Justin Vacula wants us to pay attention to his new blog post. I skimmed it and don’t think I want to pay any more attention to it than that, but if you want to, knock yourselves out. (It seems to boil down to “if you’re not willing to be called a fucking cunt then don’t say anything that might prompt someone to call you a fucking cunt.” I think that’s a very stupid and retrograde approach.)
Butterflies and Wheels
Gnu atheism, women's rights, internationalism, universalism, and gossip
Ophelia, you said you were waiting for the post. You asked, I delivered.[Later withdrawn. OB]
I tweeted it to my entire 30 followers* to spread the word and make sure these people get heard. It’s the least I could do. You’re welcome.
*Who I’m sure I’m angering with my incessant political tweeting and I don’t blame them for it.
Justin Vacula – Where? I looked on that thread and don’t see that anywhere.
Also – saying you’re waiting for something isn’t the same as asking. I do not think I “asked” you to write that post.
I’m pretty sure the only thing I’ve ever asked you to do is to correct the lies you told about me in your podcast. Needless to say you have steadily refused to do that (while writing posts about my “complaining” instead).
Whines endlessly about being called a “vacuous shitbag troll”… tells others to get a thicker skin. Logic, Vacula-style.
Hey you know who else does that? People (women, to be specific) who were called “chill girls” or “gender traitors” once or twice or maybe all of three times. Nonstop passive-aggressive jokes about that, but complete silence about other women being called fucking cunts 90 squillion times.
‘if you’re not willing to be called a fucking nigger then don’t say anything that might prompt someone to call you a fucking nigger.’
They’ll say: ‘No, it’s different, because we don’t use cunt to refer to the fact that they’re women, not all women are cunts, and a man can be a cunt too!’ But then, there are plenty of people who’ll say: ‘We don’t use nigger to refer to the fact that they’re black, not all black people are niggers, and a white guy can be a nigger too!’
They will and they do; they say that all the time.
I’m still waiting for Justin Vacula to tell me where I asked him to write that post, or even said I was waiting for it.
Ophelia Benson (#3)
Case in point: waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s not a request for people to toss their footwear about.
“I’m pretty sure the only thing I’ve ever asked you to do is to correct the lies you told about me in your podcast. Needless to say you have steadily refused to do that (while writing posts about my “complaining” instead).”
Yes, because I don’t see any lies I need to correct. You’re welcome, though, to identify what these lies were and what corrections need to be made. I didn’t perceive the e-mails you received as threatening and thought that your hasty exit from TAM was a poor decision especially when you had friends who could identify the sender and reach out (as actually happened).
Sorry, my mistake. Comment one here was misinformed. I stand corrected.
Man, there are days when “disingenuous shitbag troll” just doesn’t seem adequate, does it?!
Since said disingenuous shitbag troll is insisting on playing dumber-than-a-pack-of-hammers, perhaps he would do well to remember that his dishonesty has something to do with selectively reading only the most benign-sounding portions of the letter, and misrepresenting to what Ophelia was objecting.
How many times have you been told, Justin, that you do NOT have the right to substitute your judgment for someone else’s. You do not get to decide what someone else needs to do to feels safe, whether it be physically or mentally.
Indeed, I do recall you taking my exact phrase ( the one I repeated to you over and over) and using it for your own in your attack piece on Greta.
That whole podcast was a hatchet piece and when I questioned you, you did what you are best at, justifying yourself based upon your ego.
Justin Vacula, you know perfectly well what lies, because I’ve told you, and you’ve posted on the subject.
You read out a couple of completely benign sentences from the first email and then asked Porter, “does that sound like a threat to you?” You did not read out the two sentences in the second email that predicted I would be shot at TAM.
Thank you for the retraction in 10. I will correct your first comment.
Your saying “You’re welcome, though, to identify what these lies were and what corrections need to be made” is disingenuous to the point of being calculatedly offensive. I have already done that, and you refused to correct anything; instead you demanded that I go on your podcast to correct you myself.
EllenBeth, while one might feel that they are threatened, there is a question as to whether their feelings are justified or not. Obviously you won’t accept every instance of someone feeling threatened as valid – for instance, if someone walked up to you now and told you that they were being stalked by aliens who were trying to abduct him, you would probably respond to them saying “you do not have the right to substitute someone’s judgment with someone else’s.”
While someone may feel a certain way and believe they are justified, the mere fact that someone feels a certain way does not justify that. The same goes for religious people who claim to be in contact with the Holy Spirit. What right to do you to substitute their judgments with yours? Who are you to tell them they are wrong?
What if I said that I feel threatened by your post here and that your posting makes me unsafe? Would this be a reasonable conclusion for me to hold? According to your radical epistemology, my feelings are justified simply because I hold them and no one else can possibly have a better idea than me. What kind of idea is that?
