Thursday, September 18, 2008

Some poeple scare me

I shouldn't be blogging at work, but this is fairly major.

Paul, the guy who provided the excellent critique of the "conscience comes first" argument, is more extreme than I thought. I knew he had a very strong opinion against abortion (if you're pro-life, it's hard not to). I tried to explain the pro choice position as calmly as I could. He called me an animal, a hypocrite and a murderer, but I let it pass, because I wanted to demonstrate that I am a fundamentally reasonable person, and that a lot of the stereotypes he seemed to hold about pro-choice people were not correct.

Here's a link to his site, but I'm removing all direct links to posts on his site, because... well, today, he posted this (I've posted the full blog entry he made, current as of 3:45 PM local time on the 18th, so I can't be accused of taking things out of context. But it is rather long, sorry...):

Liberals are bastards. Every damned one of them.

They are despicable, dishonest, hypocritical scum. They kill babies, even after birth, and by the millions before birth, and celebrate it as a right.

There are no depths to which they will not sink to gain power. They are whores and pimps, liars and thieves. They care for nothing but their own pleasure and their own power.

They care nothing for the rule of law, nor for the innocents they hurt.

People who celebrate the killing of babies will do anything. They are beneath contempt:

They'll even break into private email accounts and publicize what they find:
Sometime early this morning, between approximately 3:00am - 4:00am, members of an infamous group of hackers broke into Gov. Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail account. The incriminating discussion threads included screenshots of Palin’s e-mail and private e-mail addresses of her contacts. The threads have since been deleted.

Hacking e-mail is a federal crime. A TV anchor who broke into his colleague’s e-mail account recently pleaded guilty and faces a maximum five years in prison.

The law will catch up to the hackers, but what about the lowlifes who are now gleefully splashing the alleged contents of Palin’s private e-mail account all over the Internet?

The Gawker smear machine — see here for all the background you need — has posted private family photos of Palin’s children that were apparently stolen from the e-mail account.

They have used Bristol Palin’s illegally obtained private cell phone number from her mom’s private account, recorded her voicemail message, and posted it on their website.

They have reprinted her husband Todd’s private e-mail address and son Track’s private e-mail address.

You think this is just a harmless prank? Those of you who have had to deal with break-ins and identity theft know exactly what a burdensome process it is to recover from crimes like this.

Gawker knowingly and deliberately published illegally obtained photos of the Palin children.

Where are the privacy absolutists now?

You think Palin Derangement Syndrome is bad now? These by-any-means-necessary lunatics are just warming up.
...

Bastards. Bastards all.


To paraphrase Shakespeare, "silence is the truest herald of rage, I should be but little angry if I could say how much."

The culture war is a real war. Like the war against Islamic terrorism, we didn't choose this war, our enemies declared it on us, without provocation or warning, and they are implacable and merciless.

Over at DailyKos, diarists and commenters are delighted:
When Sarah Palin and McCain decided to run on a platform that splits America between the "elites" and the rest of decent America, the gauntlet was thrown down - and it looks like some techie - most likely an urban one, broke into her email account at Yahoo. The account was deleted - which could get interesting if there were emails relating to one of her numerous scandals, but there are screen shots out there to gaze upon...

I have no pity for this woman - I hope she's destroyed by the media she first disdained and then hid from. McCain is playing a nasty game, aiming to rip this nation into red and blue in an effort to get his chance at the wheel. There was a time I respected him - but that was a long time ago...


Another commenter had this to say

maybe this is the excuse they'll use to drop her. they arent smart but they are sneaky.


Athough this commenter seems to have a clue:
This isn't the gov.sarah account she used for government business, this appears to be a different account. gov.palin, and it appears it was just her personal e-mail account for private purposes, so really there's nothing to talk about, and an invasion of privacy.

It is legit, it was hacked, but it is her personal e-mail, nothing to do with politics, and is only gonna get democrats in trouble if they jump on it.


But here's another despicable hacking fan:

Exactly this hack may make a lost of pols re-think this shit. Sorry times are too tough, and Palin/Cheney's view of gov. is too extreme to play by the rules. I suspect Palin was targeted bc of how she harasses bloggers in Alaska. She's a scary vindictive, dictatorial woman.


This one is "not sure he approves", but after all, she really deserved what she got.

Hackers can do amazing things. I'm not sure if I approve of this intentional invasion of her personal email account. That being said, she did leave herself open for this by using the account for official business. Doesn't make the hacking right, but it could have been avoided


If Palin had been raped in the street, these sub-humans would have been there cheering. And joining in.

Southern Appeal comments.

Wired has more coverage. Notice the quality of the comments there, as well.

This is a war, and it has no limits. Liberals target children, they care nothing for laws, for decency, or for civilization. They lie, they undermine the institutions of our nation and our culture, and they want to indocrinate our children. They deserve nothing but contempt. Their homes should be sprayed with toxic chemicals just as we do to mosquitoes. We should make no distinction between the worst of them and those who share their political platform. They all have fleas.

