Thy hand, great Censor, lets the curtain fall
Here’s a funny thing – there’s this old thread at Talking Philosophy, so old that it’s dated January 8 2008, so old that I’d entirely forgotten it. More than a year old. Long time ago. I found it because I googled ‘Bernie Ranson,’ and I googled ‘Bernie Ranson’ because that was the name on an email message sent to one of my correspondents by what I had thought was a new and unfamiliar troll named Kees but turns out to be a troll I have encountered at least once before, on this old thread at Talking Philosophy. His MO is a little different there, at least at first – which is revealing, because it means he could have done a better job here, but chose not to.
Anyway, there’s an interesting note of obsessiveness about the whole thing – about the two threads taken together. Well ‘interesting’ isn’t quite the right word. ‘Peculiar’; maybe that’s what I mean.
It’s noteworthy (or something) that in January 2008 and in the past week, I took ‘Bernie Ranson’/’Kees’ to task for telling me and others that we were lying – it’s noteworthy that his approach is very consistent in that way (and in others, too).
One substantive issue at the end of the recent encounter was whether it is consistent to defend the right to free speech and also delete comments on a website. Yes, of course it is. I publish this web site: publishers don’t publish everything they are offered, they are selective; I select what I publish here; that includes comments. I don’t delete or edit comments very often – but that is because I don’t need to. Most comments here are good, and worth reading and engaging with, so I don’t do anything to them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t do anything to cause them to happen. Comments here are good because B&W attracts people who make good comments, and B&W does that because it has good content, and B&W has good content because I select it. Obviously I select it. B&W has a subject matter, and a tendency, and a set of commitments, and its content reflects all that. The pope doesn’t write for B&W, nor does Robert Mugabe, nor does Ann Coulter, nor does Tariq Ramadan. That’s not censorship, it’s selection.
I thought you’d like to know that.
Yes, free speech doesn’t mean that I have to listen to idiots or let trolls use my server resources. Comments posted on websites use resources – they use storage space and use CPU time. Free speech doesn’t mean that you can turn up at a newspaper office and demand that they publish your articles. The Internet allows you free speech, but also allow the freedom for everyone else to not have to listen to that speech.
Oh my God (Dog)! I just breezed over the talkingphilosophy thread on “The Pig that wants to be eaten”. This guy is a real creep. It’s one thing to take it note by note over a few days. It’s another thing to read over the conversation as a whole! It’s really quite disturbing to watch the way he plays everyone on the end of his line, trying again and again to get the hook in. Thank goodness for you. That’s what moderators are for (well, one of the things!). This BR is Kees?! Time to snip off the end of his hook! It’s a strange pond, the internet!
“The pope doesn’t write for B&W”
Nope, he does not – but a few words from him would surely not go amiss!
“Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restor’d;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And Universal Darkness buries All”
However, don’t forget, Marie-Therese, that a few lines before, the poem reads (and the pope would no doubt agree with Pope):
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
One of my (other) favorite bloggers has a unique and amusing approach to trolls. PZ Meyers simply deletes all the vowels. :)
Yes, Brian, and that practice has a delicious name – disemvoweling – which has the virtue of sounding sinister and silly all at once. And oh, is it fun to read.
Does he dismember them first or afterwards I wonder? Chop, chop! :–)!
Snap! Snap! Josh!
Deleted.
Hello again, old friend.
…What if I had had a reason to want to be anonymous?…
Let’s see; first time I’ve ever tried this.
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Sounds like the sort of thing you’d get from someone trying to use a mobile phone while under water. Like from the bottom of a swamp.
Sorry Bernie. I mean Seek. I mean Kees.
“What if I had had a reason to want to be anonymous?”
Then you wouldn’t have emailed commenters here under the name you wanted to keep secret, I assume.
