Jack Barnes, the notoriously hotheaded Men’s Rights Activist and longtime contributor to A Voice for Men, has escalated his attacks on me. In a post on AVFM, Barnes addressed me directly:
I’m a junkyard dog with no owner and no collar. …
Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you shouldn’t piss off a redheaded country boy from the backwoods of Tennessee? I promise you David that for the rest of your life there will be nights you cry yourself to sleep in anger and frustration over me.
In a followup post on TwitLonger, someone claiming to be Barnes — and it seems abundantly clear that it is in fact him — threatened to drive from Tennessee to Chicago to confront me in
a face to face in person discussion … No cops. No lawyers or prosecutors. No judges. No jury. No hiding behind a computer. Just me and you. …
I don’t know of any parent that would blame me for stomping a mud hole in your fucking ass and walking that motherfucker dry for what you have done!
What I have done is, in fact, nothing — nothing beyond letting the world know of some of the disturbing things Barnes has posted online.
But as Barnes sees it, I am responsible for putting his family in danger. How? Well, not long ago, someone apparently doxed Barnes, posting personal information about Barnes and his family on Twitter.
Of course, I had nothing to do with the doxing and only learned about it later from an AVFM video. I don’t know who did it, and I have publicly condemned it several times.
I will condemn it again, right here: the doxing of Jack Barnes and his family was wrong and a deeply shitty thing to do; whoever did it is a shithead and no friend of mine.
But Barnes is convinced one of my “cult followers” did the deed and bluntly warns me that ” I hold you personally responsible for this occurring.”
Even though I did not dox him, don’t know who doxed him, did not tell anyone to dox him, and have publicly denounced doxing in general and the doxing of Barnes and his family specifically.
The TwitLonger post declares:
You have crossed a line David. This is no longer about the MHRM vs feminism. This is no longer about AVFM, which I have no affiliation with, and your website. This is no longer about Paul Elam publisher of AVFM vs you as publisher of your website. You have made this personal. This is now about me vs you.
I don’t care that your little cult follower doxxed me. But when he/she doxxed my wife and little girl it became personal.
The author of the TwitLonger post, almost certainly Barnes himself, says that he will only come to Chicago for the promised “face to face in person discussion” if his family members come to harm.
But I do not have the luxury of seeing the threats as conditional ones. There are no conditions listed when he writes:
I don’t know of any parent that would blame me for stomping a mud hole in your fucking ass and walking that motherfucker dry for what you have done! Hell, I bet even Gondi would be like “he did what to you family? Fuck him up!
He is not saying that he would only be justified in “stomping a mud hole in [my] fucking ass” if something were to happen to his family; he is saying he is justified in doing so now.
Because some person who is not me, and who is unknown to me, did something I only found out about later and that I have publicly denounced.
And a possible “stomping” is not all I have to worry about: in his AVFM post, Barnes made sure I know that he
live[s] in a state with more guns than people, where a side arm is as common as a cell phone and where it is legal for 10yr olds to hunt with high powered rifles and without adult supervision.
So I can only assume that if he ever decides to pay me an unwanted visit he will be armed.
The author of the TwitLonger post — almost certainly Barnes — declares that his obvious threats against me are not in fact threats but “simply a statement of fact.” I think any reasonable person reading these posts would see them as clear threats, and I am treating them as such.
And it is plainly obvious to me that Barnes intends to terrorize me into silence with his threats — as his “promise” on AVFM that “for the rest of your life there will be nights you cry yourself to sleep” thinking about him makes abundantly clear. His threats are consistent with the threatening language he uses against feminists online, particularly on Twitter, which are clearly intended to shut his opponents up. As he put it in one notorious Tweet
https://twitter.com/Jackbarnesmra/status/559761561028669440
Adding to the surreality of this all, Barnes and his allies at A Voice for Men are so committed to their bizarre caricature of me as some kind of cartoon supervillain that they not only blame me for things I haven’t done but for not doing things that I have done. In this case, their eyes seem to have blurred over when they’ve come across the things I’ve written condemning the doxing.
In his AVFM post, Barnes wrote that while other feminists had denounced the doxing,
there was one person who has remain eerily silent about all this. That person is David Futrelle. Seems odd since all of this doxxing was done to avenge him. There is not a peep from Futrelle about this on his site or on social media anywhere that I could find. As a parent I know my kid is up to no good when she is quiet. Wonder if the same goes for adults (assuming the word applies)?
