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MRA Jack Barnes is trying to silence me with increasingly explicit threats

Jack Barnes, in a screenshot of one of his YouTube videos
Jack Barnes, in a screenshot from one of his YouTube videos

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:

Suzy McCarley ‏@SuzyMcCarley Suzy McCarley Retweeted David Futrelle Boobz had to know it and he didn't make a peep until he was called out. @DavidFutrelle STILL hasn't condemned it. Suzy McCarley added, David Futrelle @DavidFutrelle . @Jackbarnesmra I DID NOT DOX YOU OR YOUR FAMILY. I DON'T KNOW WHO DOXED YOU OR THEM. WHOEVER DOXED YOU/THEM WAS WRONG. RETWEET 1 LIKES 3 Bob LorinczMike KlengenburgMel Liflora 9:19 PM - 8 Nov 2015 Reply Retweet Like More Tweet text Reply to @SuzyMcCarley Who's in these photos? David Futrelle ‏@DavidFutrelle Nov 8 @SuzyMcCarley I called it out as soon as I heard about it. I condemned in in a post and in the tweet you just fucking quoted.

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:

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.

 

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Argenti Aertheri
Argenti Aertheri
9 years ago

1) argh, a pox on the ableism in this thread. Being a royal asshole does not make one insane, nuts, cuckoo or whatever other term you feel like using to call his mental health into question. He’s a known liar, and a right ass, that doesn’t make him mentally ill, so just stop, please.

2) being an asshole isn’t grounds for calling CPS either.

3) I take it swatting in this context is not like swatting a small buzzing insect and it’s a good thing I didn’t make a joke about it?

4) “Likewise, when people are threatening children because of you, you might need to rethink your platform, your audience, or both.”

Nope. First of, we have absolutely no info on who did the dox’ing, besides that it wasn’t David, and likely wasn’t anyone here, so your premise of “because of you” is already flawed and any conclusions arrived at due to it are on weak ground. Second, his platform is wordpress, given the number of people hosted on wordpress.com, claiming that running a feminist site on it is somehow bad is just ludicrous. Third, if you’ve decided his platform is the message, that’s just extra silly since all he does is quote this shit, post cat pics, and generally make the frequently violent misogyny palatable. And fourth, his audience condemns dox’ing! His audience, aka us, are condemning this six ways to Sunday.

5) hey seraph, long time no see!

Hazelnut
Hazelnut
9 years ago

First time poster, but I’ve been lurking for a while. David you have my full support FWIW. This is more than just a blog, this work you do is important. Just reading the comments makes me a better person.

Never has the complete inability to step back and look on ones actions with some perspective been more clear than with these MRA etc types. The real scary bit (for me) is how I can sympathise with certain aspects at times. I was once a very lonely, ostracised and angry young man – could I have been one of them with a different course in life? I don’t think so because I’ve never seen women as anything other than equal human beings, but those thoughts are the cold-sweat kind.

Please stay safe and carry on being a beacon of truth David.

dhag85
9 years ago

I also haven’t been able to find where and how this doxxing happened. Frankly, I’m not inclined to believe a word of what these liars say without evidence. My default setting here is to not believe it happened until there’s evidence. And if it did happen, my default would be he did it to himself. If there was evidence that he didn’t do it himself, my default would be some other MRA did it. These are reasonable assumptions based on what we know about Jack Barnes, the MRM, and of David Futrelle.

ObviousHijinks
ObviousHijinks
9 years ago

I find it interesting that this happened so soon after David’s articles on Cassie Jaye and The Red Pill. Almost like someone’s trying to discredit David, the website and the community at the same time, by implicating all three in the situation.

I also find it interesting that Barnes explicitly portrayed himself as independent of AVFM.

I also find it interesting that before this post, the last post David wrote that mentioned Barnes is dated 4th February (he may have referred to him elsewhere, of course).

I also find it interesting that the doxxer told Barnes to apologise or else; apologise for what exactly? What has Barnes said explicitly about David that anyone would demand an apology for? I’m no expert but surely doxxing is targeted in some way? Why target Barnes as opposed to anyone else in the MRM for an apology?

