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.
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