Hello Folks.
It appears that the wagons are circling around giving Obey special protections again, this time with Sully banning me because I noted Obey’s hate speech against trans people aligned with a certain group of gas chamber enthusiasts. Now, I do acknowledge that it’s a pretty harsh comparison, but I don’t make it lightly; the things he has said about trans people go far and beyond anyone decent, and his overall attitude for the last years has been of a very angry violent extremist.
That is also what makes the ban so hypocritical. Obey has repeatedly called me a terrorist lover, a pedophile lover, a Hamas supporter, etc etc etc. It’s basically his only move. And he’s not alone; most of the right wing trolls on BNR, many of which I have now muted, use the same kind of rhetoric. And if you dare say anything ill of Charlie Kirk, I am now also apparently a murderer supporter.
So it’s ok for Obey and others to outright call me a supporter of murder, terrorism, pedophilia and a violent group of child murdering religious nutcases, but if I note his enthusiasm for going after trans people, I’m banned?
This hypocrisy should probably stop. I’m perfectly willing to tone things down, but when a moderator of the site itself goes so far over anything I’ve written without consequence, there’s little incentive or reason for me to consider it a valid critique of my writing. What it comes down to is a demand for me to follow unwritten rules that he will not abide by himself.
It’s your site. You can do whatever you want; thus is the nature of power dynamics. I just hope you think carefully about why people engage the way they do. It is far easier to keep people from going overboard if you are consistent in your moderation, and those given authority do not wantonly break rules, written or not, and then go on to use that power to ban those who disagree with their behavior.