I googled but have not been able to find anything specifically Barnes has said about David prior to this. Now, of course there are forums and Twitter and such which I might be missing (and open to correction if anyone can find anything) but the question again arises – why Barnes?

I may be way out, of course.

davidknewton
9 years ago

I was going to say that doubting the veracity of the “doxing” claim was kind of a morally shaky thing as well, but… if he has a history of making false accusations and claims, it’s more understandable that someone might think that. I can just see him pointing at us and saying “Look, a bad thing happened to a horrible MRA person and they don’t care!” Sigh.

I take it swatting in this context is not like swatting a small buzzing insect and it’s a good thing I didn’t make a joke about it?

SWATting is the practice of phoning up the police to report a fake bomb threat or hostage situation to send an armed response unit round to someone’s house, typically while they’re streaming game footage with a webcam so that the reaction is captured on camera.

Yes, this is real and there are people who find it funny.

Yes, seriously.

Ray
Ray
9 years ago

I am happy to see that AVFM has such a strong opinion against doxxing. We can all agree that doxxing is wrong, whether the target is an MRA or a feminist. Right? I mean, it would sure be hypocritical if they were only against it when it’s happening to one of their own.

freemage
9 years ago

Argenti: “SWATing” (note the all-caps) is a recent trend, in which one person calls in a crime-report to the local police, claiming they heard gunshots or some other violent crime going on at the target’s address. The goal is to get the SWAT* team to show up and bust in. SWAT teams use aggressive tactics meant to completely overwhelm anyone present–they use hand-held battering rams on the doors, rush in in large numbers from multiple points, if possible, wearing riot gear and usually pointing semi-automatic rifles at anyone who looks like they might be a threat. At the very least, a ‘successful’ SWATing causes hundreds or even thousand dollars in damages and can traumatize anyone present in the residence (particularly young children). At worst, someone can end up dead because the cops are entering on a hair-trigger, believing that there is an active crime in-progress.

*: SWAT stands for Special Weapons And Tactics. They were originally formed in response to a sharp upswing in bank robberies back in the ’60s, and their approach is meant to eliminate threats before potential hostages can be injured.

*****************

I understand skepticism for the MRM, and any of its more odious individuals, but I’m going to agree that we should not be tossing around potentially dismissive comments. Rape culture thrives, in part, because of the narrative that says that people make false claims of assault or threats all the time. I genuinely hope that this shitbag and his family are safe, and see no reason or benefit in trying to claim that we should assume he’s lying from the start.

We know David didn’t do it, and that no one did it at his behest, and that David condemns such things. That’s enough to show the inherent dishonesty and occluded thinking of Barnes and his fellow-travelers.

Also, Shadrach? I truly hope you’re a better person in real life, because I’d feel horrible for your family and associates if they have to deal with someone who acts as mendaciously as you do when you post here. Feel free to fuck off with all the fucks.

kupo
kupo
9 years ago

The problem with denying that any doxxing happened because of the source being an MRA is that it’s a really awful reason not to believe someone when it comes to abuse, and doxxing is abuse. I see a lot of othering in here; a lot of us vs. them where they are made out to be monsters. They’re not monsters. They’re not crazy. They’re not bad parents.* They’re humans, and they see us as political enemies in the same way we see them as political enemies. If they were to threaten to call CPS on us for our political views or if they denied a claim of doxxing because they see us as liars (and they do), we would all agree that they’re not being fair.

I know their actions have been historically different than ours and that there’s a lot of context behind this that I’m leaving out, but I still feel the need to say this denying the doxxing and treating them like they’re not like us in any respect** is only going to drag us down. They’re humans, and even though they’re awful to us, we should still treat them with dignity and respect because we believe in human rights and we should reflect those beliefs with our actions.

*Maybe some individuals are some of these things, but we shouldn’t generalize or assume.

**As humans, we all share similarities, as uncomfortable as it might make us to realize we have something in common with Roosh or Elam.

Hambeast, Social Justice Road Warrior
Hambeast, Social Justice Road Warrior
9 years ago

MRA’s: We condemn doxing and swatting here. Of ANY one. Full stop.

