Update I didn’t even see that there’s also a post on AVoiceforMen. I can’t keep up. I have so many fans haters now I cannot keep up.
He also says I’m a fassist Stalinist thug. He says a lot of things. He pronounces “fascist” as “fassist.” I’m a fassist Stalinist hate-mongering bigoted book-burning censoring thug.
The book burners of the world and the censors of the world, the crypto-fassists and the outright fassists of the world, they just never go away, do they.
Wussup? we wonder as we listen. Wussup is that “Wooly” Bumblebee did a video and then got banned from YouTube.
What was so outrageous? She was critical of a public figure. That’s right, a public figure. A public figure who regularly makes outrageously bigoted and hateful statements, in a very high-profile forum called Free Thought Blogs. Now the last I checked, criticizing public figures is protected speech in the United States and most other countries. And in my book, only a hate-mongering, book-burning, Stalinist thug would false-flag a video just because they didn’t like that someone was critical of them or someone they liked. Fortunately, there is a solution when crypto-Nazis try to censor points of view they don’t like, and when they make up phony stories about how they feel “threatened.” You know, like how German Nazis pretended they were “threatened” by the Jews? Yeah, right, fuck you, bigots, that’s not what’s goin on here. Your false threat narratives are a bigoted lie, and your efforts at censorship show everybody what kind of fassists you really are.
Then there’s the “Wooly” Bumblebee part, and it turns out that all those people are me. WB did a video and I “false-flagged” it so WB got thrown in prison her YouTube account shut down. Only I didn’t flag it. As I mentioned earlier today, it was taken down before I knew about it, let alone saw it. I haven’t seen it. I don’t plan to see it. I’m told it’s disgusting even by her standards, which are low enough to begin with. Judging by the tweets I got this morning, I believe it. So anyway – WB made a nasty video about me, I never saw it or did anything about it, and Dean Esmay says I’m a hate-mongering, book-burning, Stalinist thug because YouTube watched it and then booted her out. That makes a lot of sense.
Only it doesn’t. It doesn’t because I didn’t see the video and didn’t flag the video or do anything else about it. It doesn’t also because flagging doesn’t do the job anyway. Flagging is just flagging. YouTube watches, and then YouTube makes the call. Not the flagger. YouTube.
Flagged videos are not automatically taken down by the flagging system. If it doesn’t violate the YouTube Community Guidelines, no amount of flagging will change that and your video will stay on the site. If you encourage others to attempt to flag a video off the site, your account may receive a penalty for harassment.
So any way you look at it, Dean Esmay is telling big ol lies about me, and so is “Wooly.”
But it’s quite all right because I’m a Public Figure (I am?) and also Nazi Stalinist fassist plus in addition Freeze Peach.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says
I wonder if Dean’s proud of his complete and total failure.
PZ Myers says
Wait, what? He calls me out too?
Umm, I haven’t seen the video either, let alone flagged it any way. I don’t watch anything by the Woolly Bumblebee. Am I even mentioned in this one (oh, right, you wouldn’t know either)?
And please, we know full well that people who call themselves skeptics and rationalists are not necessarily decent human beings. Those stalkerish assholes have certainly made that message loud and clear!
Improbable Joe says
Honesty and critical thinking? Not their strong suits. Harassment, lying, and blind rage? Right in their wheelhouse.
hjhornbeck says
Huh, I was wondering what that was about. I’ve flagged one of WB’s videos in the past, as I thought it went well over the line into hate speech, but this latest one is news to me. Oh well, couldn’t have happened to a
more derangednicer gal.This whole “public figure” thing is bizarre, too. The amount of abuse you must put up with is proportional to how visible you are? Does that mean it’s OK for me to send death threats to the Queen? Insult her sexuality? Photoshop her onto pictures of fat people?
I don’t think so.
jenniferphillips says
Dean Esmay…now where have I heard that name before?
Oh yeah:
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2007/05/08/beware-the-bashers-of-peer-rev/
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/05/16/cranks-against-peer-review-1/
I literally LOL’d. What an ally for the s’pitters.