Bernie: Going lower; I mean deeper, philosophically speaking, though still using the underwater phone:
Mglugta-glugthical rgluglativists maintain that all moral judgmglugnts havglug thglugir origins glugithglugr in sociglugtal or in individual standards, and that no singlglug objglugctivglug standard glugxists by which onglug can assglugss thglug truth of a moral proposition. Whilglug hglug prglugfglugrrglugd to dglugal with morglug practical rglugal-lifglug glugthical mattglugrs, thglug British philosophglugr Bglugrnard Williams (1929 – 2003) rglugluctantly camglug to this conclusion whglugn hglug wrotglug from a mglugta-glugthical standpoint. Mglugta-glugthical rgluglativists, in gglugnglugral, bglugliglugvglug that thglug dglugscriptivglug propglugrtiglugs of tglugrms such as “good”, “bad”, “right”, and “wrong” do not stand subjglugct to univglugrsal truth conditions, but only to sociglugtal convglugntion and pglugrsonal prglugfglugrglugncglug. Givglugn thglug samglug sglugt of vglugrifiablglug facts, somglug sociglugtiglugs or individuals will havglug a fundamglugntal disagrglugglugmglugnt about what onglug ought to do basglugd on sociglugtal or individual norms, and onglug cannot adjudicatglug thglugsglug using somglug indglugpglugndglugnt standard of glugvaluation. Thglug lattglugr standard will always bglug sociglugtal or pglugrsonal and not univglugrsal, unlikglug, for glugxamplglug, thglug sciglugntific standards for assglugssing tglugmpglugraturglug or for dglugtglugrmining mathglugmatical truths.
In the light of the above, could I again seeK an answer to the question I asked you when you were in your alter-persona of ‘Kees’ on the ‘There is a part that is dangerous and ugly’ thread in February? Which was and still is:
“However, if you believe that a man should be able to get married to a baby, and even prenatally, then I suggest you start a campaign in your own EU country to have the relevant laws changed. See how you go.
“I would go on, but for this: I asked you a question, to which you have made no reply: ‘…But if you are talking about the right of the Taliban to go about in their customary ways throwing acid in the faces of girls who want an education, are you honestly saying that you are not allowing yourself to take a position on that?’
“So on that: yes or no? Position or no position?
“I’ll give you a hand. I take a position. Moreover, I don’t go about throwing acid in the faces of young people of either sex who want to go to school, nor of those who do not want to go to school. I believe that makes me morally superior to those who do throw acid, like the Taliban. Would you like to challenge me on that? If not, then what position on that do you take? On that.”
So out of the underwater phone box, leaving behind mild-mannered Clark Kent, I mean Kees: Is there a possibility of a hope (however slender) of a chance that we might (just might) at long last get a definitive, non-evasive reply from you on that, however relativist?
Like:
a. No, I take no position.
b. Yes, I take a position.
(Choose ONE of the above. If [b] then [optional] give a brief outline of position.
No, there is no chance that Kees/Bernie will ever answer non-evasively. If there were I would have asked him questions about his latest droppings, but he’s made it abundantly clear here and at TP that he simply will not do that under any circumstances. He’s over.
OB: Damn. I was just getting used to my new snorkel and face mask.
Well OB, that old thread at Talking Philosophy clears up the apparent contradiction between the cases of the Tanna and B&W. Bernie only objects when the oppressor is an uppity little woman who won’t damn well know her place.
His problem with your “censorship” is not that it is censorship, but that you won’t be submissive (like you naturally and rightly want to) and let him use your webspace for his own purposes.
(I figure I can read unconcious motivations at least as well as he can.)
A very good, simple explanation of why moderation does not equate to trampling on freedom of speech at another weblog I read from time to time
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/06/moderation_policy.html
“Your freedom of speech does not compel me to publish your words”
“Does this look like the way you would want things to be run on a larger scale. “
The thing is, Bernie, this is how things are usually run when we are in normal society. Any group of friends engaged in conversation will soon tire of someone constantly butting in with inanities and will ask them to quieten down or leave. It is just manners. Don’t get so hot under the collar.
I know what it is like to be ticked off for trolling when you don’t think you are, but it is much easier on the blood pressure just to put it behind you.
“Don’t any of you find Ophelia’s attitude even a little questionable?”
By what objective critera?
“Does this look like the way you would want things to be run on a larger scale.”
So now you want us to make ethical value judgments for the whole of society?
Yu gud mekem sop, nomo. And I’m not joshing. Confusing not providing a platform for idiots with state censorship is at best naive.
Not again!