We also support David and feminism. The angry threats David has received are not okay. Angry Jack saying it’s not a threat means nothing; not even as a CYA measure.

David: I hope you have a lawyer on retainer to advise you. If you need a place to lay low for a while, my dad’s house is mostly vacant and I have high-speed internet and cable there.

The downsides are: Airfare would be required, no real kitchen facilities*, plus I am there intermittently to clean the house out. But I’m serious about this; if your safety becomes a serious issue, please contact me!

*Fridge is fine, I don’t trust the stove, and the sink leaks too much to be usable. Bathroom is a-ok, though.

BritterSweet
9 years ago

You have my support too, David. Thank you so much for what you do. To document and expose these horrid douchebags for years is clearly not good for one’s faith in humanity. But it is extremely helpful to show them that the world is not oblivious of their words and actions.

All Barnes is doing to feminists is justifying us openly calling ourselves feminists. People like him want to eradicate feminism, but they’re the reason it exists in the first place. And to be honest, I get the feeling that what he fears most as a result of someone doxxing him is that his family finds out what he does and what kind of person he is. That’s the kind of bad thing I could wish upon him.

Genn
9 years ago

You have my support too, David. Be safe!

TheLulzWatch
TheLulzWatch
9 years ago

Futrelle,

Since you gave your name, I guess you knew that sooner or later some of these wankers would try something like that, while chances are high that he is another internet tough guy, this might encourage someone else.

If you haven´t already done so already, buy yourself and then learn to use a gun, a taser or a powerfull flashlight, the kind that can blind a would-be attacker @ close range. Or something else that I can´t think of right now.

JetGirl
JetGirl
9 years ago

I didn’t know it was possible to dox someone who makes videos where he shows everyone what he looks like, and tells people what state he lives in. Does no one who knows him have access to the Internet? That aside, thank you David for writing about all this toxic stuff. I don’t know how you do it without getting really depressed.

Kestrel
Kestrel
9 years ago

@Argenti – SWATing is when someone contacts the police about a fake situation that requires the SWAT team to respond. It is very dangerous to the intended victim. For some reason it became a tactic used by some gamers against others. It is a horrible crime that no one I know of here would support.

dhag85
9 years ago

@kupo

I certainly think these particular MRAs are known liars who lie about almost everything all the time.

Kestrel
Kestrel
9 years ago

Wow. I was ninja’ by several people. 🙂

newbie
newbie
9 years ago

So… is there any proof — you know, actual, factual evidence — that Barnes was at all doxxed recently (or ever)?

Or is he making it up to stir shit again, something that’s apparently his reason for existence?

Lanariel
Lanariel
9 years ago

Jack, I sincerely hope you and your family are safe.

David, keep strong and keep safe. I don’t comment a lot, but I read every post and comment. Keep up the good work.

Mammothers, thanks for existing and do keep being awesome people.

seraph4377
9 years ago

Hey, Argenti. I’ve largely given up commenting on political blogs, and have severely cut back on even reading them. I was developing a bad case of Internet Rage Addiction. A few nasty fights and cases of irreconcilable differences with nominal allies, the shutdown of Pandagon, and a few other changes to the landscape made it easier.

But I had to come back for this.

freemage
9 years ago

People, please, go back and read kupo’s post. Barnes claims that he’s been doxxed and in a threatening manner. We gain nothing by being hyperskeptics on the issue. It’s enough to assert our own uninvolvement in the matter.

As for JetGirl’s question–yes, it is possible to “Dox” someone who seems to have a fairly public persona. There’s a difference between a face on a screen and home state, and knowing someone’s address and personal details about their lives. Do some of Barnes’ associates know about his online career? Most likely. But deciding who to tell should still be his own decision. Noting that his actions (such as appearing with his face visible in the videos) may have made the alleged doxxing easier doesn’t make the action of doxxing any less reprehensible.

