Jack Barnes, a volatile American Men’s Rights activist known for his harassment of feminists on Twitter, is now threatening to unleash a new offensive designed “to strike fear in the hearts of feminists.” In a post on Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men bristling with violent language, Barnes declares that
we have our hands on the throat of feminism. This isn’t the time to ease up. This is the time to squeeze harder.
The ostensible subject of Barnes’ post is a several-weeks-old piece on News.Com.Au by Australian writer Kerri Sackville about a road-raging, red-Jag-driving man who shouted “slut” at her when she honked at him for blocking the road. Barnes adds to the abuse, declaring her a crazy, misogynist (!) “cunt.”
The real source of Barnes’ fury at Sackville is a campaign she launched last December to “name and shame” men who sent abusive and threatening messages to women online using their real names.
And that’s what leads Barnes to what he says is the real “point of this article,” a declaration of virtual war against “Sackville and her fellow feminazis.” He writes:
Here is what we do. We make it hurt. If they want to continue to do this then we make them regret it. They need to learn that their are consequences for doing this. They need to learn that we will extract a pound of flesh, figuratively speaking. They need to learn to fear retribution from us.
Barnes claims that this “retribution” won’t include physical violence, but he doesn’t specify exactly what it will include, merely suggesting that he will soon have the “tools” necessary “to strike fear in the hearts of feminists.” And by soon he means next month.
We won’t use violence. We don’t need to use violence. How do we make these feminists think twice before going all Gestapo on any guy who has the balls to call out feminism or individual feminists on their FemKKK behavior? Well I can’t tell you that right now. Lets just say a plan is in place and being brought into fruition as we speak. Expect it to be revealed before the end of February provided that everything goes according to plan.
Barnes then launches a preemptive strike on any even slightly ethical MRAs who might be “wringing their hand” [sic] over his mysterious threats, bluntly informing them that “this fight is about to get dirty. Deal with it.”
Barnes — using a rhetorical switcheroo common amongst MRAs — frames his threatened offensive as a defensive move. Feminism is dying, he asserts, and like many dying beasts it is lashing out against its enemies in a desperate frenzy. He predicts that
feminists will become increasingly more vicious. … MHRAs with lives ruined, imprisoned and dead is not outside the realm of possibility.
As he sees it, not just Sackville and her fellow Australian ally, writer Clementine Ford, but all “public faces of feminism” are fair game for “retribution” for whatever offenses he’s decided they’re guilty of.
You don’t get a warning. You all have engaged in this despicable behavior. You will receive consequences. Go ahead and whine and cry about the horrible MRAs threatening you. We don’t care. This isn’t a threat. This is a statement of fact. We will not use violence. But we will make you hesitate to ever do these things again.
Barnes apparently believes in some sort of collective guilt, making clear that he will hold prominent feminists “responsible” not only for their own alleged crimes, as he defines them, but for the behavior of what he calls their “mindless minions.”
This is not the first time Barnes has announced his desire to harass feminists into silence. Usually he remembers to put the word “harass” in quotes, as if this will be enough to transform harassment into something that doesn’t sound quite so bad.
Usually, but not always:
Nor is this the first time that Barnes has issued threats that he insists aren’t really threats.
Indeed, I myself have been the recipient of some of these non-threat threats. Last November, after someone doxxed him and his family, Barnes decided that I needed to be held “responsible” for the doxxer’s actions, even though I had nothing to do with that person or persons, didn’t know who they were, and didn’t even know about the doxxing until I learned about it from a video by AVFM head honcho Paul Elam a day or two later.
I made it clear I knew nothing about the doxxing or the doxxer (who later ended up doxxing me). I condemned the doxxing, publicly and repeatedly. It didn’t matter: Barnes declared the doxxer to be a “cult follower” of mine, so anything they did was somehow my fault.
“I promise you David,” he wrote in an AVFM post, “that for the rest of your life there will be nights you cry yourself to sleep in anger and frustration over me.”
Indeed, he wrote, if anything happened to his family as a result of the doxxing, he would literally show up on my doorstep for
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’ve “done” is to condemn the doxxing that Barnes blames for putting his family at risk.