This is the last straw.

UPDATE: RedState comments:
this angered me, until one of my fellow Contributors reminded me of a little, small, surely insignificant detail that apparently everyone involved with hacking the account, publishing the hack, and favorably publicizing the hack seem to have forgotten. Sarah Palin is now under the protection of the United States Secret Service, which means that they are going to very interested in this attack.

Let me put this succinctly: everybody who had a hand in this is [expletive deleted]ed.

Have a nice day!

Which might be the opposite reaction to mine. Or at least 90 degrees off from mine.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin has more details on how it happened, including a confession from the guy who did it!

And The Atlantic's pride and joy, the increasingly despicable Andrew Sullivan, America's foremost sodomite, approves. He appears to think this a normal and appropriate part of the political process.


I agree that it's wrong to hack into someone's computer and steal personal records, but... What scares me is this:

They deserve nothing but contempt. Their homes should be sprayed with toxic chemicals just as we do to mosquitoes. We should make no distinction between the worst of them and those who share their political platform.


And I'm a liberal. And I've just spent several days speaking that viewpoint on a site where (the comments on the above post indicate) people agree with him that liberals should be killed. And the post immediately before this one had several paragraphs discussing me, specifically.

This is why abortion is tough to talk about. Because people are scared for their own safety. And I'm sorry to say, now I am too. So, no direct links to this guy's site (because the backlink feature will lead people to me who might do more than threaten), and no more conversation over there.

I had actually gotten into quite an in-depth conversation with the co-owner of the blog (screen name Paladin), and ending that mid-way through makes me sad. But I will not participate in a site where someone is encouraging people to kill me.

I don't know how much anyone can influence this guy, but I hope that some people (particularly pro-life Catholics, who he might listen to more) will join me in expressing to him the fact that encouraging people to kill each other is a bad idea.

5 comments:

paladin said...

Hi, Myron!

If it helps: Paul uses a lot of dramatic hyperbole, when he writes; I'm not drinking buddies with him, or anything (I don't drink, for one! :) ), but I know him well enough to know that he isn't advocating actual violence or lawlessness. I can't speak for him in any absolute sense, but I'd read his comments as an expression of extreme anger and outrage, rather than a calculated effort to exterminate anyone.

But... now that I've found which of your two blogs has the actual "ontological debate" content... we could possibly pick up here? (My time is pretty limited, but I get bursts of time, hither and thither.)

Take care, and (if this doesn't cause offense) God bless!

In Christ,
Brian

Myron said...

Paul uses a lot of dramatic hyperbole, when he writes

Ok. Well... fine. Except that people feed off that, and who knows, it might push someone over the edge to real violence (which, given my participation on the blog, might be directed at me). That sort of talk scares me, because people have committed violence to support their views on the issue of abortion. So I think it's important to speak out against that. Although frankly, I wish I'd never said a thing on that blog now.

As for the debate, yes we certainly could pick up here, I'd like that. And anyone is welcome to say "God Bless". I might not be a Christian, but I think there's (probably) a God of some sort out there somewhere, and even if not I appreciate the sentiment. I'm the farthest thing you could find from a millitant atheist!

If you'd like we can start a discussion as a comment-thread on a new blog post (or I could make you a contributor on the blog, and we could co-write one or more posts, which would let others comment if they want), or you can just post comments on one that's already there. Drop me an e-mail if you'd prefer I create a new post/make you a contributor.

paladin said...

Hi, Myron!

I may have to delay our debate for a bit; a huge dose of "real life" is needing my attention (i.e. multiple things needing to be done now, with no time to do them, etc.). Feel free to e-mail the correspondence that you mentioned; I just didn't want to leave you hanging, wondering why I'd vanished!

In Christ,
Brian

Darwin said...

Unfortunately, people on all sides of the political and moral spectrum have a tendency to use hyperbolic (and at times violently hyperbolic) rhetoric. It is, I think, a serious mis-use of language to advocate things that you don't actually advocate.

And on this particular issue, it's particularly problematic which someone uses violent language when talking about the importance of protecting innocent human life. I think Paul was wrong to do that. Though I can sympathize with his outrage, it's always a problem to let outrage drive your writing or your actions.

That said, let me also strive to reassure you that although I've seen a lot of very violent rhetoric anywhere from religious forums to the Daily Kos, I don't think you need to actually worry about some angry cyber-pro-lifer hunting you down. People do a lot of stupid things online, but they tend to be rather less stupid in real life.

Myron said...

Hopefully. I know, people will write things online that they wouldn't say or do in person. But I was scared to start with, and I feel like further discussion on Paul's site is, for me, a risk not worth taking.

But I've said it on Paul's site, and I'd like to make it clear on mine as well - invading people's privacy and posting their personal information on the internet is dangerous and reprehensible.

Being angry about it is justified. But intelligent people (which includes Paul) have the ability to express that anger constructively, and when they choose not to do so it's reasonable to treat that more seriously than some random moron yelling at the world.