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By David Futrelle
In 2010, men’s rights lawyer Roy Dean Hollander wrote an inflammatory piece for the men’s rights hate site A Voice for Men declaring that men might be forced to take up arms to defeat what he saw as the tyranny of feminism.
Several weeks ago, Den Hollander took his own advice, gunning down the son and husband of a female judge he had tangled with in the past; the son died of his wounds. Several days earlier he killed rival men’s rights attorney Marc Angelucci.
If you thought Den Hollander’s murders would have occasioned some soul searching on the part of the folks at AVFM, you would be dead wrong. Site foinder Paul Elam and others associated with the site offered no apoligies for publishing Den Hollander’s screed (or for a later post by Elam effusively praising him as a “real man”); instead they insisted to anyone who would listen that Den Hollander wasn’t a real men’s rights activist at all and had nothing to do with them.
On Tuesday, AVFM published a post by Gary Costanza referring to Den Hollander’s murder of Angelucci which somehow managed to avoid mentioning both his name and his previous connection to the site, referring to him only as a “demented person.”
Down the memory hole he goes.
Den Hollander – who killed himself shortly after his assault on the judge’s family – was not the only “demented person” in AVFM’s past.
You may be familiar with the name Chris Cantwell – he’s perhaps better known as “the Crying Nazi,” infamous for a teary video he put out after hearing that there was a warrant out for his arrest for several counts of assault at the notorious Unite the Right rally in 2017. Before going full Nazi, you see, Cantwell wrote a number of pieces for AVFM on such topics as IQ, the evils of gun control, and feminists “who demonize men and white people.” When, at the time he was writing for AVFM, I criticized his online harassment of some of his many enemies, Elam wrote a post defending Cantwell and advising me to kill myself.
Cantwell, not only a political activist but quite the gun enthusiast, has been a busy boy in the last several years; his rap sheet is too long and complicated to easily summarize here, but he’s served time for assault and currently sits in jail awaiting trial on charges of threats and extortion against a fellow neo-Nazi. Given his love of guns and his utter lack of impulse control, I think it’s kind of a miracle he hasn’t shot anyone yet.
Over the years, Elam has befriended and published several other men’s rights activists who frankly seem as unhinged as Den Hollander and Cantwell; thankfully none of them have acted out in the same way.
In Constanza’s post today, he urges fellow MRAs to “redouble our efforts” in the wake of Angelucci’s murder.
I would suggest that fans of the site do some serious self-reflection first. Is there a reason their side – and their site — attracts so many “demented” individuals? Perhaps this is not simply bad luck? Perhaps it’s because, to paraphrase a famous comedy routine by Mitchell and Webb, they are the baddies?
H/T — to Twitter’s @TakedownMRAs, who inspired this post.
Oh I am well aware of my own ignorance; trust me. I’m reminded of how thick I am on a daily basis.
I am lucky though in that I get to move in circles where there are some genuinely very smart people. I try to learn from them and hope I can at least pick up some of their knowledge through osmosis.
From what I have gleaned from them, I suspect they would be able to demonstrate why your arguments show a fundamental misunderstanding of biology, anthropology, history, culture, and a whole host of other disciplines.
Humans have been around for anywhere between 400,000 and 3 million years, depending on how you categorise such things. That’s not as impressive as some other species of course; but it’s not a bad start. We do seem to be getting the hang of the survival thing.
If we do face any (within our control) risks as a species; that’s because of our abuse of the environment. So if you want to argue white people are a threat to themselves; then perhaps that should be your starting point?
Yes, his behavior around jews really are red flag for actual antisemitism. As in, you can find a lot of nazi and far right with thoses exact sentiment. Especially when he talk of Ashkenazi Jews, since, you know, it’s often used as a dog whistle to exclude jews that are not white enough.
Israel is, quite bluntly, the last remnant of colonization. It’s an european colony, who *do* have a good reason to still exist, but a colony nonetheless. Until we found an actual solution (and none are in views), there will be perpetual trouble. I personally believe that Isreali probably should just be resettled somewhere in western Europa given that it’s european countries that though they could give land willy nilly to solve problem they caused.
Also, the disappearance of either jews or israeli would be a big cultural loss, but nothing more. Once again, no ethnicity are special, and there’s no difference, genetical or otherwise, justifying to distinguish an ethnicity. The human race is *way* too uniform for that.
@Alan Robertshaw : the truly impressive feat for manking is how fast it spreaded to pretty much every continent and every climate. Especially for big ass mammals, that a single specie can strive just as much in Reijavik than in Tombuctu is extremely impressive. We do better than rabbit, for example.
Also, I do believe you’re not exactly thick either Alan. I don’t have a working definition for intelligence, but you do seem to have a good memory , a working understanding of logic, and a willingness to use both, so you’re at the very least average. Probably better than average given how stupid a lot of people seem to be, but that might be my misanthropy speaking.
I’m not sure from where AVN’s wittering on about the white race and Jews is coming, but it’s a racist and creepy place and I’m not interested in it. I’m not here to talk about how whites and white culture are endangered.