Ophelia Benson says
Oh, der, I forgot the link again.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says
@ jenniferphillips – well, that answers my question. Fail is all that guy can do.
jenniferphillips says
Voltaire’s god must really love us 🙂
A. Noyd says
Nice switch between feeling threatened and being threatened. ‘m happy to grant that most Nazis probably felt threatened by the Jews. Except, in the Nazis’ case, they were the perpetrators of a hate campaign, which is why, given how Ophelia is demonstrably the target of a hate campaign, it fails as a comparison.
Brian E says
Last time I checked, free speech against the US government is protected. It has no bearing on private speech. Of course I’m not a lawyer. In Australia, it’s only implied, not enshrined in law, and of course, private speech is subject to libel and slander and threats can very well be illegal.
Ophelia Benson says
A Noyd – noooooooooooo – it’s the other way around. I have targeted “Wooly” Bumblebee in a hate campaign of…totally ignoring her except once in awhile when she makes a peculiarly vicious video about me.
Tim Harris says
Perhaps because I act and teach singers, I tend to judge – doubtless often wrongly – people by their voices, and the nasty, repellent, nasal whine of Dean Esmay’s voice made me very anxious never to hear his voice again. Bombus lanatus vitiosus had a rather more attractive voice, but I think that people who are so anxious to accuse others of whining should not whine themselves, but our busy little bee obviously doesn’t think about that sort of thing.
Ed Brayton says
I tangled with Esmay many years ago. He would need a promotion to get to be an idiot.
ibbica says
You know, these ‘free speech!’ arguments have been sounding weirdly familiar to me. I finally figured out why, although it’s probably going to sound a little weird to others: I used to try to help craigslist users understand why their ad was flagged off the site (by the consensus of other users). Every other person purportedly ‘innocently asking’ why their ad was flagged seemed to be there just to argue how they were right! and everyone else was wrong!, typically resorting to these exact same FREEZE PEACH! arguments… with the added bonus that every other one of that group would try to threaten to sue a privately-run website for impinging on their FREEZE PEACH!. It didn’t change, it became tiresome and absurd, so I gave up and stopped helping there. Ah, memories…
.
It never ceases to amaze to me how many people still don’t have any real idea what they do and do not have a ‘right’ to. How many individuals don’t seem to have a basic understanding that they’re not the only person in the world, that they’re not the only person who has rights to be respected, that they don’t get to be the sole arbiter of whose ‘rights’ get priority in any given situation, and that they have no ‘right’ at all to run roughshod over anyone who dares request that they grant some iota of respect to the rights of others. How many people will just argue their demonstrably false claims even harder when their error is explained, no matter how gentle, polite, and patient that explanation.
.
I am saddened (I was going to say ‘shocked’, but that’s not sadly no longer true) that people resort to using such ridiculous, deceitful, arrogant, and ultimately irrelevant ‘arguments’ in the name of defending vile behaviour and repugnant attitudes. The same tiresome-ness and absurdity as always… now new and improved with added ‘disgusting’! Hooray!
AJ Milne says
(Shakes fist…)
Fassists!
Okay. Full disclosure: I was one of those kids who read occasionally far ahead enough of the vocabulary he’d heard that he occasionally came out with (and occasionally still does come out with) some pretty loopy pronunciation…
Still, it’s almost too good not to make a meme.
(Shakes fist again…)
Fassists!
Cyranothe2nd says
Wow. What an unhinged tool bag.
Also, the marriage of AVfM and the Slympit will never cease to be hilariously apropos.
PZ Myers says
So I watched the ‘banned’ video. It was stupid.
To summarize: WoollyBumblebee “bitches and complains” about Ophelia because Ophelia “bitches and complains” on the internet. Projection, anyone? And also, Ophelia is ugly.
That’s really all there is. I wouldn’t have asked that it be taken down, because it really is typical inanity from that crowd that does their reputation more harm than it does Ophelia’s.
