And Vacula is still working overtime displaying his bullying skillz to an admiring world.
Karla Porter
@karla_porterPeople don’t take yourselves so seriously. We are all blips on the cosmic clock. Enjoy or short life, don’t be miserable =)
Justin Vacula
@justinvaculaOphie asks “who the fuck is
@karla_porter anyway?” Interesting she forgot about this FB conversation from July 2012 – http://www.justinvacula.com/2012/08/ophelia-bensons-continuing-complaining.html …Justin Vacula
@justinvacula
@ElevatorGATE What nonsense. Ophie also complained much about July 2012 podcast w@karla_porter http://nepafreethought.org/podcast/episode?p=15 … –#bravehero
Ophelia Benson
@OpheliaBenson
@daiapmorgen@justinvacula@karla_porter Notice that I don’t talk about “Justy” and “Karlie”? No sense of humor, I suppose.Justin Vacula
@justinvacula
@OpheliaBenson@daiapmorgen@karla_porter If Ophie really bothers, I’ll consider stopping. Karla just used it to not use real name in satire
Justin Vacula
@justinvacula
@OpheliaBenson@TonySidaway You know that broadcasting what you dont like to be called may inspire people to call you it? It shows weakeness
A tidy collection.
Those ones about “who is Karla Porter” – I didn’t mean I thought I’d never seen the name before, I meant who the fuck is she, what does any of this have to do with her, why is she helping Vacula harass me, why is she caling me “Ophie” in that matey-contemptuous way, who is she.
But since she is harassing me alongside Vacula, I’ll point out what a thug she is. It’s my impression that she has some kind of responsible adult job – yet she spends time jeering at a total stranger on social media and in podcasts, and even contemptuously calls her by a diminutive, just to belittle. How very odd.
Anyway, Vacula’s last item is a real gem. Spoken like a true bully.
Update 6 hours later – because it’s too funny.
Actually, it shows that the useless toads who take you up on it haven’t the brains to do anything but parrot.
“Shows weakness”.
I can’t fucking believe how hard these shits keep trying to broadcast their manly man credentials.
I know, right? I thanked him for that one, and meant it – it is such a classic of open shameless bullying. “If you broadcast your dislike of my bullying, it shows weakness.”
Vacula will “consider” stopping using “Ophie.” How very gracious of him.
And his latest is, if possible, even better.
The dear kind sweet thoughtful helpful man. He’s just giving me unsolicited unwanted advice, from his great height of 24 years and a badly deficient theory of mind, and his advice is to quit being a coward and to say nothing about the things he does to me which “happen” to bother me.
You couldn’t make it up.
Being vocal about your preferences is a sign of weakness AND inspires others to do that thing?
WTF?
If someone tells you that they don’t like to be called something and it inspires you to do it anyway, you are an asshole. That’s on you, not them. Repeatedly doing something just for the purpose of disrespecting / upsetting them is bullying. Calling a person weak for speaking up about that bullying is just delusional. These are pathetic silencing techniques.
I’ve heard a violent abuser say of the woman he liked to beat up, “She manipulated me into hurting her.” I’ve heard that bullshit a few times, actually. I see shades of that mentality at work here. Nothing the recipient of the abuse does is right and nothing the abuser does can be wrong. If it can be shown that the abuser did something wrong, the abused made them do it.
Vacula’s “advice” strikes me as almost saying: “shut up, lie down, and take it!”
I do not think that is what he means to say. But it certainly comes across that way. It isn’t a flattering impression, at any rate.
They aren’t making it up either. They’re just cribbing from their memories of junior high gym class.
Nonetheless, there’s another donation for you, courtesy of Vacula.
(They really shouldn’t let on how much it bothers them that you get donations every time they open their stupid mouths, at the expense of those deserving, quality bloggers. It’s a real weakness that they’d do well not to broadcast.)
Remind me again…what organization does he represent?
Have to avoid any and all association with that group, that’s for sure.