Barnes is hardly the only AVFMer who believes in this sort of guilt-by-non-association; assorted others rallied behind him on Twitter, repeating his accusations and defending his threats. The title of Elam’s video on the doxxing declared bluntly that I was “Trying to Get MHRAs Killed.” How? By writing critically about AVFM.
Elam’s bizarre inflation of my carefully documented criticism of MRAs into an attempt to literally “get MHRAs killed” is not only jarring; it’s ominous. By pretending that the writings of feminists leave MRAs, quite literally, in mortal peril, Elam, Barnes and others associated with AVFM can justify almost any actions they might take against feminists, no matter how sleazy or underhanded or even violent, as a form of self-defense.
Abusers who think — or simply pretend — that they are the victims are some of the most dangerous people in the world.
Oh but folks, Max wants us to know that he’s a troll because we made him a troll. And for no other reason. He definitely definitely wasn’t one nor had any intention of being one until our downright uncivilised responses to his very, very sincere questions forced him into it. In a very real sense, are all guilty. /sarcasm
Interesting thread to read through in one go from Max’s first posting, as he escalates, latches onto sore points, repeats mental health slurs knowing they are banned – even ends up boasting about it – and indeed anything which might give him a way into causing hurt.
WWTH I agree with your assessment of how he picked up on you.
Quelle morceau de merde.
Other than that – and Max’s part was educational too – what an interesting thread.
@occasional reader
Thanks for detailing the finer points of that distinction; I’m always learning something here! As I mentioned, my French has gotten a bit rusty and I have to refresh it (I need it for a research project). I should read more French; I’ve already ordered some nice bédés to get into it again…although starting with Tardi’s “Cri du Peuple” wasn’t the best idea, I’ve realized.
Anyway, if I understand you correctly, Max’ excuse (that “interroger” means the same in French as “posing a question”) still doesn’t hold up, right? I mean, it seems to me situated somewhere between the English “asking someone” and “interrogate” – not as strong as the latter, but also not politely asking without expecting an answer.
They’re “None are so blind as those who will not see,” and “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.” Very similar. =)
@occasional reader
“you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”, perhaps?
Et je me permets de remarquer que ça fait plaisir de lire ta bordée de bon sens (eh bien, c’est loin d’etre la bordée d’injures qui aurait pu paraître meritée), bien que mon français écrit soit plutôt minable 🙂
oops, ninja’d by SFHC 🙂 Imma leave it anyway.
Welp, that was an experience. You had my sympathy, Max, before you were all “I’m gonna break the rules and insult broad swathes of the most disadvantaged people in our society, just because I don’t like you.”
You came in, thinking that women weren’t really targeted worse than men online – and you were wrong. Now you have decided to use ableist slurs, cause it’s not really a problem. Guess what? You’re wrong on that too.
Go, read about how people who we call ‘unstable’ are far more likely to be the victims of violence and prejudice than to cause it. Go read about the specifics of neurological disorders and the terrible things that they cause – and read about the absolutely heroic efforts of those people that live with them, all the while silently suffering the insults you toss around because “you might as well.” Feel some shame.
…
anyways!
@Alex, DepressedCNS, opposeablethumbs, et. al.;
I knew the alternate name for the fundamental attribution error, but didn’t know about the reason behind it! Very interesting. I don’t know what to think about it – I like the term as it is! I guess I’ll adjust my terminology based on the context. Womp womp. Thank you!
I’m actually sort of wary about the idea of teaching biases. I’ve seen far too many people use them as a Fedora’s Catalogue of Ways to Discount Ideas. Good, valid ideas can often be presented or bundled in along with a fallacious presentation, because we’re only human and metaphors universally suck. Smart people (I’m lookin at you, internet atheists) get their hands on these fallacies and they use them like a shield, dismantling any ideas that dare to threaten their cherished beliefs.
Fallacies and biases should be used inwardly first and foremost. Rationality is about self-destruction.
Re: interrogate
The language stuff was interesting. Just to add, there’s a formal procedure in civil litigation where, pre trial, you can ask the other side questions in writing.