Then there’s Esmay’s video. Nazis and Stalinists, oh, my. What is it with the lack of creativity on our opponent’s part that has them constantly accusing others of being Nazis?
melissajones says
Well well well, just how little are your minions, Ophelia? Really tiny? <– Mocking! That's right, mocking!
Jafafa Hots says
This explains a lot about a couple of my former bosses.
Brian E says
P.Z. has minions, Ophelia has minions. I think this is all about minion envy.
Brian E says
Although I personally think of myself as an underling.
Brian E says
This puzzles me. As an underling many things puzzle me, but…
I’m not very well edumacated in political philosphy, but weren’t fascists and nazis on the right of the politcal spectrum? A bit to the left of the tea-party and libertarians, but still on the right. And communists well onto the left, but so far left that they wrapped around to the right to be the same as fascists and nazis? I don’t think so. So, you’re a bundle of contradictions Ophelia, a hard right, far left oddity. Does that make you centrist?
SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius says
Don’t worry, folks! I’m sure Lee Moore is on the job, shuttling back and forth between AVfM, YouTube, and FTB, practicing his unique and indispensable brand of diplomacy. He’s probably already emailed Wooly Bumblebee to urge her to “cease fire,” right, Lee? …Lee? Anyone? Beuller?
SallyStrange: Elite Femi-Fascist Genius says
Brian E, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jonah Goldberg, but he’s the author of Liberal Fascism, a book which sort of condenses a meme that has been circulating in the right wing for a number of years, which is that leftists are liberals AND fascists AND communists AND Nazis, all at the same time, nevermind that the actual definition of these things are mutually exclusive in a number of ways. I guess they feel embarrassed about being associated with fascism, so they just pretend like it’s something that associated with left wing politics instead of actually changing their policies.
Bjarte Foshaug says
Pathological.
F [nucular nyandrothol] says
Skeptics: Ascribing agency to non-involved, non-present,or non-existent entities. Is this a correct definition? Because I find these sorts of claims to be rather irrationally paranoid and fantastic for what I had previously taken to be ‘skeptics’.
Also, confused about DMCA and community/corporate standards violations takedowns, which is nothing new really.
Aratina Cage says
*raises hand* *sings “me me me me me”*
I have been designated one of Ophelia’s minions on Twitter–a badge I wear proudly. 🙂 I think I earned it by *gasp* conversing with Ophelia about something or someone, probably in a humorous way. Very bad of me, I know.
This “make it up and throw it at them” shtick is getting very tiresome. It seems to be happening more and more frequently these days.
Dunc says
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Godwin’s Law, but somebody really should remind these assholes about its existence…
Bernard Bumner says
A need to seek attention coupled to an utter lack of perspective.
(Precisely who was levelling that accusation at who?)
I am impressed by Ophelia’s ability to simultaneously reconcile the values of Stalinism, liberal crypto- or outright fascism and crypto-Nazism whilst leading the Creationist Stasi conspiracy.
Apparently your personal politics are very, very confused.
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort says
I figured out the “liberal Nazi” thing a while ago.
See, Nazis are bad. So are liberals. Therefore, let’s call liberals bad and make them doubly bad! It doesn’t matter the definition, it just matters the stigma. Then when you argue how the Nazi-like faction are really the conservatives, you get into a war about definitions, rather than about policies.
Bernard Bumner says
Oh yes, no doubt that this is simply the tactic of demonisation/dehumanisation.
oolon says
I think I’ve been designated Aratina’s minion since I helped #BlockSaturday along a little.. So even Ophelias minions have minions… Its minions all the way down! No wonder they are jealous 😉
'dirigible says
“outrageously bigoted and hateful statements”
I know mathematics can be reduced to content-free textual substitution but I’m not sure ethics can.
throwaway, Preferred singular pronouns: they, them, their, it says
I think perhaps your moderation of my last comment was in err, Ophelia. I was merely meaning to state if you are a public figure then you’re off-limits as such (which Novella was saying about Shermer). Totally didn’t mean to trip any alarms.
