Homos For Hitler

Some of you may have received a note from me recently, indicating a change to my email address. Or perhaps you tried to access my website and could not. I was planning to give up having my own domain, as I was faced with the choice of spending more money and time to bring more visitors to the site, or just letting it go. And I had made up my mind to let it go, but to be frank, this decision was sped up by the actions of the dillhole who used to host my domain, a dillhole who turns out to be a racist and Nazi sympathizer.

The eruption in our relationship happened probably a month ago, but I have taken this time to mull over my reaction to this incident, because I didn't want to just "go off". I wanted to consider all the angles. Also the dillhole and I know a number of people in common, and I wanted to possibly take their feelings into account as well. These are people I respect and admire and love on several levels, so my first words on this post go to them, so that they know that while I am angry, I feel justified in saying what I say here, and I mean them no disrespect as individuals.

That being said, here's the deal. The Fragrant Missus and I met this dipshit--let's call him The Free Speech Fag (since he doesn't mind being called a fag, it's "stupid" to which he objects, according to him) several years ago. At first, we were fast friends. The Free Speech Fag was funny and opinionated and not only was he briefly dating another friend of ours, but we knew and adored his cousin. (We still do.)

But then the alarm bells started to go off. At a party we had at our place one night, the Free Speech Fag spoke at length about how he doesn't like people of other races. He felt Lebanese people were "greasy". He could not date people of other races, and, in fact, had been kicked off of gay dating sites for having a racist profile (i.e. POCs need not apply). 

Other guests called him out on his statements. One said that, being a gay man exposed to homophobia, he could not imagine how the Free Speech Fag could possibly entertain intolerance himself. And when another guest pointed out that my wife is descended of PoCs, the Free Speech Fag shrugged and said, "I know."

Now, in hindsight, we should have shown the fucker the door right then and there. But we didn't. Oh, there was a cooling off period, but we maintained a friendship with him, thinking perhaps he was just going through a rough patch or something.

But then we started noticing other weird shit. Like, I quickly learned that I couldn't discuss feminist issues with him, because Free Speech Fag felt that he had the right to hit a woman who hit him first. He also made bizarre comments about how women financially exploit men. I think this is an odd remark to make when clearly, the patriarchy financially exploits women by consistently refusing them wage parity, but he refused to see that. And when we tried to talk about how many women are murdered at the hands of (male) domestic partners, he dismissed that argument by saying that these were a few isolated incidents, and those men were "crazy."

Oh, and when we talked to him about how statistics indicate that sexual harassment and abuse and exploitation of women by men is epidemic and systemic, his response was, "Well, men are sexually abused, too."

Yeah, he's one of those.

So not only was Free Speech Fag a racist, he was also an MRA. And after he broke up with our friend, he then bought a house with a heterosexual, polyamorous friend of his who couldn't save up enough money for a down payment on his own because of his gambling issue. And the polyamorous friend continued his polyamorous lifestyle, which Free Speech Fag referred to as "The Parade of Whores". It appeared that the relationships were informed and consensual, but Free Speech Fag, perhaps out of frustration and envy, still felt it necessary to pass judgement on both the "man-child" room-mate and his partners.

In fact, Free Speech Fag and the roomie had a security system installed. And I distinctly remember being at supper with Free Speech Fag one night during which he spent the entire meal tracking the roomie and his guest through the house via Fag's cellphone.

"He didn't lock the front door. Oh, now they're in the kitchen..."

Like *we* gave a shit. But he most certainly did. To a very creepy, inappropriate, invasive degree.

So about a year ago, Polyamorous Roomie got transferred out of province and Free Speech Fag went with him. By this time, the Fragrant Missus and I were relieved to see him go, although we maintained a sporadic contact on Facebook. And really, we shouldn't have been surprised when in the wake of the Charlottesville race clashes, he posted that he feels racists are entitled to free speech.

Well, no. No, they aren't, and in Canada, they do not have a legal right to promote hatred and violence. This fact was pointed out to him, and when he demanded to see the evidence, the poster indicated that there are plenty of online sources for the Criminal Code of Canada. Free Speech Fag got all shirty and called the poster an "asshole".

A heated debate involving Free Speech Fag, me, the Fragrant Missus and our friend, N. ensued. N., who did not appreciate either the incoherent ramblings of a Nazi sympathizer or her boyfriend being called an asshole, immediately blocked Free Speech Fag. I had already unfriended him, but followed suit with my own blocking maneuver. 