In fact, I had condemned the doxing two days earlier in a post that Barnes has publicly acknowledged reading.
On Twitter, AVFM’s “Chief Public Relations Officer” Suzy McCarley did Barnes one better, somehow managing to miss my denunciation of the doxing in a Tweet of mine that she was literally quoting at the time, leading to this rather surrealistic exchange:
It is almost as if they are so committed to seeing me as a monster that they cannot handle it when reality defies their expectations.
Another longtime AVFM supporter, so-called “Honey Badger” Hannah Wallen, has added a decidely Kafkaesque series of Tweets to the Twitter dogpile, including one that puzzled me greatly until she explained her “logic” in more detail:
Reading "If you X, I'll Y" as "I'm gonna Y!" = admitting to planning X. What have you planned to do, doxing Dave? https://t.co/93hT4Dlsaj
— Hannah Wallen | Professional Smartass (@Oneiorosgrip) November 9, 2015
Eventually, I was able to understand that she was taking my concern over Barnes’ threats … as proof that I was planning to harm his family.
She explained her “logic” in a blog post I discovered later. Utterly ignoring my denunciations of the doxing, and of doxing in general, she declared that if i didn’t immediately “admit”that my worries about Barnes’ threats were “a completely irrational overreaction to being held responsible for the effects of his dishonest shit stirring on his followers” I was essentially admitting that I was planning some sort of attack on Barnes’ family:
[H]is current response indicates .. that he intends for harm to come Jack’s family as a result of his shit stirring, that he DOES encourage his readers to engage in this type of behavior, and that he DOES intend for one or more of his readers to respond to his writing by engaging in violence against HIS political opponents.
After all, “If X, then Y” only infers Y on the condition of X… so responding to “If you X, then I’ll Y” as if the individual has only stated “I’m going to Y” is an admission that you’ve planned on X happening.
This, I have to admit, is pretty ingenious. Kafka would be proud.
But just in case anyone thinks there is anything to Wallen’s sophistry: I do not support doxing in general, and have made this clear on numerous occasions. I did not, do not, will not support the doxing of Jack Barnes or his family, nor do I have the slightest idea who did it. I do not “intend … for harm to come [to] Jack’s family” or to him. (Indeed, I don’t even know where they live; not only did I have nothing to do with the doxing of Barnes and his family, I didn’t even know about it until after the doxing tweets were deleted.) I do not support violence against my political opponents.
All of this is obvious to anyone who actually reads what I write on this blog without their perceptions distorted by MRA-induced prejudice or preconceptions.
That said, I will not apologize for taking Barnes’ threats seriously.
Nor will I apologize for exposing misogynistic Men’s Rights activists to the light of day — not by “shit stirring” or engaging in Wallen-esque sophistry, but by quoting their own words and reporting their real deeds.
And when people harass and threaten me — whether that’s Barnes, those at AVFM who have aided and abetted his threats, or anyone else — I will take every legal step I feel is necessary for my safety and the safety of others.
This post is one of those steps.
dhag — we do what with children, huh? Oh JB, how far from the facts you’ve strayed!
But I’d comment on someone being ginger, I like redheads. Have the gene but mostly brown hair, am jealous.
@Argenti
Oh believe me, I comment on my wife’s pretty red hair all the time :p
Or I used to, before it turned blue and green.
@dhag
Holy crap. What?? Does JB even have anything to back that up?
@argenti
Thanks. It took a lot of careful re-wording and I still feel like I didn’t quite get across what I was feeling, but close enough. 🙂
Lol. I didn’t notice this before. So, Suzy makes up a story about Futrelle’s readers planning a SWATting, just pulled it straight out the air. Then this Joe person, who as far as I know has never been seen here before, shows up and says the stupid thing about calling CPS on Jack. Then Suzy tweets this:
https://twitter.com/SuzyMcCarley/status/664522061092536321
*facepalm* Try making it a little less obvious, Suzy.
@kupo
Nope. The thing I quoted is the entirety of what she said about it. The lies are escalating fast.
@zeb
I get why dhag85 finds Barnes hinky, but I’ll take the dox at face value because I’d rather not play internet detective.
Just realize that Barnes and his AVFM are trying to create a narrative where David is the responsible party, that’s the whole point of this. They don’t care if David denounces the doxing, like the Salo nonsense, it doesn’t matter what he says or the pesky facts that counter their claims.