He has the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old. Anyone who would put up with this nonsense on a professional or organizational level cannot be operating smoothly.
God, I hate when the ‘pitters call me a virgin. Oh, no! Please don’t spend all of your time photoshopping posters of me!
(Dance, puppet monkeys, dance!)
Vacula’s “advice” translated: “Shut up and take it.”
He just thinks you should suffer in silence and that you were asking for it in the first place by saying you didn’t want it.
But he’s not a misogynist.
Seriously, the deeper into his mentality he lets us see, the slimier it gets.
Vacula is 24?
Does it make me ageist if that makes me dismiss him more easily as just another young dumbass?
Not that what he’s doing doesn’t have an effect on people, but it reminds me of how massively clueless I was at that age compared to just a few years later.
(Not THAT clueless, but…)
@ 6, no I think that’s exactly what he does mean to say. As does Alex Gabriel, who is doing a great job of making the point in replies on Twitter.
Does Justin teach Victim Blaming / Rape Apologetics classes? Because he could.
If saying “Don’t do that” = inspiring that thing to be done.
“No” = “Yes”
..and if you fight back or tell anyone about it you’re just making things worse for yourself.
Sweet chocolaty Jesus, I wish he was a Poe.
I don’t have enough money to cover the enormity of assholery that is Vacula. Regardless, I can cover a weekend’s worth his mean-spirited, vacuousness.
Vacula, more scratch has been added to the “You Hate, Ophelia Profits!” fund in your name, this time for the fine assclownish behavior you have demonstrated over the past several days. I know she appreciates it.
It is also “two for flinching” isn’t it? “I’m going to hit you, and if you don’t take it in silence is retroactively justifies my hitting you, and also excuses all the future times I hit you, until you finally cave in and learn to suffer in silence. And then I’m probably going to hit you occasionally anyway, because I can.”
I just donated again, but forgot to fill in the memo line — it’s in honor of Justin Vacula.
I wonder what the hell kind of environment he grew up in. That kind of attitude — if you show any weakness* of any kind in public, you not only can expect to have it pounced on, but you deserve to have it pounced on — is just repugnant.
*where “weakness” = not lying down and taking any abuse that comes your way, thereby setting up the wonderful lose-lose situation we’ve been witnessing for years now.
Vacula’s “advice” strikes me as almost saying: “shut up, lie down, and take it!”
“Almost?”
Maybe it’s because I’m not a bully, but my usual response to someone saying, “I don’t like to be called X,” is, “Okay, what DO you prefer to be called?” Not, “Oh boy, you really messed up – because now I know what bothers you and I’m going to go out of my way to do the thing you asked me not to do.”
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that it’s because I’m not a bully.
Yes it damn well is – and he’s doubling down on it, and doubling down on the doubling down. Joe and Josh and Alex and others are explaining to him what is wrong with his “advice” and he will not take it in. It’s alarming that an adult can be that clueless.
Opheila, you have to interview Vacula before criticizing him, otherwise you might end up misrepresenting what he really meant. Don’t want to make Michael Heath cranky again, do you?
…he’s doubling down on it, and doubling down on the doubling down.
Is that an example of “exponential wrongness?”
No, that’s lazy blogging. Just summarise what he really meant!
“Vacula says, ‘Lie down and take it'”, right Mayhew?
Not that anyone should need it at this point, but it kind of puts the lie (again) to the claim that “we’re just expressing disagreement!”
If you’re just providing principled criticism of someone’s ideas, then you don’t need to scrutinize their statements about what bothers them for the purpose of deliberately finding ways to hurt them.
Once again Vacula demonstrates that his idea of improving the public perception of atheists is to confirm every negative stereotype about atheists as these social-Darwinist psychopaths who live by the philosophy that only those who can be expected to positively thrive in a perfectly unjust and amoral world have any business existing in the first place (““If you can’t stand the heat etc.”). And I used to think people like that were only a strawman made up by religious apologists…
*sigh*
If a person calls me something because they know I don’t like it, then someone has indeed displayed a great and profound weakness, but it isn’t me.