This used to be called “Interrogatories”
(Now it’s the rather more boring “Part 18 Requests”)
Also, the reason our military mainly uses barristers for questioning prisoners is reflected in the motto: “The British Army does not interrogate; it cross examines”
@occasional reader
Mercier pour ça. 🙂 My French is very rusty but it was enjoyable to see you tear him down in French.
@ scildfreja (et al)
I’ve really really enjoyed reading all your comments here. It’s been an education, thank you.
I’m still mulling all the concepts discussed. This is something we touch on, but don’t go into great depths, in criminal legal work (that’s legal work involving criminals, not just that all lawyers are crooks 🙂 )
Obviously a key issue in the criminal justice system is ‘culpability’. The theory being that people should only be punished for their own conscious decisions.
There is some interesting research about how ‘voluntary’ behaviour actually is, but generally in day to day practice we take a rather simple (some, especially medical professionals, say ‘crude’) approach.
The staring point is that everyone (over the age of 10) is a free agent. If you did an act or made a decision the presumption is you did so through a free choice.
There are some exceptions recognised. It’s a complex topic so this is a very simplistic summary, but generally the exceptions are:
‘Insanity’ – that’s where an *internal* factor removes culpability completely. (The name is unfortunate, it can even encompass diabetics, but we’re stuck with it)
‘Automatism’ – that’s where an *eternal* factor removes culpability.
‘Diminished Responsibility – that’s where an internal factor reduces culpability.
‘Loss of control’ – that’s where an external factor reduces culpability .
There are also issues about fitness to stand trial etc.
It also gets quite complex in terms of what is the province of the everyday experience of a jury and what requires expert evidence from medical professionals.
I also do a lot of work involving professional force users. Again these issues crop up. Both in terms of how perception is affected and how people react in such situations.
To put it crudely, often it boils down to “it was the amygdalae what done it!”
Sorry if this is just a typo, but an eternal factor? Is this like the “act of God” we have in the US?
@ kupo
Well spotted!
Should be “external”.
@Scildfreja:
There’s been a lot of interesting work done over the last few decades as neurobiology, cognitive theory, and computing theory all start to try to close in together. There’s also been a lot of ‘three blind men and the elephant’ going on as we really start to realize that, no, we just don’t understand how cognition and consciousness work yet, we’ve just got the bare fumblings of shapes of ideas so far. We seem to be at the point where we know enough to realize just how much out there we don’t know yet.
Then again, I started on some of this with Douglas Hofstadter’s work years ago, his collaboration with Daniel C. Dennett, and Marvin Minsky’s ‘Society of Mind’. Enough to blow my mind open and realize how complex a problem this all was.
@Bernardo Soares:
My French is a bit rusty as well; I may be Canadian, but that doesn’t mean I use French every day. Got a few Bande dessinée myself, though perhaps Philémon was a bit… poetic in its language for good practice.
(Though I did laugh out loud when I saw a description of the ‘six noses banner’ comic shop in Brussels… aka La Bande des Six Nez.)
@ Jenora Feuer
I love Brussels; my cousin lives there and I sometimes get to visit him. It’s a really weird town, walk around a corner and the city looks completely different, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly, but always interesting. And they have huge murals of the most famous comic book characters.
I’m having a similar problem with Tardi, although his approach to language is more documentarian than poetic. Which, however, means that when he does a series about Paris at the time of the Commune, people speak 19th century proletarian French.
Last time I was in La Bande des Six Nez, I ran around collecting a huge pile of comic books, then had to reduce it to what I could afford.
Wow this sounds familiar. There’s another group of males who routinely accuse feminists of putting them at risk of being killed just because the feminist has an opinion. I’ll say no more than that because you don’t deserve the flame war, just be aware this isn’t limited to AVFM and is likely bought into by some males you would consider allies.
Tired of all of it.
I’m a hair disappointed in max. I’ve found that talking about how misogyny has affected me personally has changed a few minds.
Of course that assumes that the other person is willing to listen. Oh well, on to the next topic.
@Dana
Go on.
@Alan
It’s really interesting to see where and how science and legislation/law intersect! Naturally one lags behind the other, which is a *good* thing, but I do wish that the law/legislation side would catch up a bit in places!
