comments advocating violence, continues to post away. See his comment history for more lovely thoughts on, among other things, why women are parasites who don’t deserve the vote.
@eline
You’re not helping your case here. I looked up Ehsan Jami, and what I found did not inspire confidence at all. He co-wrote an article with Geert Wilders that had the following in it:
Maybe that’s what you mean when you say he has done work with Wilders you disagree with, but this is not just a small error, this is anti-Islamic sentiment at its worst. The “far-reaching Islamisation” bit is something I’ve heard from way too many racist politicians who just want to stop immigration, and the comparison to Hitler is not only inaccurate(Hitler was alive and an actual physical leader in 1930, Mohammed has been, you know, dead for quite some time) but it’s highly inflammatory and liable to cause violence against Muslims.
What I’m seeing here is a former Muslim who has decided he doesn’t want to follow the Islamic religion any more (fair enough, no problem there), who then starts trying to force other Muslims to stop following the religion as well, and who allies with a known racist as well. These don’t seem like the actions of someone who is concerned for the people following Islam, but rather someone who is convinced that he holds the superior views and is trying to force those views onto others.
He was, from what I understand, physically assaulted for those views. I’m not going to defend that, and I have no problem believing that it was the actions of fundamentalist Muslims. But that doesn’t mean Islam is dangerous in and of itself.
@Myoo
Correct, it’s the anti-islamic rhetoric that he has used that I disagree with. I am told he did not begin that way, though, but his hardening opinions were the reason the Council disbanded. Based on what I’ve heard, though, a lot of his anger stems from frustration with the political atmosphere here, so I’m willing to cut him some slack even if I disagree with him on many points. I’m a firm believer in the freedom of speech of even those with whom I couldn’t disagree more so muzzling someone doesn’t sit well with me. I believe it can be difficult to understand the political realities if you are from a different society, it’s the same for me with the US stuff. But you are unfairly dismissing Jami, he’s done a lot for people who wish to leave islam regardless of associating himself with Wilders. Keep in mind that the people that muzzled him have a history of shutting down critique on islam coming from muslims or ex-muslims. They also quieted Hirsi Ali. She’s another one with whom I disagree about many things and agree about some, but even more I disagree with anyone trying to shut her up.
I’m not anti-islamic any more than I am anti-religion (which I am to a degree, especially if a religion forces/coerces people to practice), despite thinking islam today, in my experience, is worse than christianity (or many other religions) because Islam’s interpretations tend to be more old-fashioned than christianity’s in many places, and have been getting more old-fashioned in for example Gaza as the result of the blockade, Turkey as shown by the hijab debates in universities and Egypt where lots of women say they feel pressured to dress traditionally unlike their mothers did. Also here in Holland after 9/11, probably as a response to the growing racist rhetoric in the public discourse. But I’m aware of how these things have changed over time, and keep changing all the time, and that islam is not the only religion prone to hardcore interpretation, and that in its history it has in fact been the most progressive religion of the time too, although no religion exists in a vacuum and that’s why I don’t agree that any religion can be discussed without the context in which it is interpreted. Islam is the religion that has more hardcore followers in my proximity here in Holland, for example, but my experiences with the Tatars of Finland are entirely different.
I understand this is very different in the US where the Christian fundamentalism is the problem, a much bigger problem because they have real political power and influence and a sophisticated propaganda machine that obfuscates the public perception. It’s also very far from the political reality I live in. This is the main reason why I like to have these discussions, to learn from other people’s very different experiences and maybe have them learn something from mine. I do feel you’ve misunderstood my position to be specifically anti-islamic or even racist when it’s not (I focus on the very specific problems within the islamic community of which I’ve learned by listening to my Dutch Turkish and Moroccan friends), that is a risk in these blog comments discussions where all nuances don’t get expressed. I do appreciate if you ask for clarification instead of assuming the worst if something seems odd, because despite trying to proofread I’m not writing these comments like essays and something that may seem self-evident to me from the whole text may not be so to others, of course.
eline: There are a lot of fundie christians in the states who are all for making a theocracy, complete with killing people who don’t toe the line. They are “willing” to tolerate unbelievers, so long as they conform.
Stoning isn’t required, but killing is. It’ goes back more than ten years. Eric Rudolph, for one, and a host more betimes, as far back as I was paying attention (ca 1982).
Yeah, what pecunium said. It’s downplayed wicked hard, but it exists.
I mentioned this before–there’s a series on the site Shakeville called ‘Today in Totally Not Terrorism.’ It goes up whenever the mainstream media reports another killing/bombing event that’s either aimed at religious minorities (Muslim, Sikh, UU) or planned parenthood clinic or suchlike and the press is reporting it as an isolated incident or ignoring the pattern or not even mentioning right-wing calls for exactly this kind of violence.
They only post when another event happens.
It’s been a fairly regular feature since I began reading. Practically monthly.
I mean, we’ve all heard about the Oak Creek shooting. And noted that it is getting nowhere near the Aurora coverage.
But where’s the mainstream media coverage of this mosque? Second suspicious fire in five weeks on the same mosque.
Where was the coverage about this?
But, nope, we should just focus on Muslims!!
Do you see why that’s kind of a problematic framing, Eline?
As a simple data point, there is (to the best of my knowledge) no active group of Muslims trying to make the US an Islamic theocracy.
There is one for christians. Google Christian Dominionists. It’s scary.