This is one time when Storify would be useful, because there were a lot of replies to Vacula and they were all gold. And his replies to them were all tin, or mud.
Well, shoot, I forgot to log in for that last comment.
*peers about*
Doggam, now I’m out a double-whammy-cook burger. Let me tell you, those three Kourageous And Really Lazy Assholes are beginning to whittle into my mortal age mortgage.
Presumably this means that Vacula & Co. will stop going on about terms like “misogynist” and “rape apologist” and “chill girl”, since they wouldn’t want to show weakness, right?
Heck, the whole atheist community should probably stop this simpering, milquetoast campaign against being called “immoral” by theists.
Showing weakness isn’t usually a problem, unless there are predators around.
In slightly less snarky terms, I can’t help but notice the juvenile attitude of “if you don’t like it, I’m just gonna do it more” that’s basically made explicit here (along with the bullying, victim-blaming “you bring it on yourself by being so weak” attitude). Somewhere along the way to becoming a decent adult human being, it seems like most of us discard that attitude of being intentionally obnoxious, but I guess that’s what drives the shit-stirrer brigade.
I just gave another small donation as well. I wonder if we should come up with a short sentence or marker for all these harassment inspired donations that everybody can use. Just so they can be added up one day and we can see the long term financial impact of all these attacks.
Or just Vacuous?
As a self-styled “poster boy” for the good skeptical / atheist people, his impact must be devastating.
Seriously, OB, I wonder if he is not steeping up for some kind of breakdown, and it might become violent. He seems unable to cope with his self-esteem issues internally and may well turn his anger outwards.
Caution is advised there. This time, not joking.
Qualia Soup’s well-documented new video (February 28) on Workplace Bullying has Justicar/integralmath putting out two responses (34:56 and 13:56). Now…why would such a video prompt such an extended response over the course of the next two days?
I wonder if Justin would see anything…relative?
I was going to point to that video as well. Although it’s sad to see that the comments are being dominated by the bullies who deny they have any kind of problem whatsoever.
I like QualiaSoup’s advice. You can’t mediate with such characters. Separation is often the only solution.
Modest contribution to the “You hate – Ophelia profits” fund: dispatched.
Thanks, Justin. I shall remember that the next time someone complains of being called a sexist or misogynist. Who knew that they were so weak?
From Mike the Mad Biologist:, who often writes (and reads and links) about social justice issues:
from his post
On the Folly of Campus ‘Justice’
I’m sorry I embedded the video. I forgot how not to. 🙁
Justin’s Tweet –
In the high volume of hate-filled garbage vomited forth by all the haters, exactly how is anyone to remember one hurl?
Justin might think his words are polished to epicness but any one entry is just another piece on the hate assembly-line
Ophelia, Raging Bee:
I defer to your longer & more extensive experience corresponding with Vacula and/or reviewing his print and video material. What I have seen is disturbing enough.
Sweet chocolaty Jesus
Good product concept right there!
It’d be popular around easter! Give it delicious meat-colored creemy fillingz! Comes on genuine butter shortbread cross!
@Raging Bee
Is that an example of “exponential wrongness?”
Oh NOES! Because then there would be a “wrongness singularity” in which we would suddenly all become godlike but unimaginably wrong.
I just couldn’t believe the incongruity of his fearless comment. Hard to explain in tweets, but I don’t think he knows what the word fearless means. He’s not using it in anyway that makes sense to me, anyhow. He seemed to be saying that avoiding harassers and keeping your mouth shut was the ‘fearless’ thing to do. To bravely hide.
Reminds me of Brave Sir Robin. He bravely turned his tail and fled!
Ugh.
A coherent thought would have been more like, “Be fearless! Stand up to your tormentors and don’t be bowed by them.”
I wonder if he’s caught up seeing complaints as weak. If he sees Ophelia’s comments as some sort of trolling to become a victim so that she can, weakly(?!) complain about the response. .. ? His head is in Bizzaro world.
