What a year!
The Men’s Rights movement, the most important human rights movement of the 21st century, got 2012 off to a flying start in February with an event in Bozeman, Montana that was quite literally attended by no one. After that, the year was a whirlwind of activity. Let’s go to the timeline:
January: The Men’s Rights movement rests up to prepare itself for the year.
February: The Montana State University chapter of the National Coalition for Men holds a lively and well-attended Men’s Rights event in Bozeman, Montana. Sorry. When I said “well-attended” I meant to say “not attended at all.” As the local NBC affiliate reports, in what may be my favorite sentence ever written about the Men’s Rights movement: “No one showed up to the event but organizers say the lack of attendance is not due to a lack of interest.” You can read more here at Man Boobz, or watch the NBC affiliate’s report here.
March: The Southern Poverty Law Center, an important and influential watchdog of hate groups in the United States, profiles the Men’s Rights movement, describing it as “an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations. … Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed “manginas”; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers.”
March: British Men’s Rights activist Tom Martin has his “anti-male discrimination” lawsuit against the London School of Economics thrown out of court as a “hopeless claim.” Martin responds on Twitter by calling his critics “whores.” He then comes to Man Boobz and calls people here whores. Eventually he announces that female penguins are also whores. No, really. Read more about Tom’s visits to Man Boobz here: 1, 2, 3, 4. (TRIGGER WARNING for links 2 and 3, which deal with Martin’s reprehensible views on child prostitution.)
April: Thousands of Men’s Rights Activists converge on the National Mall in Washington DC for “Sink Misandry,” apparently some sort of protest against the lifeboat-boarding policies of the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic one hundred years ago. (There was a movie about it.)
Sorry, correction: When I said “thousands of MRAs” I meant to say “none.” While the Sink Misandry protest was announced with great fanfare in December of 2011 on A Voice for Men, it was later called off due to unspecified logistical problems. Understandable, given how difficult it is to get to our nation’s capital, inconveniently located on the sparsely populated East Coast and served by a mere three airports.
May – June: The Men’s Rights movement has lunch and takes a little nap.
July: Seven Men’s Rights activists make it to the steps of the Capitol in Washington DC, evidently for some sort of anti-circumcision protest. On Reddit, one MRA blames the poor attendance on the machinations of the “Government and the Fem lobby.”
August: In order to more effectively harness the activist energies of MRAs on Reddit, Paul Elam of A Voice for Men sets up a Men’s Rights Activism subreddit alongside the longstanding Men’s Rights Subreddit. Only a handful of MRAs subscribe, possibly because Elam seems more interested in banning people he doesn’t like than in organizing anything, and the subreddit is abandoned by its founder and everyone else within a month.
September: In Vancouver, Men’s Rights activists hold a lively, well-attended debate with feminists on the question “Has Feminism Gone Too Far?” at a local used car dealership.
Oh, sorry. Another correction: After being announced, and cancelled, then resurrected and reannounced, the event is ultimately cancelled after the organizers lose the venue for the event due to a weird turn events that involves an MRA car salesman being removed from his place of business by police after some sort of dispute with his business partner. Also, the MRAs never bothered to round up any feminists to take part in the debate with them. You can read the whole complex and confusing saga of the Great Vancouver All-MRA Debate That Wasn’t in these three Man Boobz posts: 1, 2, 3.
October: Recess
November: Artistry Against Misandry holds a lively and well-attended concert and fundraiser in Nashville to celebrate International Men’s Day.
Whoops! One more correction: The event never happened. Apparently the organizers lost their venue, and were unable to book another one, as Nashville isn’t really much of a music town and musical venues there are as scarce as … wait, no, it’s fucking Nashville. NASHVILLE. Music City. The home of the Grand Ole Opry. I’m pretty sure that every building that isn’t a house or a restaurant there is a musical venue.
Also, the Artistry Against Misandry website seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. Might I suggest a visit to Artistry For Feminism and Kittens instead?