David has pointed to AVFM enthusiasm for inflamitory rhetoric, past doxing campaigns like Register Her and how they blame feminists for anti-feminist violence. Since they can’t shake that history, they’re going for old “the other side does it too” gambit.
So cue David as cult leader egging his radical “followers” to attack MRAs. That’s not easy storyline to sell since nothing that David had written supports it, but they’re still trying to sell it.
That’s why Barnes is inexplicably characterizing multiple WHTM posts as “threats”. It’s why Barnes claims David has been “painting a threat narrative around the MRHA”. Barnes doesn’t want an apology or sympathy, he wants to claim that the David and his “followers” are a hateful threat, unlike you know who.
Just ignore the random women MRAs have obsessed about and targeted for years, because it’s David, dontcha know, who “created a completely unwarranted climate of fear around the MHRA for the soul (sic) purpose of padding your pockets and to destroy a movement that triggers your misogynistic need to appease women rather than treat them as fully capable adults”*. Note: Barnes’s also efforts here to turn David’s criticism of Elam’s shadowy handling of AVFM’s funds against him and he threw in a “and you’re the real misogynist!” for good measure.
*That’s a list of purposes rather than one sole one, FYI.
Just finished reading-some quick thoughts (Apologises if this is a repeat of other posts).
This is of course bullshit. And it forces David to play defence. Don’t fall for it.
Barnes needs to: demonstrate he has reported this account to Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jackbarnesdox
It has been suspended , but even so, considering the deep cultural dishonesty of MRAs, the suspicion of a “false flag” is not unreasonable.
The next thing is the origin of the avatar image from the suspended account. How did the troll get that image if it wasn’t online somewhere? I have known the stupidest scammers make this mistake–try to frame someone for posting a image that was never available online until the scammer put it online.
Then the battle moves to ISP providers, and this is what a conman or woman with any brains usually tries to avoid.
Then it is perfectly possible, even if this is fake, that Jack Barnes has no idea and is being manipulated. But that brings us back to the source of the image.
Ditto for it being possible a misguided fan of David’s did it: how did they get that image if Barnes didn’t have it online somewhere?
A quick image search of Jack Barnes Tennessee doesn’t reveal anything. Its hard to believe the perpetrator wasn’t someone known to Jack. The internet is not that magical.
Yea when people like JB say that NO MRA harasses I cant really take whatever ridicuous shit she says next very seriously. First off, SJWs arent even a real thing, its like saying hipsters or Liberals or fat people. We dont actually have a leader or an organized centralized group, and people can be called that regardless of their true beliefs, associations, and actions. when MRAs threaten people they often do it in an organized way, but when some individual retaliates against them in kind they arent taking fucking orders from Anita or Dutrelle, they are acting AGAINST what those people are saying. So while I assume some sort of horrible child rape incident probsbly did happen online that she is referring to, Im not going to take that as a reason to stop supporting women’s equality and to let harassment of women off the hook. This “SJWs harass too!” shit has been coming out of Hatergate since forever and I can believe that GGers lie a lot but I also do believe some people retaliated using GG methods and unfortunately that HELPED GG by making them feel things were even. Which is why going forward I am trying not to stoop to that level when trying to deal with hate groups / bigoted individuals.
@dhag85,
I remember when JB told that massive lie on her blog.
The nugget of truth within that horse pucky, as far as I could dig up was this:
Some time ago a proGG blogger named LizzyF620 was doxxed, including details about her young daughter who has autism. I haven’t seen any pornographic image of the child (because I sure as hell am not going to look for any), but I did find a sexual comment about her tweeted by the individual who claimed to have doxxed her mother. As a result LizzyF620 withdrew from GG and the internet.
As far as I can glean there is NOTHING to suggest that an SJW or feminist had anything to do with this, that’s just a big fat lie Judgybitch is pedalling as truth that SJW/feminists are EVIL.
The truth is more likely that Lizzy was doxxed by one of her own; given she’s a woman and a very conventionally attractive one at that, she’s just the type to be targeted by some 8chan bottom feeder. The person bragging about doxxing her, who was using a burner twitter account, called her a slut and bragged about being paid one bitcoin to dox her.
I can provide links to my findings if anyone is interested? I looked it up because I was appalled anyone would do such a thing, and needed to know if there was any truth in it. I did contact David about this a while ago as I feel this a particularly egregious falsehood, but I didn’t hear back.
“This is one of the worst comparisons I’ve ever seen.”