‘kin’ell, I don’t check in for a day or two and there’s more reasons for donating than I can count?!
I’d like the donate button to make a satisfying little “ka-ching” sound, please.
Athyco:
Thanks for forgetting, I might not have watched otherwise. It reminded me how important it is to make time to log the last few days worth of crap I have thrown at me in work.
He is just reading aloud from the bully playbook, isn’t he?
My favourite thing about the “You shouldn’t let them know it upsets you, they’ll only do it more” bullshit is that often the reason one dislikes the name is that they have already been using it as a taunt for quite some time. So if one doesn’t show that one is affected by their never-ending taunts they will…retroactively have never used it as a taunt? Or what?
But yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so-called advice directed at the bullied that didn’t amount to some form of victim-blaming.
What I can’t figure out with regard to Vacula is why the community gave him a considerable level of respect not so long ago. I was introduced to him via what appears to have been the beginning of his slide into unrepentant assholery, so I don’t know what made him appealing before that (and he is not worth the research in finding out). I just remember hearing a lot of “what’s happened…” remarks about his disposition. Everything I’ve read of his is imbued with an arrogance and mean spiritedness that is profound.
…so who is Karla Porter? Has that ever been established?
Marcus, You’ve never heard the song Chocolate Jesus?
Oh boy, are you in for a treat.
Come on folks, we should be sensitive here. Justin is clearly struggling to cope with a major disappointment…
The guy’s put so much effort into swinging his dick around and yet his balls still haven’t dropped.
Seriously – well almost – there’s a classic poem by a British performance poet named John Cooper-Clarke that goes by the title ‘Twat’, which nicely sums up my feelings about asshats like Vacula. Feel free to look it up (NSFW, naturally).
Um….Unity, that’s not cool.
I know it makes you angry. Me too. But, don’t call people gendered slurs or use genital shaming.
@32
Good video, but:
That voice sure sounds like a non-pitch-shifted ‘Graham Murkett’ somegreybloke. So… uh… can’t not see him giving the presentation.
Of course if chocolate’s not on your diet you will have to be content with a Plastic Jesus…
additional lyrics here…http://www.rcramer.com/fun/jesusdance/lyrics.html
“I don’t care if it bumps or jostles
Long as I got the Twelve Apostles
Bolted to the dashboard of my car
Don’t I have a pious mess
Such a crowd of holiness
Strung across the dashboard of my car”
And yeah, Unity, there’s no need to stoop to their level…
More money in the jar for shoes, dinners, socks, tickets, donations to the anti-bullying charity of your choice. I don’t care how you use it as long as you are pleased with it.
If these people are constantly watching what happens here, how come they don’t take account of the flow of funds into your hands that they provoke? Armchair psychology tells me that the obsession is more important than anything else, but it still seems strange.
mildlymagnificent @52:
That’s the thing about obsessions – they’re like addictions in that they are (or soon become) a means unto themselves; their peripheral effects are more or less insignificant and irrelevant with regard to the singular activity being pursued. This is why addicts can become so adept at eliding, minimising or denying the harm that they cause to themselves or others; the addiction – the sickness – removes self-control at a very basic level.
However, becoming obsessed with a person or group (or “type”) of people (or at least temporarily highly focussed on them, as you might describe the insistence of Vacula and the other bullies on constantly dragging certain people against their will back into their conversation sphere) isn’t like a physical addiction and I don’t wish to compare this activity to being a drug addict. That being said, there is almost definitely compulsive behaviour and denial on display – that’s not armchair psychology either, that’s more or less observable by anybody.
The compulsion: there appears to be an irresistible urge to continue on their crusade, mission – however they’d describe it – to silence others with rhetoric; they simply can’t leave it alone (the fact that they assist and agree with each other of course reinforces the “rightness” of whatever it is they believe – or at least proclaim – they’re doing, be it defending free speech or being honest dissenters).