Of course OB publishes this blog and has the right to delete those comments that she chooses to delete. However, some online discussion groups have explicit sets of rules about deleting comments: for example, deleting ad hominem attacks, etc. Perhaps given the variety of people who post in Butterflies and Wheels, an explicit set of rules would be helpful.
“This isn’t just a group of friends chatting, this is a public forum with public aims. “
Even assuming that’s a fair characterization of the situation, you are not supporting those aims. You are actively working against them.
“When I first came here I expected to find myself among friends”
Even if that’s true, the fact that you have worked so hard to alienate your potential friends does not give you moral (sic) license to punish them for failing to live up to your expectations.
“she has censored criticism”
A private individual refusing to publish something in a single location is not the same as state censorship.
You devalue the concept of freedom of speech by incessantly claiming otherwise.
And your appeal to shared ethics on the part of people on several different continents is so un-relativist it’s not even funny.
I still think it’s you, Bernie. I think B&W is excellent, but I have too much of a life outside it to keep reposting the same comment again and again if and/or because Ophelia deleted it. And the claim that you “win” because Ophelia deleted what you insist is fair criticism is just loony. N&C on B&W isn’t a sport that gives out gold medals and we relish good arguments and interesting thinking a lot more than we relish any kind of one-upsmanship that reeks suspiciously of being for its own sake. Constant reposting just makes you seem disconnected from reality.
Re: “photo rated highest by this member”
photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=834757
Is someone playing a teasing game when he says, I win, I win? Is it a crafty stratagem or a subterfuge of some description? The mind boggles!
‘Bernie’ – as I’ve said, I gave you more than a week to make your case. I left all your comments untouched, including the one in which you told me to fuck off, including the one in which you told Eric to shut up. You had plenty of time, and you didn’t do it. (You haven’t been doing it in the later comments, either.) In addition to that, you keep accusing me of lying, as you did on the Talking Philosophy thread more than a year ago. I think Si has it exactly right – you don’t like uppity women.
You’re over.
I looked at the database count – ‘Kees’ has 55 comments here. He’s not all that censored.
amos – I don’t have or want an explicit set of rules, because as I said, I don’t need to do much deleting or editing.
“When I first came here I expected to find myself among friends”
That is classic disingenuous bullshit. He could only have ‘expected’ such a thing because he was using a new name; if he’d used the old one any of us could have googled it and found the old TP thread and seen his style of ‘arguing’ – his increasingly-obvious misogyny, his evasiveness, his accusations of lying, his claims of mind-reading, and his peculiar obsession with B&W. ‘Among friends’ forsooth – what a joke.
“When I first came here was around the same time I first posted on TP.”
If so you used yet another fake name.
“You denied me an opportunity to defend myself.”
I denied you the opportunity to go on repeating yourself (and telling me to fuck off) forever. I gave you ample opportunity, and then I’d had enough.
But Bernie, again…why does this bother you? Why are you making moral claims at all? Why are you so offended…There is no such thing as morality.
What gives you the right to judge OB? Judgement is wrong. We are all islands, off by ourselves, and the kitten torturer is as valid as the child raper and the charity doctor.
Even if, as you argue, she is a “hypocrite,” why is hypocrisy bad? What does hypocrisy even mean, as there is no value in the original codes that OB is being hypocritical about? What does “bad” even mean, as there is no moral code?
All is vanity.
“You’ve shown you can’t be trusted to respect people’s privacy”
What privacy, you fool? You emailed people who comment here to urge them to cease and desist commenting here; some of them forwarded your absurd ravings to me; what privacy? If you didn’t want them revealing your other name to me then you shouldn’t have used your other name to email them. If you didn’t want me pointing out your comments at Talking Philosophy, then you should have been careful to keep your own secret. What privacy?! It was your choice to email people, it was your choice to use that name when doing so – you didn’t say that name was a secret, as far as I saw – what privacy?!
What a loon you are. I’m tempted to leave your nonsense by way of an Awful Warning, but I’m tired of the pollution, so I’m not going to.
You really ought to heed what Brian says though. All this bedwetting about your precious Self after all that breezy dismissal of cigarette burns on children – it’s extraordinary that you don’t realize what you look like. Hume didn’t mean the thing about the scratch on the finger to be taken literally you know – it was a point about reason, not about proportion.