Yeah, that is a pretty crude way of looking at it. You can’t really do otherwise though! Current thought on the matter is very .. weird. Not amenable to legal processes without, like, attaching electrodes to the accused and witnesses’ brains and making them watch home videos from their mothers, or something. Followed by dissection.
As I see it, the law side is working from the theory side of things – Theory-Driven Search algorithms are used. You yourself employ a set of theoretical constructs, and do pattern-matching between those constructs and the case pattern. The court outputs the case which matches. It’s the traditional way to do research – construct model, test model, etc.
(EDIT: All horribly simplified. It’s a metaphor. Metaphors are universally awful)
The emerging alternative model that data science is making possible is Data-Driven Search. In this, as much data as possible is collected and searched for correlations. Highly-correlative patterns are refined, smoothed, and tested against incoming data to make predictions. There’s no theory, no model – just oceans of data, with benthic patterns crystallizing from the depths, glimmering a little while before either hardening into reliable islands or dissolving back into the black. Models are then made which explain the data, but they’re just to help figure out what is going on – the data itself *is* the model, in many ways.
It is an exciting time to science! Bonus question for you: Could that sort of methodology work in deciding law?
@Jenora,
Dennett and Minsky are legends and everyone should read them. Philosophical zombies are way scarier than Day of the Dead zombies. Maybe even Shaun of the Dead zombies.
You’re right that we don’t know very much at all about it, but that’s part of what’s exciting – we’re finally seeing the scope of it. We’ve cast enough light on the problem that its silhouette is starting to become visible. We only have a few edges, but that’s enough to start describing a shape.
Exciting times!
@ scildfreja
I agree, fundamental attribution error does have a better ring to it than correspondence bias, though I find the distinction interesting. Words and stuff
@ Alan
I am very interested in this topic as well; most criminal laws were constructed without recent neuro research under faulty assumptions related to something called the rational actor model, which research has demonstrated is not applicable in most situations. This model is pretty bad at explaining behavior but people are very worried about the implications re: culpability if this model is indeed false. The way I see it, it would be pragmatic to shift to a more therapeutic, intervention based corrections system, as opposed to the punishment based system in the US, which would sort of ease the culpability problem
Thanks mammothers for the science talks!
@ scildfreja & depressedcns
I’m *loving* this discussion!
There’s so much area to cover to properly do justice (see what I did there?) to all the points you’re raising; so I hope you’ll forgive me if I just drop in a few bullet points.
Firstly, as I’m sure you know, the discipline that deals with the philosophy of law and the more general issues surrounding it, is called Jurisprudence. That’s where this sort of thing gets properly thought about.
However there’s a bit of a schism amongst lawyers between ‘practitioners’ and ‘academics’. We haven’t quite got to the stage of executing anyone who wears glasses, but there is a bit of an anti intellectual streak. Some chambers will reject anyone with a Masters degree for example, heck, some chambers don’t even like people with *law* degrees!
I was one of only 3 people who took the jurisprudence elective at law school and I keep quiet about it.
Secondly, in a democracy, especially one where politicians play to the press, law making isn’t necessarily a rational process. You know the quote “People who enjoy sausages and law should avoid seeing how either is made”?
We try to keep politics out of the application of law. That’s why the concept of elected judges or prosecutors is anathema here in England. But most law is reactionary. There’ll be a moral manic about the topic of the day, a cry of “Something must be done!” And then some ill thought out, or redundant legislation.
(cf: the recent anti terrorism legislation. It’s been illegal to kill people for political purposes for centuries, but we still get new offences every year. And there are at least 3 separate laws banning people from carrying knives)
We have saying “hard cases make bad laws” but saying ” calm down, we need to look at this carefully” doesn’t win votes.
Tony Blair coined the slogan “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” which reflected a willingness to consider some of the issues you raise here. But rehabilitation and restorative justice is a hard sell to a voter who’s been mugged or raped or burgled.
