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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.
@Naglfart
“And you think we’re the violent ones?”
Are you unaware of how metaphors are supposed to work?
@skimmingway
Oh, I know metaphors all right, it’s just telling that you default to a violent one.
@Naglfar:
Nope, he’ll just recycle the last one.
@Skummingway:
Fatuous filler.
Who here has done so? You’ll have to be more specific. And link to the comments where they have done so, by way of proof of your claim.
Who has done so? Either the described act or considering it acceptable.
Victim-blaming and lynching-apologia. Goodbye. Pretty sure lynching apologia is a bannable offense here.
More victim-blaming, but the videos make clear the homicide of George Floyd was not remotely an act of self-defense.
FDR? A communist?! Are you stoned off your gourd or something?
Arson, murder, and jaywalking, eh?
Shit. Who left the projector running again?
Well, I think the bulb’s burned out now. Be more careful next time!
Tee hee … you and what army?
Purple prose or kookthreat? Or both?
I’ma gonna go make popcorn now. This promises to be a very entertaining night culminating in a heaping pile of roast skummingway.
Actually, maybe marshmallows would be more appropriate, with sticks to hold them over the flames. 🙂
Yeah, you see, liberals are metaphorically violent, from a certain conservative perspective. This is worse than being actually violent, because, um, reasons. So when we conservatives murder people, it’s a good thing because it’s not metaphorical, and when you liberals cause minor property damage, it’s a bad thing because it is. ?
Oh yay @skimmingay piss cry baby is back to talk out of his ass and have nothing of importance and intelligence to say. To bad i missed a lot of it because of my job
@Surplus
It is. Want me to email David?
That would require having something in ones gourd to begin with.
B-but, SJW libruls want to ban fire! Skimmingway says so, so it must be true! /s
@naglfar
I look forward to you handing him his ass in a brown paper bag again, dear friend.
@lainy
Sorry, skimmingay? Benefit of the doubt that that was a typo and not homophobia. But calling it out just in case.
I just want to emphasize that it is this person’s belief that the murder of Black people by the state is a good thing because it maintains white supremacy which is necessary because this person doesn’t approve of some Black people’s fashion choices.
I edited out my last sentence in case it crossed a line. Instead I will just say Skimmingway is scum.
@Lainy
I just realized that the autocomplete on my phone now knows who Skimmingway is and completes his name if I type in “skim.”
You all have the most amazing ability to put words into people’s mouths, and to twist their plain meanings into something alien and bizarre. I’ve yet to encounter a lot so lacking in the basic principles of charity as the likes of you. No doubt, any form of honest communication is lost on those who are intent on winning not through the thorough going application of logic and syllogism, but through sophistry the likes of which nobody has seen on this earth since the days of Socrates.
Another entertaining use of a bug zapper:
In my experience, they’re good for killing small amounts of a large swarm of small insects, or for killing a single largeish insect (think flies, not cockroaches), but that’s about it. Oh yes, and for stinging like hell if they touch your skin.
@Surplus
I don’t think I’ve done so here, but I’ve definitely described John Brown as a hero, and will do so again.
@skimmingway
Dude, you need to turn off the projector for a minute. Try holding the big round button on top for a few seconds and see if the light goes off.
@Skimmingway:
Except that there is no non-bizarre interpretation for your particular usage and arrangement of those “plain words” other than “troll arguing in bad faith”. So under the assumption that you are a troll arguing in bad faith, we’re screwing with you because some of the people here think screwing with trolls are fun. If you persist in being dogpiled, that’s on you.
Why do these guys all write like it’s Gaia online circa 2003 and they’re writing ads for “Super Literate RP” as fast as they can because mom needs to use the computer in ten minutes? Like, there’s a lot going on here with Little Lord Fascistroy here, but it’s weird, right?
Okay, the “royal throne room of truth” sounds like an MRA troll’s bathroom, and I’m totally unsurprised troll boy advocates animal abuse. If any cats have the misfortune to live in his domicile, he probably thinks they’re “mean” and can’t figure out why. Also, a former coworker whose sister was in the mental health field once told me men who hate/abuse cats hate women.
“ An abolitionist who advocated violence against slavers?”
I haven’t seen anybody championing John Brown but if they did I am not sure what the issue is.
Slavers participated in mass human trafficking and sexual slavery.
I should be surprised that anybody would be coming to the defence of said people but I guess for the far right and/ or Men’s Right Crowd they see nothing wrong with the slavers actions given the victims didn’t look like them.
@Ariblester: I guess I was being too circumspect. What I have often wondered is if anyone’s tried using one of those things as a flogger…
@Snowberry
Indeed. The door’s right here, he can leave any time he wants. We’re not holding him captive.
@fiercebadrabbit
Definitely. Part of why I’m still responding to him is because of his weird purple prose.
@Katherine
Animal abuse is very strongly correlated with domestic abuse and violence, so that checks out.
@Nequam
I could be wrong, and Stacey or someone else knowledgeable about BDSM could correct me, but I thought the point of floggers was to spin them. I’m not sure how you’d do that with a bug zapper. Electric toys definitely do exist, up to and including cattle prods, but I have yet to hear about a bug zapper being used as a BDSM accessory.
Hmm, now there’s an idea. Lets replace the Confederate statues with statues of John Brown. Why celebrate treason in defense of slavery when you’ve got a perfectly good icon right there? (And I too will join Dalillama in calling John Brown a Hero).
Sirrah, are we to offer you charity when you yourself do not extend to us this same courtesy? You, who presume so boldly to know our individual beliefs, and who with your words tar us all with the same broad brush? And yet you fancy yourself “honest”. Well, an honest man has no need to declare himself honest.
@Skimmingway
You creep, men try to judge me my whole life just because I only want to be with men I’m actually attracted to and because I don’t want to be some creepy guy’s manipulable girlfriend or dry the tears of a NiceGuy and coddle his entitled attitude.
I’m now at a place in life where I have the power to be free of those unfair and one-sided judgments but what do you know about being judged when it only goes one way? Jerk.
@Ariblester
Similarly, the wisest do not feel a need to bury everything they say in unintelligible purple prose. Seriously, I wonder if this is how Skimmingway talks IRL.
[Enter Skimmingway and Waiter]
S: “…there would be gnashing of teeth and much cacophony made from the mouths of the masses should such a thing transpire; no doubt, they will retreat in panic, building pathetic little forts out of their abstruse, professorial reading material, only to crawl inside and cry themselves sick. They will watch with barely controlled envy as real men make a return to the scene, their pale, gray bodies standing in stark contrast to the healthy luminescence of the red-blooded men, radiant as seraphim as they set about, using their hands and the sweat of their brows to restore a once decadent and now decayed society to its former glory, all done with a studied confidence and ease of being that eludes the dull blobs that populate the left.”
Waiter: “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”
S: “You all have the most amazing ability to put words into people’s mouths, and to twist their plain meanings into something alien and bizarre. I’ve yet to encounter a lot so lacking in the basic principles of charity as the likes of you. No doubt, any form of honest communication is lost on those who are intent on winning not through the thorough going application of logic and syllogism, but through sophistry the likes of which nobody has seen on this earth since the days of Socrates.”
[Exeunt Skimmingway and Waiter]