The denial: there also appears to be abject denial of both the toxic nature of their activity and the harm and discomfort it causes to its targets, combined with holding the target responsible for attracting – “deserving” – said attacks. That target-blaming, evidenced by such civil-sounding “advice” like “Don’t show weakness; it will simply inspire your enemies to continue their attacks” seems to be an admission that the behaviour in question is in fact negative and harmful and something to be avoided (not, of course, something to be discontinued by the attacker/s in question). Due to this we could plausibly add “cognitive dissonance” to the list of easily observable behaviour on display (again, no psychology, armchair or otherwise, is needed to deduce this behaviour).
The bottom line is that if you continue to engage in, encourage or in some way defend or enable behaviour you admit is harmful and unwelcome by those at the receiving end, you are a bully. It is not up to the bullied to “stop doing those things that attract bullies”; it is up to the bullies to leave their targets in peace.
If it’s truly “honest dissent” or “civil disagreement” Vacula and his allies desire, it is encumbent on them to immediately cease engaging in, defending, minimising and otherwise enabling what they know very well and have on occasion admitted is harmful, toxic behaviour.
mildlymagnificent @52, there is simply no good response to the tip jar. A couple buffoons attempted a grossly inept response early (if I remember, I think they tried to Godwin it), but even they now realize that there’s no legitimate or useful counter-punch that won’t profit Ophelia even more. As ignorant and hate-filled as they are, it appears they are just smart enough to avoid giving more attention to something that will only benefit Ophelia more.
It’s not a problem to embed videos. Plus I want to see that one so that’s useful.
It’s true about the tip jar. It is quite funny that it doesn’t discourage them. Funny enough to make me laugh!
Speaking of the tip jar, I’m not keen on putting in the $$ skimmed off by paypal and my bank for international transfers on a regular basis. I have made a very small donation, just as a token. Do you perhaps have an Amazon wishlist that you might share with us? I’m not actually sure of the safety of this suggestion, as if it were public perhaps the slimers might send you gay porn or pineapple cutters or something.
Anyway, Ophelia, if you make it to Australia when I’m in the same city, or if I get to where you are, I would be delighted to buy you dinner anywhere you like. Or if you get to Canberra, you have an open offer of our guest bedroom.
Never forget, Alathea Crocoduck appears to be in self-admitted possession of a pineapple cutter – in case you are inclined to accept the offer of hospitality…
😉
G’nite
Ophelia @ 55:
That’s another thing about obsessions: even if one of the secondary or even tertiary effects is beneficial to the target, the attacker may continue regardless. The primary mission is to silence, upset, cause harm (or defend freedom or engage in robust dissent, as they may doublespeak it); as long as the primary mission of harm appears to be successful, side-effects like the target receiving donations are irrelevant. In fact, such a side-effect might even confirm to the obsessive that their efforts are successful: “their supporters are giving them money – we must be winning! Let’s step it up!”
Alethea, that’s a good idea, the Amazon wish list. I’ll do it. And meh, if the slimers want to spend their money on sending me jokes, they can.
Hah! For the win!
I glanced at the replies to some of those later tweets, and it’s completely unsurprising. His supportive replies almost all use the word ‘b*tch’, and are both derogatory and hostile.
Makes me wonder which side he really thinks he’s on. I mean, if I tweeted something, and everyone that re-tweeted or replied positively kept using the n-word, and when I looked at their profiles, I saw a bunch of old glory flags or swastikas, it’d seriously make me question what I said. If I hadn’t intended to be racist, anyway.
So how can he glance at his feed, and not wonder why it is that misogynists support him? He can’t, right? He must look at them and go, ‘it’s a fair cop.’
Well he’s one of them. He’s not a reasonable guy who overlaps with them on some things, he’s just one of them.
I will freely admit that people like Vacula are making me increasingly ageist, even though I try hard not to let that happen.
Hell, my own 24-year-old self is making me retroactively ageist against myself (guess which “side” of this split I’d have been at that age :-/ )
Anyway, Vacula needs to get off my
lawn3 ft of snow where lawn might be come May :-p@rnilsson
I confess, it’s true! I have one of
these
But wait, how do you know that? Are you my FB friend unknown to me by this nym?