I find it almost neatly and prospectively ironic that they use the phrase “false flag”. Dollars to donuts WB burned the Reichstagg herself to cause a stink, in the same way she posted a straw-feminist blog in order to take it down later.
sheila says
Can I send Dean Esmay the bill for repairing my irony meter?
Don Quijote says
Wassa fassist presshuss?
AnonymousAreLegion says
While you may not be a “fascist”, you certainly fit the Stazi mentality of censorship and silencing.
You are a liar, hypocrite, bully and talentless piece of shit. That’s why the every-increasing pwning of you will continue. You got your ass handed to you in recent YT videos (since mirrored, so you can forget your censorship and false flagging tactics – you will be defeated), and PZ got utterly humiliated by NoelPlum and Concordance. Bring it on. We have only just begun with you people. There’s going to be more videos, more blogs, more pushback, and more pressure on getting you the fuck away from our community.
We destroyed A~+, we will destroy you and FreeThoughtBlogs. We will exclude you from our growing community, and we will make sure your reputation is beneath shit.
We are anonymous. We are legion.
Josh, Official SpokesGay says
Does it matter to you folks at all to tell the truth? Honest question—what is the motivation to blatantly lie about a blogger “false flagging” videos? I honestly don’t understand this.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says
That’s right, delusional diddums, A+ disappeared, except that it didn’t. And you’re a frothing at the mouth bigot. We already knew that, so please take your hilariously incompetent chest pounding back to the stupid people who fall for it.
You’re irrelevant.You know it. We know it. That’s why you attack with lies and bigotry. kisses!
embertine says
Anonymous hates FTB? Or slymepit troll pretending to represent Anonymous hates FTB? Perhaps your energies, popsicle, would be better spent getting some evidence of who flagged the video before you start frothing at the mouth. Of course, when you’re anonymous (lower case), unlike Ophelia who has to deal with this shit for real, there are no consequences for being a spiteful, lazy waste of good cytoplasm.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says
Oh, Mr. Moore, paging Mr. Why Can’t We All Just Get Along? here’s your exhibit A: derranged bigotry wrapped up in delusional lies.
A Hermit says
Not only can’t he pronounce Fascist” Esmay also abuses the term “false flag” which historically refers to an operation deigned to deceive impartial observers in order to justify an attack ; eg the “Gleiwitz” incident, in which the Nazis (who really were “fassists”) faked a Polish attack on a German outpost to give themselves a cassus belli. (Just to be clear I only use that one because the Godwin line has already been crossed., so it seemed appropriate…I am not calling Esmay a Nazi.)
Actually, falsely accusing someone of “censorship” looks more like a “false flag” operation than objecting to whiny video does…
embertine says
Good point, Illuminata, and again very noticeable that the threats of destruction are ONLY COMING FROM ONE SIDE. Did you get the point yet, Lee?
Also, “frothing at the mouth”; I hadn’t seen your post when I wrote mine – Jinx Personal! *extends little finger*
Bjarte Foshaug says
Here’s something I made just a few hours ago that I think illustrates the mentality of cowardly lying little brats like AnonymousAreLegion rather well:
http://twitpic.com/c31q4e
Ophelia Benson says
37 is from a sock who frequently offers cogent analysis of that kind, which I simply throw in the trash. I decided to let that one through as a special Darwin Day treat. It’s such a tidy illustration of the mindset.
Natasha says
You are anonymous you are irrelevant. You also lie a lot. You haven’t destroyed anything you self important pompous little twit.
WB got her ass banned because someone in the You Tube executive didn’t like her. Their forum, their rules. You a tube can legally e as arbitrary as they wan’t to be, the first amendment doesn’t apply to private business at all.
Really these people are just boring, they never have anything original to say. The Skype pit, the MRA’s and their ilk just blather on endlessly about their bruised egos and sense of entitlement. Boring, boring, boring.