Go take your white racism fetish somewhere else, AVN. You’ve worn out your welcome with your bullshit.
@Ohlmann
Wouldn’t that require relocating ~9 million people to a region of the world historically hostile to them? I’m not sure that would solve more problems than it would create. It would also deny Jews access to holy sites in the Middle East such as the Western Wall.
@AVN – I think it’s time for a troll challenge. Lucky you, it’s an easy one! Here we go:
Use the same email for every comment, or we’ll ask David to ban you.*
Voila! Very easy.
*note: we still might, you’re spewing a bunch of dogwhistles, friendo.
@ ohlmann
That’s my trick. I’m lucky enough to have a good memory and I read a lot. So if a topic comes up I can usually cobble together a response from cleverer people’s previous observations. It results in a reasonable facsimile of intelligence; but you could probably replace me with a decent card index system.
Ow, man!
I missed the troll hunt and the geeky talk?
Nice going, me!
*retreats grumpily into the lurking hole*
You know, I predicted that AVN would come back to say “How can I be a white supremacist if I’m not even white? Checkmate!” But I also predicted that he would be like, “Oh, nonono, you misunderstand. I’m not advocating the establishment of white ethnostates myself; I am simply trying to learn the feminist position on the creation of white ethnostates. I am a mere seeker of truth. Pay no attention to the fact that I talked about Muslims going back to ‘their countries’ as if they don’t and could never belong in white-majority countries. That was, um, a typo.” But nope. I was way off on that. He is fully leaning in to the racist, fascist, “””””great replacement””””” stuff.
That sink knocked on my door, and it kept trying to conceal the fact that it was emblazoned with a giant swastika. That sink can stay the hell out of my house.
@Nagfljar : it’s not very realistic to actually do, but it would be justice. It’s one of thoses where what would be right create a massive amount of logistic and other moral problems.
The whole situation was started by Europeans who exported a bunch of unliked europeans somewhere else as a compensation to trying to purge them. In addition, what solutions will there be other than relocating either jews or palestinians ? The current situation is jews trying to make an ethnic purge without it being too visible.
Jerusalem is holy to three religions, so I see 0 reason to say that you need a confessional state for any of thoses religions. Maybe an atheist structure that would allow time and ressources to allow people to visit this for their religious need at most, but jews don’t have more of a right to thoses places than christians or muslims. It’s not like Mecca or the Vatican who are of importance for a single religion.
While there is antisemitism in Europa, I do believe it’s pretty much the place with the less of it, including Israel. Maybe tied with the USAs. Other options would be to give them the mean to live on the Moon I guess, but current Israel definitely isn’t a more friendly or rooted in their past place than Europa.
@Alan Robertshaw : if they were a definition of intelligence, “good memory” would probably be in it. And as a software engineer, a decent card index system isn’t the easiest thing to create :p
@Ohlmann
Hate crimes against Jews have been rising for the last 5 years, so I don’t think it would be very safe. Plus, which European country would allow in 9 million displaced Israelis? And how does one convince people who have settled an area for generations now to leave and move to a new one where they know nobody, don’t speak the language, and have nothing?
@AVN
Hi. I am a Jew, I am not breeding stock, and I do not support your genocidal vision of Israel “winning”. Get the utter fuck out of here with your eugenics bullshit.
@All
I wonder how much it would blow this creep’s mind to learn that the majority of Muslims are Southeast Asian.
@Cyborgette
So much this.
Wow, this thread attracted two (2) trolls?
That’s sort of impressive. Think Troll II is a sock?
@C.A. Collins
I don’t think he’s a sock because their writing styles are very different. He could be, but I’m not sure Skimmingway could put aside his shitty purple prose long enough to be AVN.
Edit:
I have also just received word that Skimmingway’s comments are now displayed on FSTDT. I’m guessing one of the regulars here submitted them.
https://fstdt.com/QL7M_D9DX5D.9
https://fstdt.com/SRKK_QNKCYKZ9
@Nagfljar : given that there are terrorists attack everyday in current Israel, it’s absolutely certain that an Israel in Europa would be a lot safer.
As for “installed for generations”, well, the thing is that they are here since less than a century (so I guess more than on generation, but not a lot of them), and they did worse than what you describe to the original inhabitant. While that still cause logistical and moral issue, I really don’t have much sympathy for any israeli that would need to move and need to learn a new language and find new footings. The country was built on forcing that on people.
@Ohlmann
Europe isn’t free of terrorism either, and I get the feeling that a large number of Jews moving in could inflame a lot of white nationalist groups there. Essentially it would create a new refugee crisis.
You are correct that the government and military of Israel have done awful things. However, we must distinguish the actions of a state and its citizens. In the last Israeli election, most voted against Netanyahu’s corrupt Likud Party, and it seems wrong to punish millions because their government is bad. Do you propose punishing 350,000,000 Americans because Trump and the Republicans are evil? The actions of the United States domestically and worldwide are unambiguously worse than anything Israel ever did. The effects of such an action would disproportionately be felt by those with less resources, not the wealthy and politicians who are at fault.