And even if he is making it up, well, that just means he’s that much more of a shitty human being. We can stake out the moral high ground just fine without resorting to dubious tactics that can ultimately come back against us. That’s one of the advantages of not being pond scum.

brooked
brooked
9 years ago

@schadrach

I’m just going to point this out: You know that whole recent internet drama between Laughing Witch and Thunderf00t?

OK, in overall structure this isn’t really any different, with Futrelle holding the position analogous to Thunderf00t. The main difference is instead of bad Yelp reviews, someone doxxed Jack Barnes and threatened his child, and did so expressly invoking Futrelle as a reason.

Does the Geneva Convention cover tortured logic? Seriously, Footie featured that Yelp page in his video, clearly egging his fanbase to hate bomb her family business’s rating. David responded to this guy’s pissy AVFM article and posted some his obnoxious tweets, merely pointing out that Barnes is a dishonest troll and a harassing asshole. So, the “overall stucture” (lol wut?) is in fact different.

Show me one example of David harassing someone or encouraging readers to harass others. JB is a veritable harassment enthusiast, David even posted a tweet where JB wishes his internet enemies would share the same fate as Laughing Witch.

“Hear what happened to laughingbitch? What’s it going to take for [feminist twitter enemy/target 1 and 2] to learn?”

Likewise, when people are threatening children because of you, you might need to rethink your platform, your audience, or both.

I don’t know who doxxed Barnes, but the “WHTM superfan” theory is suspect to me because no one on this website seemingly gave a shit about this guy. I read this blog regularly and I honestly didn’t know who the hell this guy was when David recently posted about him. The post shows he’s an AVFM blowhard who writes not particularly true things on that website when he’s not busy being a huge abusive asshole on Twitter. There’s a gaggle of those on AVFM and Jack Barnes appears to be a very minor one.

For instance, peruse the comparatively paltry 78 comments on that original post. No posters seem particularly worked up and KFC gets mentioned as much or than Barnes. I’ve seen this comment board get outraged over some terrible people and terrible acts, but that didn’t happen over Barnes. It was all pretty much ‘ho hum, a MRA thinks harassment is activism yet again’.

https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/10/30/a-self-described-harasser-and-abuser-of-feminists-is-accusing-me-of-threatening-cassie-jaye/comment-page-1/#comments

I googled “knightrunnermra” and found a blog where covered his numerous dust-ups with feminists on Experience Project in excruciating detail. Clearly his online battles/harassment campaigns against his feminist enemies are really, really important to him. He’s cast himself as an arch enemy of feminists and I think he doesn’t realize that no one he’s not actively harassing gives a shit about him or his antics.

He’s also projecting his own threadbare ethics on to people who would never condone harassment: “What has resulted is that one of your cult members has drunk the cool-aid and now feels that any action against MHRAs is justified including endangering the safety and wellbeing of innocent people such as my family.”
Again, I don’t remember David or anyone else here making even one call to action on this website. Sorry Barnes, but all the childish rabble-rousing nitwits involved are currently found frothing at AVFM.

kale
kale
9 years ago

Jesus I’m sorry man, that is fucking terrifying, I hope you are safe. If this doxxer is so righteous and such a follower of yours they would step up and take the heat themselves instead of letting it fall on you.

mockingbird
mockingbird
9 years ago

@kupo –

They’re humans, and even though they’re awful to us, we should still treat them with dignity and respect because we believe in human rights and we should reflect those beliefs with our actions.
Exactly.

@a few who have posted ablist stuff: I’m seconding Argenti Aertheri here.

I’m on my phone and so can’t easily link to this site’s rules, but ablism is against guidelines.

When I first started reading this comment section, I had no idea what ablism even was. Then, when people spoke against it my initial reaction was, “Really? REALLY? I can’t say ‘insane’ or ‘crazy’???”
But then I actually thought about it and about the impact that such comments might have. I slip up sometimes (much more IRL than when posting), but they’re good rules in general – and, regardless, they’re the rules for here .

kale
kale
9 years ago

Here’s a question, why the fuck is Twitter allowing a man who openly says he intends to abuse people to maintain an account at all? Twitter is giving him most of his power right now.

mockingbird
mockingbird
9 years ago

Dammit, blockquote Mammoth!

*shakes fist*

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