Illuminata, Genie in the Beer Bottle says
LOL embertine JINX! *extends other little finger*
The best I can say about that particular douchecanoe is at least his threats aren’t of a violent nature. Yet.
A Hermit says
I’m not surprised to see Esmay’s history of science denialism re; AIDS and climate change. The common thread with those things and the MRA’s is the hyperskeptical attitude that rejects anything not “proven” to some impossibly high standard and/or rapidly moving goalposts. It’s an attitude that borders on solipsism.
Interestingly, I’ve seen this argument from Christians; that we can never know anything for certain, so all we are left with is faith. In the same way Esmay and his ilk create their own reality, complete with their own set of “evidence” (which is never subjected to the same “skepticism” they apply to evidence they don’t like).
Aratina Cage says
Very kind of you. It certainly made me guffaw. And Happy Darwin Day!
TerranRich, Yet Another Atheist says
What’s that thing people like Wooly et al don’t like? Oh, that’s right, being publicly accused of something. Ohh, the irony…
Ophelia Benson says
Yes, Esmay has changed his story now that I’ve inconveniently said the video was removed before I even knew it existed – now it’s my “responsibility” to tell my friends not to.
jose says
That comment was funny. Beware! They’re going to make youtube videos! They are legion! Actually, I think that looks more like a coterie or a troupe. The “bitch on the internet” troupe. Beware, beware.
Meanwhile…
Do you think delusions of grandeur are important for skeptics?
Deepak Shetty says
If it doesn’t violate the YouTube Community Guidelines, no amount of flagging will change that and your video will stay on the site.
Only proves that your minions have admin access in YouTube!
Ophelia Benson says
No, they ARE YouTube! No, no, I OWN YouTube! No, no, I OWN YouTube and Google! I own and run everything!!!
leni says
Oh for fuck’s sake lol.
There are days when I really wish I wasn’t so lazy and more interested in doing other things because I would knit a fucking freeze peach cape and record myself doing a dramatic reading of this post in that cape, in a Guy Fawkes mask with artful blue Braveheart paint on it. In my mother’s basement. With a scented candle. And I’d do some version of that for every video you idiots made.
If only I knew how to knit :/
Ophelia Benson says
Gee a knitted fucking freeze peach cape would be so swell!
Especially around here, where we have Peach-O-Rama every summer when the Frog Hollow Farm peaches are ripe.
leni says
Seriously, someone who knits should sell them at the WIS conference. And give one to Vacula for free XD
Dammit I almost wish I could knit ><
Jadehawk says
lol. now I have to wonder: which is more fassist, Ophelia or the peer review process?
arbor says
I don’t think Anonymous likes idiots who pretend to be Anonymous.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
[reaches for the popcorn]
Rumtopf says
Well, Dean Esmay’s claims were demonstrated to be wrong in that youtube thread and he’s still doubling down, ignoring facts, continuing to spread misinformation, all the usual behaviour from this lot.
-Dean Esmay
Talk about thuggish.
Ophelia Benson says
No he’s a valiant anti-fassist warrior!
Ophelia Benson says
I see he’s still at it.
“Obfuscate” nothing. He said I flagged the vid, and I didn’t. He just makes shit up, and won’t even admit it when called on it.
Josh, Official SpokesGay says
I’ll bet he pronounces it “assESSories,” too.
A Hermit says
And I’m now blocked from commenting on Esmay’s Youtube channel. I’M A VICTIM OF CRYPTO-FASSSSSIST CENSORSHIP I TELL YOU!!11!!!
What a clown…LMAO…
Rumtopf says
Forensic evidence!!!11
It will take a CSI-style forensics team to painstakingly test Dean Esmay’s claims that Ophelia flagged the video and urged others to do the same, and that Youtube has the ultimate say in the matter of removing content, not the amount of flags. This will be significantly time consuming and costly, and I won’t have my tax monies paying for such ludicrous, irrelevant demands from fassist thugs! CENSORZ /sarcs
A Hermit,
Ahahaha wow. That’s effin’ hilarious xD.