In the end the Blair government stuck in one of the most reactionary Home Secretaries we’ve ever had and a pretty draconian raft of penal policy legislation and new offences. Ironically the Tory shadow HS was one of huge most liberal people to ever hold the job. He did get the elbow when the Tories were elected though. (Not being party political here btw, I understand the pressures on politicians of all stripes)
So there are some attempts to look at the issues you raise in quiet corners of the criminal justice system when the press aren’t sniffing around; but ultimately law making will always primarily be a reaction to public opinion rather than considered research.
@Bernardo Soares:
Oh boy, which also means getting into slang that may not exist anymore. At least it’s still post-Revolutionary French.
Of course, I’m Canadian, as previously mentioned, and Quebecois French and Parisian French have some significant differences in certain constructions. Aside from a couple of vowel shifts and a greater use of borrowed English, Quebecois French also (as I understand it) still uses a few grammar forms that are considered archaic in modern French and are left over from the pastoral French of the era when Quebec was first settled four hundred years ago.
It’s interesting listening to French discussions in the break room between one of my co-workers who grew up in Quebec, and one who grew up in Cameroon. It may be the same language, but…
@Scildfreja, Alan:
Interesting times indeed. It’s going to be… interesting as the legal system slowly catches up to changes in understanding of psychology and cognition. The legal system is, after all, ‘conservative’ in the truest sense, of tending to change slowly and only when necessary. (Which is in many ways a good thing. And the British common law system actually changes faster than some other systems because of the way it uses precedent to shift boundaries that may not have been understood when the formal laws were codified.)
Interesting that ‘Insanity’ as a legal… ‘explanation’ I guess (it isn’t really a defense) can be used for diabetics: one of my friends is diabetic, and recently she took her insulin a bit too long before starting to eat dinner and went somewhat hypoglycemic as a result. I can definitely see that as a result.
Brain chemistry and all the different ways that things can go strange is another thing that we’re still getting a handle on, especially given the way different people seem to have such completely different reactions to what otherwise seems to be the same chemistry.
@ jenora
Re: common law
Yeah, in England the marital rape exception was removed by judges.
The actual law on rape specifically allowed for it, but our judges said, correctly obviously, that it was ridiculous . It was bizarre though that the legislature didn’t deal with it; it shouldn’t have been left up to judges. There’s obviously a dangerous precedent when judges ‘make’ law as opposed to interpreting it. But that’s a hot topic in itself .
The diabetic thing illustrates some of the more bizarre consequences of the rules on culpability. Hyperglycaemia is an internal cause, so ‘insanity’ applies. Hypoglycaemia, as a a result of too much insulin, is an external factor (the insulin) so automatism would apply.
Theoretically there are different consequences. (Not guilty through automatism and you’re totally free, not guilty through insanity and you can be detained under a hospital order). In practice some judges ignore the distinction and the Court of Appeal hasn’t criticised them for that.
ETA: Insanity is a ‘defence’ in legal terminology in that it prevents a conviction. We use the word in that sense to mean something different form the colloquial use of defence in the “I have an alibi” sense.
Alan Robertshaw,
It’s illegal in UK to carry a pocketknife? or am I misunderstanding you?
I’d feel naked! How does one sharpen pencils, open boxes, and clean your fingernails?
@ Alan,
You raise a good point about the law being heavily shaped ultimately by politics opposed to science. Restorative justice is a hard political sell for violent offenders, but we have such high incarceration rates in the US and many of the offenders are nonviolent and mentally ill. I don’t know the exact stats but it’s for sure a substantial proportion
@ sillybill
You can carry a folding knife with a blade of less than 3 inches so long as it doesn’t lock. (ETA: unless you intend to use it as a weapon)
It’s also a defence to show a “good reason” for carrying a bladed article. A carpet fitter walking to and from his van would probably get away with having a Stanley Knife on him; but not when he wasn’t actually at work.
@Alan
Professional force user = a politically correct way of saying “a Jedi”? ;P
@Alan:
Whereas around here in Toronto, from some stories I’ve heard from SCA people, carrying a large blade can be easier to get away with than carrying a small one. The rules were written to punish concealability rather than damage, so you could walk around with a sword (or in the case of this SCA member, a battle-axe) without worry, but something that you could hide in your fist would be confiscated.
Granted, of course, having the large blade makes you more of a target for the police pulling you over to look for small blades…