Nevertheless, he kept up an email correspondence with the Fragrant Missus, reassuring her that he doesn't support the Nazis, just their right to spew hatred as long as they don't break the law with violence. In fact, he moaned that he was actually the victim in this disagreement, and that we weren't "giving him a chance to explain himself", and that we refused to see the inherent nobility of his actions by defending hateful people's right to express hateful things (not his exact words, but certainly his sentiment).

The Fragrant Missus kept up a steady stream of anti-Nazi posts and memes on her FB, and finally, he sent her an email that said, "I would comment on your post to try and clarify my position, but I've come to the conclusion that I am not mature enough or strong enough to post something and then have someone call me stupid and not be able to defend myself without losing a friend [i.e. my wife]. We can arrest the people uttering threats, but we still have to let the White Supremacists march and protest. As long as they don't utter death threats of use symbols of historical death threats. The Church uses symbols of death threats and overt hate speech every Sunday."

So at this point, I lost my temper. I still had access to him via email, and so I sent him this response:

"Fuck you, it's not the same thing, you douchebag, and what you're arguing here is called false equivalence. A bunch of hateful and violent white assholes calling for the active slaughter of OTHER PEOPLE for no other reason than that those people are a different colour or religion is NOT the same thing as a crucifix, just because it has a dead Jewish carpenter on it. And if that's the best you can do as far as arguments go, then you have lost all credibility and clearly do not have a firm grasp of the issues.

"But that's pretty obvious, isn't it? You try to come off as some wildly liberal peacenik for allowing Nazi's (Nazis, FFS) their right to march and shout homophobic/racist slogans, even though you yourself said that you have lived through people saying 'Die, faggot' to you. For the love of Christ, grow the fuck up. It's one thing if YOU are willing to endure that level of hostility, but I can't for the life of me imagine why you would permit that to happen to anyone else you cared about in a similar situation. Your thoughts about free speech were quite prevalent in 1934, and yanno what? By then, it was already too late. History has taught us that allowing these assholes a voice invariably and inevitably gives them the power to succeed. IF YOU ARE NOT A RACIST YOURSELF, OR HARBOUR RACIST SENTIMENTS, YOU MUST STAND UP AGAINST HATE SPEECH.

"This is my last word to you on this subject. I am no longer willing to engage in a discussion about this with you or anyone who shares your views. In closing, I will only say this; it has been said to you before, but I am going to make it very clear to you this last time:

"The ONE thing we can agree on surrounding this issue is that certain words and actions have consequences attached to them. You clearly don't think this applies to you, because when you are hurtful and appallingly douchey, you cop out by saying, 'I just tell it like it is.' This makes you a huge asshole and unwilling to take responsibility for your words and actions. But the fact of the matter is that consequences happen whether you accept them or not. People stop talking to you, they drop out of your life. They can no longer deal with your behaviours or your cruelty or your straight up self-indulgent fucking bullshit.

"And that's what is happening right now. You and I are done, N. is done with you...and this is a direct consequence of you being a Nazi sympathizer and refusing to acknowledge it and then camoflaging it with some bullshit argument about free speech.  Oh, I know you think it's because we refuse to hear you out, or we 'just don't get it'.

"But your behaviours and statements in the past absolutely point to someone who wants to be able to say what he wants whenever he wants, no matter how hurtful or appalling, and not hear the feedback when people tell him what a fucking shit brick he is.

"So fuck off."

Now, that *should* have been the last of it. Everything that could have possibly been said on the issue had been said. Or so I thought. But the one tiny piece of power that Free Speech Fag had left to exercise was that my domain was hosted on his server. So shortly after that email was sent, he informed my wife that he had blocked me from FB and email and that he was going to delete my domain within the week if we didn't find another server. She said she would look into it, but as indicated at the top of this post, I was inclined to give it up anyway.

But then, a few days after that, he sent the Fragrant Missus a little gem saying that she and her abusive wife (i.e. me) have "broken his heart". He used to believe that she deserved so much better than me in a relationship, because I am "so toxic" (yay, new theme song! Boo, Britney Spears!), but now he recognizes that it's her choice and she deserves what she gets. Oh, yeah, and he has deleted my domain from his server. So there. (Actually, what he said was, "I have released that domain into the wild", which is laughably dramatic, but what do you expect?)

So, it's not really my intention to explain or defend my marriage here, but let's examine some facts. First, if in fact I was toxic and abusive, my wife is absolutely free to leave such an untenable circumstance. She certainly makes more money than I do, so she is not financially dependent on me, and she has a proven track record of leaving douchebag losers like her Tapeworm ex. And with my tiny head and big belly and my non-compliant digestive system, I can assure you, I am no siren. Seriously. Yet next July, we celebrate twelve years of marriage, and almost twenty years of being together. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if The Fragrant Missus was unhappy, she'd have said something by now.