December: Christmas shopping.
I should note that when not organizing, then cancelling, events many MRAs have been busily harassing individual women online and posting many very angry comments. A few have also been putting up some very badly designed posters. So there’s that.
With a year of such triumphs behind them, how will the Men’s Rights movement manage to keep up such a blistering pace in 2013?
I don’t think they are in Sweden, but that’s where they have their address. I think it is exactly that… a ruse meant to make it easier to get away with a crime.
Boy are you quick.
As to evil intent. That the site seems to be nothing more than a scam is one thing. But it’s not, prima facie a sign of evil intent. They could just be assholes. But going to such apparent lengths shows an understanding of the illegal, as well as immoral aspects of the model.
That’s where it shows the mens rea needed to infer intent.
I had the joy and wonder of trying to sort out how to deal with suing a German national once, had to tell the lawyer 3 times to call the US embassy, and have his father (the owner) ask before they called the damned embassy. Point here is that that’s who to ask, as this is wtf they do.
Could possibly do it with the state as complaining party in Sweden, for example.
That they’re assholes goes without saying.
The problem here is scale. You’d have to find a prosecutor willing to try and make a RICO case, because each count is probably trivial, and the victims are going to be separated in time/distance.
That’s how this sort of thing manages to work, it’s a distributed risk model, same as with identity fraud on credit cards. The individual payoffs are low, so the banks accept it as a cost of doing business, but the people organising it are managing to aggregate those small payoffs to equal a large return.
On the flip side banks have, “small” charges on cards, but 100,000 people getting dinged $2.50 a month is a quarter of a million dollars. If you can make it 30 bucks a month, etc.
Each person feels it, but not enough to try and find another bank.
Here, if they find out about it, the easiest course may seem to be to pay the bastards off. Especially since it seems wrong, but most people aren’t likely to realise it’s actually a criminal enterprise.
I dunno, pecunium. Granted, I’m in contracts and real property law, not criminal, but without additional facts I don’t see RICO here and I don’t see fraud. Can you explain what your thinking is?
It’s plainly extortionate, and while it’s fraudulent (as they make no pretense of confirming the veracity of the claims). The case for fraud is weaker, but since they have no control over the ways things are archived, they can’t actually guarantee the removal will be either total, nor effective.
RICO is a really broad statute, but all it takes is two criminal acts in furtherance of a pattern of behavior, It was designed to make it possible to use very different things (say an arson, and an extortion) to cripple the Mafia.
One of the more egregious uses of it was in Florida, where a prosecutor decided Marvel Graphic Novels were porn, so he had two 17 year olds go in, ten minutes apart to buy one.
Then he swooped in, arrested the owners, charged them under RICO siezed all their stock, and hardware (wire racks, cash registers, etc.). They were acquitted, but the evil genius of RICO is that it doesn’t matter. The seized goods were forfeit, used to pay the prosecution, and they didn’t have to be recompensed for the loss.
I think RICO is unconstitutional. I can’t see any difference between it and a bill of attainder; save that a bill of attainder was less draconian, because while the case was being decided the Crown has to keep the attainted goods/properties in escrow, and was liable for losses in the event the accused was acquitted (which happened, not often, but it happened).
This is pretty clearly something one could make a RiCO case for,
Clarification: The bookstore owners were acquitted on the basis the graphic novels weren’t pornographic. It was a 1st amendment ruling. The mechanics of the RICO charge were held to be legitimate.
Yeah, I actually know what RICO is, pecunium, but I the thing is, it doesn’t apply to every crime. It applies to crimes listed under USC Title 18 — which includes extortion, but only certain kinds of extortion (extortion involving federal employees, basically).
On fraud: Prosecutors must be able to prove each element of the crime. Basically, fraud entails the defendant’s knowing misrepresentation of a material fact, with another rightfully relying on that misrepresentation, leading to damages. Again, I don’t see it applying here, without additional facts.