Horse shit. It is literally the exact same argument made against Anita and Zoey and Briana: we don’t believe you were harassed and theatened, because you didn’t go to the cops. It’s a bullshit argument, and it shouldn’t be used against anyone. Saying MRAs are valid targets because you don’t trust them is also the exact reasoning gamergaters used: I don’t like you, so I don’t trust you, so I don’t believe you.
This guy is an immoral asshole, but that’s no reason to toss out our morals or spead gossip and speculation. If you want to claim he’s lying about this, you’d better have proof. Otherwise, hush.
Between this argument and posters casually tossing around accusations of domestic abuse, I’m super disappointed in this community at the moment. David already had enough to worry about. He doesn’t need us making his problems worse by hypocritically adopting the very same scummy tactics he’s condemning.
*I dont believe in using the word child porn, it is images of child rape, thats what I was referring to. Im saying that just because I dont trust JB doesnt mean she couldnt be telling the truth that some sicko used abuse of children images to try to harass someone or whatever she is talking about and I hope it was reported to authorities.
lots of GG women reported rape threats. I have no doubt that happened. I do have some doubts as to who did it and why, really.
Remember when JB came to our comments and tried to get us to dox a schoolteacher for her? She claimed, with zero evidence that she had threatened some MRA thing, I think it was the conference. Then she dressed it up as concern for the well being of the feminist she was trying to dox. Good times.
Great. Now we have our very own internet detective squad? Are you going to let us all know when you find his home address, or would the flaming hypocrisy of that be obvious enough for even you?
Fuck everything about this.
Exactly, kale. Thank you for restoring a bit of my faith in humanity.
@bvh when I reported an account that was screaming the N word at people and had harassed me personally in very specific to me and easily proven ways, it took like 2 weeks to take it down. Some abusive accounts never come down. on this very blog is an articel quoting the president or ceo or w/e of twitter himself saying twitter sucks at handling harassment, Just sayin.
FYI, if you get doxxed — and this includes you too, Jack Barnes — here’s a site which has helpful links about what to do, and how to proceed. They are very helpful, and they can assist with various nuisances that crop up from being doxxed, they have lots of experience about this kind of thing happening to people.
http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/
Oh the irony.
when you are being harassed, “proving it” does get tricky, btw. And sometimes victims just straight up sont want to try to prove it to people who are against them anyway.
“This is of course bullshit. And it forces GG to play defence. Don’t fall for it.
Anita needs to: demonstrate she has reported this account to Twitter:
https://twitter.com/gamergater
It has been suspended , but even so, considering the deep cultural dishonesty of the SJWs, the suspicion of a “false flag” is not unreasonable.”
Sound familiar?
The entire MRA movement is like a case study on the backfire effect.(http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/) They are so wrapped up in their TEAM RED PILL worldview that they cannot allow themselves to see reality if it conflicts with their preconceived notions.
It is sad that people can let themselves become this delusional all so they can feel more right.
Thinking of you David, I don’t get to comment much but your blog is awesomesauce!
@Kale,
you’re right, ‘child rape’ is the accurate description for images of children involved in sex acts, not ‘child porn’ which suggests complicity on the part of the victim.
However what Judgy is referencing is an incident where a young girl’s image was stolen and altered to look pornographic. So while an immoral and violating thing to do, the child herself was not physically assaulted. I can’t verify that this actually happened by the way, as I said in my previous comment, I’m not about to look for visual proof, but Judgybitch SAYS it happened.
@sn0rk well Im glad one less kid was really hurt even though thats still really really awful. I was confused so appreciate the clarification.
I dont think we can rule out the possibility that people involved in equal rights discussions and activism are assholes. Ive heard if things like feminist male activists turning out to be sexual harassers, we all know TERFs exist, we have seen homophobes get death threats – there are many reasons a person may pose as or genuinely believe in various equal rights causes and still be an asshole.
It’s absolutely astonishing that he has a wife and daughter. Someone mentioned he’s a Christian? If he is a Christian then he’s a terrible one. It’s horrible to doxx/be doxxed I hope they will be safe.
Btw I’m a feminist Jack.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9bk4fM3gY1refvsho1_250.gif
“I’m not aware of a single MRA, even the crazy ones, who have doxed a CHILD. SJWs, on the other hand, create child porn, using the children of people they disagree with.”
– Janet Bloomfield
JB being a liar as usual, I thought MRAs hate false accusations, where did SJW come from?And it’s not child porn it’s rape children can’t consent.
Suzy falsely accuses and doesn’t know what swating is.