Maybe I missed something, but I the last time I heard of Bernie was in the TPM blog with its link in your heading, when he argued that women are naturally submissive. Now I see that the plot is more complicated. Perhaps you could briefly explain or link to what has happened more recently with Bernie.
By the way, when I speak of explicit rules, there is no reason a blog could not ban and delete sexist, homophobic, antisemitic and racist remarks. In fact, after the last pointless argument with homophobes in the TPM argument about Christian colleges, I think that banning homophobes and other bigots is a good idea. Life is too short to argue with them.
amos, Bernie is a troll who called himself ‘Kees’ on a few recent threads and who after more than a week of bullshitting, outstayed his welcome. He did a sort of updated version of the comments he made on the old TP thread: the new comments pretended to be about moral skepticism but in fact were again about the wicked folly of feminism in general and me in particular. The two taken together reveal that he has a most unhealthy and peculiar obsession with me.
Yes. Peculiar has been my observation also. And quite time consuming, I imagine.
Indeed. And all for little me. Anyone would think I ran the world or something.
Well if I turn up hacked into little pieces, we’ll know who did it.
Comment to OB and question to Kees.
OB: Well – that had crossed my mind, but I decided I had watched too many cheap movies. “You got mail” comes to mind.
Kees: do you have a blog where your issues can be thrashed out?
I enjoy B&W, but you have too much dominance on it lately. Seems like you did the same thing on TPM.
No..did some checking up. Not “You’ve got mail” but some other silly thing where an anonymous email correspondent becomes stalker. Can’t remember details, and not really worth the effort. Sorry.
No prob, and it was just a joke really.
I’m a first time visitor to this site, and for whatever reason have spent the past couple hours reading the related threads. Certainly there is information I haven’t seen — the emails he sent to people, possibly another thread I missed — that may be relevant and change my mind, but I honestly don’t see any evidence of an obsession with Ophelia Benson. I’m not sure that he’s a troll, either.
Certainly he became rude and offensive, and started off in the TP thread with seemingly creepy comments about submissive sexual play. (He almost seemed to be bragging, or embarrassed.) But it seems that he honestly believed his viewpoints, and made a sincere effort to argue them with others, at least initially, in both instances.
I believe he had two views:
1. That submissiveness is not entirely social, as evidenced by it being widespread throughout social animals, so there may be an evolved desire for submissiveness in some cases (as evidenced in his mind partially by females often desiring — asking — to be submissive sexually, and partially by the women around him [in his upbringing perhaps] seeming to enjoy being housewives), and that therefore the modern blanket condemnation of female submission may be misguided.
2. That there are no moral truths because there is no objective basis for morality, so there is no justification for saying what anyone ought or ought not do.
The first is an interesting hypothesis. I’d never considered the idea. It’s not obviously wrong, or right, but it’s probably testable. Anyway, that’s beside the point. (The second is a dead-end philosophy, even if essentially true.)
To me it seemed that he was convinced of his correctness, and when people refused to accept it, he became rude, hostile, and jumped to the false conclusion that it’s because they were just afraid to accept the truth, and became increasingly defiant and hostile when people refused to his ideas and he was told to leave (perhaps culminating in his attempt to convince readers ‘throw off the tyrant’ as it were).
But I did not see any particular obsession with OB. He argued with everyone who disputed his view, in proportion to the degree that they argued back. It seems dubious to proclaim an obsession from two instances of a behavior in any case. Nor does the name change seem obviously devious. Perhaps Bernie Ranson is his real name and Kees is an alias. Aliases are very common on the internet, and they don’t tend to be permanent.
Finally, a comment about your censorship vs. publishing distinction. While I agree that you rightfully have control over the content served by your webside, I think the word choice hinges on who takes what action. If the action to place the content on the site is yours, after reviewing potential submissions, I too would call that “selection”. But if the action to place content on the site is the user’s (i.e. you provide a system by which anyone can publish), and your action is to explicitly remove somebody’s already-published comment, I think it’s fair to call that “censorship”. Not that all censorship is bad — I censor spammers on my own website — but I think it’s a fair term.
— Adam