Crime & Federalism

"This, sadly, was not always the dichotomy — his blog, going back to 2004 as a law student, paints the picture of a far tamer, more reasonable man, interested in cases of authority figures abusing their stations, and where justice was denied to the weak." - Manfred Von Karma

How does someone go from a rather nice guy to, well, the man I have become. I'm actually a really nice guy in person, but let's assume, as the author of a recent expose on me does, that I am "perfectly sociopathic."

What happened? The key to understanding me is reading this article and following what has been done to liberals, feminists, and other nice people who post under the hashtag #GamerGate.

1. The author of the article did not email me for comment.

Before writing several thousand words on someone, why not send him or her an email for comment? But that's not how journalism is done these days.

Rather than have an open dialogue where people try understanding one another, you mine through a person's Tweets, take them out of context, and paint whatever monstrous picture you like.

By failing to give a person a chance to respond, you create people like me.

I have a choice. I could be sensible and reasonable. But lord save my soul if I make one errant Tweet or use the wrong terminology when discussing the most recent oppressed group of the day.

Rather than walk on egg shells, more people are stomping the eggs and laughing in your faces while we do it.

This is, again, a response to your conduct. When you treat people unfairly they have no interest in playing by any of your rules.

2. The author doesn't understand how hypocritical they look.

I recently had a YouTube debate when a man who, according to reports, laughed about the rapes committed by Gerald Arthur "Jerry" Sandusky. This fellow I debated would walk around the locker room with a hole in his butt area, calling himself a Sandusky victim.

That's some sick shit - and it's far worse than any my Tweets people cry about - and yet no one has called him out on that.

My criticis are insufferable hypocrites.

And their hypocrisy does not extend to me, a white man who can be attacked for any reason. This hypocrisy extends towards women.

While accusing me of harassment for writing about people on the Internet, they refuse to recognize what happened to Justine Sacco.

2a. Justice Sacco's story.

Justine Sacco is a hipster who had all of the right views. On her way to Africa, she made an ironic joke.

Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

See, Justice Sacco and the Self-Inflicted Perilds of Twitter.

Sacco boarded her airplane, turned her telephone off, and prepared herself for a long flight.

Unknown to her, the hate mob had already formed.

No one (see point 1) asked her for comment. If they had, they'd have realized it was an ill-advised meta-commentary on how (in her view) white people view AIDS.

In Sacco's view, white people viewed AIDS as a black problem. Sacco was channelling the voice of the white people she hated. Sacco was one of the good guys!

Sam "Bring Back Bullying" Biddle started the hate mob. He was quickly joined by Anil Dash, who leaps at any opportunity to ruin lives. See, Moral Panics and the Death of Fun by Pax Dickinson.

Anil Dash used his 400,000 Twitter followers to terrorize a woman over a Tweet that was meant as an ironic joke.

A hashtag was created called #HasJustineLandedYet. Tens of thousands of people began threatening Sacco's livelihood and life. 

Before Ms. Sacco could land, the mob was salivating.

When Sacco lost her job, the mob rejoiced. When she found a new job, Sam Biddle tried forming a hate mob again to cost her the second job.

When you form hate mobs to attack some people while ignoring the misconduct committed by your own side, you're not impressing anyone.

Reasonable people see that double standard in action and are sickened by it. 

3. (Again!) The author doesn't understand how smug and hypocritical they look.

The assessment of the "debate" is amusing as the author clearly doesn't understand my intent. My intent going into the debate was:

• Don't look like an asshole.
• Let the other guy look like an asshole.

Could I have "out assholed the asshole"? Sure, but how would that have benefitted me or helped get the truth about #GamerGate out there?

Anyone who watches that video will see someone (me) trying to have a genuine conversation with someone. They'll watch the other guy smugly ignore and dismiss and run from any point I make.

When people say that GamerGate is made up of evil people, show them that video. When people say I am a violent sociopath, show them that video.

If people think I lost the debate or look like I was being bullied, great! 

My goal was to make my critics look like assholes. I succeeded. 

4. My critics have no respect for the rule of law.

The author of the piece is either a lawyer or someone who gets the law. No lawyer has said I have broken any laws or that my conduct does not fall well within the limits of acceptable speech by a lawyer. Von Karma concedes this point:

As has already been mentioned, Mike Cernovich is certainly smart. His methods of agitation are all perfectly legal, and perfectly sociopathic.

Since my conduct is legal, how does the author explain the following:

• I have had State Bar called on me. Quinn, Kluwe, Harper, and the whole crew has linked to the State Bar phone number repeatedly. I have lost track actually.
• I have had LAPD called on me. Nuance alert: The claim is  they didn't call the police directly; they reported me via CrimeStoppers! 
• I have not broken any laws. Everything I have said has been well-within my First Amendment rights, so calling in "crime tips" about me is frivolous. 

Has Von Karma called out anyone for calling the police and making frivolous bar complaints against me?

Of course not!

5. My critics have no sense of decency or remorse.

Von Karma accuses me of harassment and other offenses (even while conceding I have broken no laws; how's that for cognitive dissonance?) because I hired a private investigator.

What Von Karma failed to report is that before retaining a PI I asked for an apology.

Before retaining a private investigator I asked Ms. Pless and Quinn for an apology for sharing my personal information with tens of thousands of people.

I didn't ask that anyone grovel or kiss my feet.

They are in their 20s. I understand people say stupid shit in the heat of the moment. No big deal, if the person says, "My bad. I misspoke." 

They mocked me. Fair enough. We all make choices in life.

Now they cry and expect me to care. I do not. 

6. The double standards my critics live by is sickening.

If I wrote an article about one of them giving their address and detailed pictures and telling people to call the police, what do you suppose they would say?

Yes, I understand that we live in a patriarchy and as such I have institutional privilege.

This means you can lie about me online, falsely accuse me of making rape threats, call the police (or CrimeStoppers!) on me when I've broken no law, and attack my livelihood by calling the State Bar (even though I've done nothing illegal or unethical).

Gut check time.

Do you realize how fucking insane that double standard sounds to reasonable people?

7. My critics are driving liberals away from them and towards the right.

Most people who post under the #GamerGate hashtag are liberals. They are free speech advocates and experienced Internet funposters.

They recognize that most of my Tweets are either jokes or that I take a true point and turn the volume way up to get a conversation going.

They have watched, in real-time, the following:

• The media lied about GamerGate, falsely claiming that GamerGate is a campaign of harassment rather than a consumer revolt against unethical jouranlism.
• Open season on nerds was declared.
• Bullying of the neuroatypical was encouraged.
• Wikipedia has been discredited.
• Minories, women, trans, teens have been doxed and attacked.
• The crap that happened to me and other men. (Which doesn't count, because patriarchy!)

You are validating everything I write about the evils of "social justice" and radical feminism. You declared open season on white men, rationalizing it by saying your'e "punching up."

Yet now you're attacking people who dare to be friends with white men.

Do you think that's fair, decent, or even tactically sound?

8. Stop being smug, dismissive, hypocritical assholes.

They say you should never take advice from your enemy, so you are welcome to dismiss this as concern trolling.

But.

Have you made room for the possibility that you share any responsibility for what happened and that continuing to deny any responsibility is driving more people into thinking and behaving as I do?

Maybe you should stop being assholes to people, stop forming hate mobs, stop trying to get people fired from jobs, and stop throwing huge fits when otherwise decent people make a mistake.

Or you can drive more people to act like me.

The choice is yours.