Hi, sorry to barge in without reading most of this mega-thread, but I’ve noticed the discussion on the philosophical hypothetical option of moving all Israelis (presumably meaning Jewish Israelis, there are about 20% people with Israeli nationality which are non-Jews, mostly Arabs), and I would just like to register a “please, can we not?”.
I am Israeli. I was born here. My father was born here. My mother was born in Egypt (yes, there are Jews that are not European, let’s not forget it and the further complication this would present to your plan). This is my homeland, my culture, my language, my whole centre of life. To suggest that Israelis should be “relocated” to Europe is to dismiss all of that. So it’s not just the logistical issue of “where would those people live”, it’s not just about safety, it’s also just the basic injustice of tearing people away from their land.
And yes, I acknowledge the fact that the Zionist settlement of Israel has involved (and is still involving) a lot of injustices toward the local residents of the land. But there needs to be a better way of handling those injustices that doesn’t just look at living breathing people as gamepieces to be moved at will. It’s similar to the suggestion that the people of the Americas be similarly “relocated”, because of the injustices of colonisation, and is similarly problematic.
And that most of them live in Indonesia, which has the fourth-largest population of any country in the world (after China, India and the USA).
This is actually true, but for a different reason than the troll thinks.
White people embrace policies that are bad for their own pocketbooks and bad for the environment/climate because their desire to see people of color harmed is greater than their desire to protect their own well being.
@Penny
This is what I was trying to get at earlier in the discussion. You phrased it better, so thank you for adding that.
@WWTH
They’re also willing to destroy their own health to “own the libs.” By not wearing masks, they’ve resulted in thousands of deaths, many of which were probably white people.
Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot?!!
As said above by Ariblester, “Women don’t deserve rights because they are useful; women deserve rights because they are people!” and this applies to ethnic groups as well.
Just, ugh.
@ Ohlmann:
I’ve said it elsewhere, but quite apart from all the creepiness, so many of these arguments start from the premise that fertile women are an incredibly rare and precious resource that must be hoarded. Given that humans currently number in the billions, I just don’t buy that.
@Penny Smith : you know, I have heard the exact same complain from pied noir, the french colonists in Algeria. How they were here for a century. How it was *their* countries, with *their* custom, *their center of life, and locals unjustly wanted them out. How they were born here, and their parents too. How some also had local blood in their family from various origin.
The french Algeria also did pretty much all the bad thing that Israel is doing. (and then some, even if the most cruel and egregious part was during the independancy war). In a lot of way, Israel is behaving *exactly* like a colonial state, with the main difference – the key one – is that they don’t have a single benefactor country, so decolonizing is a lot harder.
Also, basically applying the basic injustice of tearing people away from their land is being done currently, but to the Palestinians. That we apply it to the israeli instead is exactly the same, it’s just that you prefer it to happen to people that aren’t you.
Nobody have a superior right to the Israeli land ; it’s just that, nakedly, Israel have a real army and the capacity to create nuclear weapons, and palestinians have smuggled weapons. It’s not that it’s your homeland, your culture, your language, your whole centre of life because it’s just as much the same for Israeli and for palestinians.
Of course, the basic blame for that problem is that the Europeans back at the end of WW2 decided for a solution that conveniently had almost no cost for them. Because of that, I am all in favor of solutions that primaly cost the trio of England, France and Germany, instead of palestinians.
(and in case people are curious : yes, of course, there is still a thriving french community of Pied Noir that dream of coming back in Algeria because it’s *their* country in their mind. It’s that kind of thing that prove that in the end, one of either Israel or Palestine will get entirely relocated or exterminated)
@Naglfar:
To Skimmingway, pretty much anyone whose political views lean one inch to the left of Augusto Pinochet is a Marxist.
@Ohlmann
Penny explicitly said that they recognized and opposed the injustices done to Palestinians. I’m not sure how you read that as “prefer it to happen to people that aren’t you.”
Then why do you seem to want to relocate many of its occupants to an unfamiliar region of the world?
So if it’s the center of life for both, why do you want to drive millions out?
To relocate Israelis would primarily cost the Israelis, who would be forced to leave their homes and move to an unfamiliar country.
As for the Pied Noir: I won’t pretend to be an expert on Algerian/French politics and culture, but it seems like this is a profoundly different situation. France exists, and the Pied Noir returned there when Algeria gained independence. As well, there were only about 800,000 of them, compared to 11 times that many Israeli citizens. On the other hand, there is no country which looks willing to take in 9 million Jewish refugees, and they do not have any single ancestral origin. As Penny mentioned, Jews from the diaspora have come to Israel from all around the world, many fleeing persecution in their native countries. The idea of Israel as a European colony, controlled by Europeans, is to erase the reality that Jews have never been accepted as European in many European countries and ignores the data: less than half of Israeli Jews report being of Ashkenazic ancestry.