And I don't think we can really be expected to take criticism about our relationship from a chronically single, shallow shitbag who hasn't had a long term relationship in all the years we've known him, and who uses Grinder to hook up with married men for furtive, intermittent couplings and complains constantly that just once he'd "like someone else in the room while he has sex".

But that is all beside the point really. The point is that the Free Speech Fag justifies his own racism and hatred by defending the right of Nazis to march and protest the existence of anyone who isn't straight, white and Christian. The point is that there are limits to what you can get away with, and we reached our limit with him.

And ultimately, this sad, petty little racist had one tiny bit of power to exercise over me, and he did it. It had nothing to do with politics, or differences of opinion. It has to do with power. His intention was to injure. Deleting the website and the email were actually a favour that will save me money, and their loss a very minor inconvenience. The real injury is looking into his mind and seeing so much hate.

Toxic, bitches!

A Hazy Shade of Douchebag

A lot has happened since I posted last, most of it unpleasant, but some of it positive enough to keep me from climbing to the top of a bell tower with a high-powered rifle. Still, there are moments...

To begin with, the day after I had a long and very supportive, positive talk with The New Guy, he called the department into the conference room to announce that he had to resign for private and personal reasons. It was a terrible blow to us (except Bananarama), and as he broke the news, one could easily see that the decision had gutted him. My strong suspicion is that his wife either decided she couldn't or wouldn't move to the municipality of Buttfuck from the city where he had worked prior to coming to us. I am speculating here, but it is possible that one of his kids has special needs or something and maybe they were having trouble finding a school or a specific program...I don't know. All I know is, everyone in that room (except Bananarama) felt a great loss at this announcement.

One of the last things The New Guy did before he left was write a report to the City Solicitor with a list of recommendations for changes to our department.  And specifically one of the concerns he raised was the culture of bullying that the clerks have to endure from specific individuals.

And thank Christ on a Cheeto that he did, because Bananarama has been on an unholy tear. And she's either not that bright or she feels empowered (or both), because she's been bullying me publicly for the whole department to see. At our large departmental meeting prior to his leaving, The New Guy and everyone else watched as Bananarama brought up the isolated incident of the incorrect acknowledgement letter that I mentioned in my last post. She wanted to discuss it as a series of ongoing, chronic issues, when--as stated--it was a one off. And I did not shrink away from reminding her that this was a direct result of her jumping the queue and insisting that her work be done on a priority basis. Bananarama did not like being confronted with inconvenient facts. She clearly resents it, and that, children, is tough shit for her.

The result of this exchange during the meeting is that The New Guy suggested implementing a new policy by which claims that need to be opened on an emergent basis be strictly defined and adhered to, so as to avoid "those that shout the loudest" getting preferential treatment.

But, of course, being the childish slitch that she is, Bananarama has punished me ever since. One day last week, I was in the photocopy room doing, you know, MY WORK, and while the adjuster M. was discussing a particularly stupid claimant with me, Bananarama breezed into the room and immediately swiped her security card on the machine, thus interrupting my print job.

M. couldn't quite believe her eyes. She looked at me, saw that I was unimpressed (and stunned) and then she said, "Bananarama, The Best Fucking Clerk in the World is in the middle of a job here."

(Okay, she might not have referred to me in those terms, but work with me here.)

"Oh," Bananarama said, unconvincingly. "Sorry."

Then, just this past Wednesday, it happened again, only this time, M. wasn't in the room. I was printing, Bananarama came in and swiped her card on the machine.

"Excuse me," I said. "I'm in the middle of something here."

"Yeah," she said, "I see that."

I fantasized briefly about taking her teeth out with a bus bench, but there wasn't one handy, so I collected my work and went immediately to my supervisor's office. She was conveniently talking to Bananarama's boss also. I briefly described the interaction, mentioned that it was the second time, and thanked them for listening to me. Bananarama's boss was in her office before the hour had expired, and according to one of the other clerks, he gave Bananarama an earful. And she attempted to deny the whole thing ever happened.

But he knows her, and he knows me, and I believe my character and my work speak for themselves. Anyway, the upshot is that now, Bananarama is not speaking to me (at all), there is even more tension in the office, and we have lost The New Guy. 

I'm not sure how this is going to pan out.

I could really use some time off.