I think extortion, harassment, and privacy/publicity torts are the best options here.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=960&sid=19302544
Theres one winning data point.
Bee, I’m sorry if I was presumptive.
I think, from having followed a lot of RICO prosecutions that the courts have rule it’s a substantive offense under RICO to use an enterprise to conduct criminal acts. It’s also allowable to take state offenses as the predicate acts.
I’d have to do a lot more research than I’m willing to do on this to be thorough, but on the face of it, the statute defines racketeering activity in an exhaustive list, most of which consists of federal crimes.
Not saying it couldn’t happen, but I’d be really surprised if a court interpreted Congress’ clearly defined language to define racketeering activity as something other than the list set out in the statute.
Looking at the statute, and some of the case law, it seems extortion is both broadly defined
18 U.S.C. § 1951 (2) The term “extortion” means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.
The 7th Circuit was really broad in one RICO prosecution: SCOTUS had to reverse them (twice) Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., 537 U.S. 393 (2003), and the subsequent retrial Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., 547 U.S. 9 (2006).
The holding in the first ruling implies that this site could be in violation of the Hobbs Act, and so have the requisite violation:
Petitioners may have deprived or sought to deprive respondents of their alleged property right of exclusive control of their business assets, but they did not acquire any such property. Petitioners neither pursued nor received “something of value from” respondents that they could exercise, transfer, or sell.
I don’t know that this SCOTUS would uphold it, but if money changed hands it seems it would be in keeping with the rulings.
But I’m not a lawyer, just a very interested lay-observer, and I hope I’ve not gone on too much on this.
You forgot to read part 1 of 1951, though. I’m not a lawyer, but I am a 3L. Scheidler v. NOW can be distinguished because the clinics in that case fall under the definition of interstate commerce. I don’t really see an interference with commerce here. You’d have to argue that the individual women in the site are engaged in interstate commerce in a way that the extortion directly interferes with/prevents, and I don’t see that without additional facts.
Scheidler also holds that state laws are enough to create the predicate offenses for a RICO charge.
petitioners had committed extortion under various state-law extortion statutes, a separate RICO predicate offense.
So I think a case can be made.
No, not really, pecunium. Look, I know you hate to be wrong, but I’m sorry. Scheidler does not say what you think it says.
The opinion states that the common law and state definitions of extortion can be used under the Hobbs Act, which is included in the list of identified federal crimes that RICO applies to. You’d still need an element of interfering with commerce that doesn’t exist in the present case.
Ok.
OMG..kittyvideoskittyvideoskittyvideos..
::waves burning feather under Tina’s nose::
Steady! You’ll be all right in a minute!
Speaking of feathers –
http://youtu.be/g2ewcYuv10s
That is one very patient cat!
Luckily for the bird! 😀
URGH – Fribbie just did a mighty stench and is having a mighty complain about it
*cough*
*hack*
This might be my favorite feed on the internet right now, please keep this up, you make my sanity possible. Thank-you for making these ass clowns so laughable! Mad props to you.
Oh come on, that’s horrible, laughing at the low number of people supporting legit rights? Dude, whether they’re men or women, having those issues suck. If women had the issues they were fighting against in men’s rights movements, and someone laughed at the low support of THAT, you’d think that was low-down, right?
I better not find that you shared that post about MRAs making it “impossible” for decent men to get help with (those men’s issues that FtB woman talked about… forget what) the men’s issues… cos you’re acting like it’s not a big deal.
Hahahahahaha!
Sorry. That was rude. But just to reassure you, @completelylostforwords, I’m not laughing at the low number of people supporting legit rights. I’m laughing at you and your disingenuousness.
What I really came onto this thread for was to invite you all to feel as nauseated at this charming Toronto Standard interview with Mr Elam as I did.
http://torontostandard.com/culture/the-revolutionary-an-interview-with-a-voice-for-mens-notorious-founder-paul-elam
I’D BETTER NOT FIND OUT OR ELSE!