Hell, my own 24-year-old self is making me retroactively ageist against myself (guess which “side” of this split I’d have been at that age :-/ )
I don’t think I would have been on his side of the split, but I do remember arguing online (yes, I was online over 20 years ago) that health care was a product that you shouldn’t expect to get if you don’t have insurance and can’t directly pay for it. :/
(I was my father’s son then.)
borked the blockquote again.
Some things do not improve with age.
Rememberingnessitudeability, for example.
I didn’t know who Karla Porter was either, but after reading this post and checking fb I saw comments by someone with her name. Yup. Apparently I am friends with someone with is friends with her.
Small world.
Sadly I am too lazy to hack her account or, failing that, make a fake one . Or failing plan b, fake friend her and pull some serious “Operation Freakout” on her ass.
Maybe I should just twitter stalk her and start podcasting about how her status updates don’t have enough content. Oh wait. No.
I forgot. I’m not really a stalker and shit like that is somewhere between really, really stupid and really, really creepy.
leni @ 67:
No it’s not. It’s free speech/noble dissent/respectful disagreement/standing up to #ftbullies/being a #bravehero.
Everyone knows that as long as you don’t actually rape someone or actually kick them in the cunt, you can say anything about anyone and it’s neither harassment nor threatening nor creepy and protected under the First Amendment (which is not only absolute and subject to no conditions or caveats but also applies beyond the borders of the US to the entire world) and, in short, all totes copacetic.
Besides – it’s on the internet, you see, which is a virtual cloud of tubes, and everyone knows real harassment only happens IRL, AFK in meatspace (unless someone publishes a disagreement with a thing said by a Known Skeptic™ like a Shermer or a Kirby, in which case it’s totes real Nazi witch-hunting and harmful to The Movement!!1).
[/really obvious sarc in case of lurking pit-stains]
Bjarte #24:
I did, too. Then I opened my eyes and realized that there’s quite a few prominent skeptics who lean noticeably right-wing (Sam Harris is pro-Iraq War, Penn and Teller are fellows at Cato, Micheal Shermer is a libertarian…). And then suddenly the cries for unrestricted free
marketsspeech start looking very very familiar…(Damn it, hit submit too soon)
And to the people who are thinking of going ageist…hey, my 22nd birthday is in less than three weeks :<
aaah, agiesm-antidote: smart young ones 🙂
Most young FTBers are clever, socially aware folks.
Yep, one the one hand it’s good to know that there are young’uns who are awesome –
On the other, it means that Vacula’s asshattery is congenital and probably won’t improve with age, barring some drastic breakthrough or existential crisis or something.
Late to the party, but…
Ophelia #19:
Raging Bee #21
Either that, or fractally wrong. I’ve always wanted to use that phrase. Mission accomplished.
In other words, it’s turtles all the way double down.
FTFY
If yer gonna do it, do it right! 😉
Quite disappointing that the Freedom From Religion Foundation recently awarded Vacula $250 for an “Honorable Mention”-ranked (in a “Graduate/mature student essay contest”) piece on “Wanted: Separation of state, church” (reprinted in the Jan-Feb ’13 issue of Freethought Today). Not too bad article as such, prob’ly because it never ventures into topics beyond the stated subject.
FFRF fractionally redeemed themselves by giving an equal award to Ashley Miller for her “Government for the people, not the god” essay, printed in the same issue.
abject slave of the mighty Tpyos @ # 75 – Not too bad an article as such…
FTFM.
Pierce Butler @75,
If it was an essay contest, then it probably should be judged strictly based on the essay itself and not on what the author has said elsewhere. To do otherwise is to commit the ad hominem fallacy, judging the essay based on the author. So I don’t think you should be disappointed in FFRF at all. If they’d given him a more general award based on overall conduct, well then yeah, by definition you have to take the awful stuff into account.