Yes but you don’t really believe that applies to my case, do you – because if you did, you wouldn’t have quotemined the way you did. You wouldn’t have carefully selected one of the least threatening passages while ignoring the obviously threatening one.
You’re such a bullshitter, and all in defense of pretending I had zero reason to be worried by those emails. What a pathetic thing to do.
Aliens and the Holy Spirit have never been seen stalking anyone or arrested for shooting them in the head. Other humans have, so a lesser degree of skepticism is involved. The examples you provide don’t equate.
Comment 3, Ophelia:
‘Justin Vacula – Where? I looked on that thread and don’t see that anywhere.’
Clearly, being a possessor of women’s intuition, you are required to know this telepathically.
Comment 6, musubk,
‘and a white guy can be a nigger too!’
In fact, much worse: a nigger-lover. It’s the same as a fag-hag. It’s going over to the outgroup object of hate. For example, I think Lucy Waiwright is an Auntie Thomasina. A nigger-lover is even worse than a nigger, because it’s a choice, and also, ‘Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds’ (Shakespeare sonnet – so true.)
The word ‘twat’ and the word ‘cunt’ are misogynist even when used to describe a man, because, just as the use of ‘retard’ to describe Obama suggests that a person with learning disabilties is an inferior thing to be, the use of ‘cunt’ in any derogatory context inevitably means that you are using it in a way to suggest that a ‘cunt’ is a negative thing, and those in possession of one are inferior people. Simples.
Justin, lol- then why, oh why, did YOU adopt my “radical epistemology” word for word to use it against Greta?? Do you even know what that word means?
and, just to answer your question, Justin, if you did feel threatened by my answer to you on this thread, whether or not I felt it was justified is irrelevant. If you are feeling threatened by my presence here, I would suggest you get the fuck out. After all, you need to do what you can to keep yourself safe.
Justin Vacula, why are you lying? Ophelia told you exactly what you must retract to regain any credibility, as have many other people, many times. Why do you assume we won’t notice you’re lying?
Sorry I even have to spell this out. If you said you felt threatened by a post here, you would be asked why. If you said Ophelia was an alien, we might feel your fears are unreasonable. When it comes to actual threats, or words which could be interpreted as threats, a person’s reaction is no longer objective, but becomes subjective.
Alien abduction aside, have you never heard of the ‘thin skull rule’?
Comment 20, Ellen: By the way I’ve seen him misuse words in the past, he could have meant spaghetti sauce. The nasty streak of cruelty I’ve seen in this man before, doesn’t quite fit with his responsible tone here.
Justin Vacula (#15)
A question that’s only ever answered in hindsight. Now, you may have the gift of perpetual hindsight on account of where you keep your head crammed, but the rest of us aren’t so, um, lucky.
How about you get back to us when violence against women is as rare as alien abductions.
Justin: if you CARE ABOUT THE PERSON you care when they say they feel threatened.
You can disagree with the perceived source of the threat, but you don’t dismiss their feelings: IF YOU CARE ABOUT THEM.
Thanks for the laugh, A. Noyd. Thankfully, my laptop survived the resulting collision with my beverage.
I don’t understand why this Justin person has so much animosity towards Ophelia. Why does he care about the letter she got, or whether or not she was right to feel threatened? What is the point exactly? Why spend so much attention on someone and put every little thing they do or say under a microscope? It’s bizarre behavior.
@callistcat, probably the same reason he defended parodying Surly Amy’s intellectual property for the sole purpose of humiliating her and making her feel unwelcome at TAM (after she had worked her ass off to raise funds to send more women to that very conference for the n’th year in a row) and tried to frame the whole matter in terms of whether or not creating fake art is technically legal in order to shift the focus from how it’s a shitty thing to do, and if you behave that way you’re an absolute excrement. This would also be the reason he posted Amy’s home address along with pictures of her house on a known hate site. Because of all the possible ways the atoms in his body could theoretically be put together, he is the absolute worst.
“It seems to boil down to ‘if you’re not willing to be called a fucking cunt then don’t say anything that might prompt someone to call you a fucking cunt.’ I think that’s a very stupid and retrograde approach”
…on the other hand, if you even tried to please everyone, you’ll still likely be called a “fucking cunt”.
People of hate don’t want to resolve anything with you, they just want to torment – that’s their only resolve.
The Count vanished like Clarence in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, when the cops tackled him in the snow. ‘Where’d he go?’ Maybe he aged into smoke? Did the sun come up?
Excellent. Then, by his own logic, I can call him a worthless shitbag bigot because he didn’t take his own advice.
Shoulda kept your mouth shut, Worthless Shitbag Bigot Vacula and I wouldn’t have to call you that.
See? nice and fair.
Oh surely not! HE’S the REAL victim.
Justin the Whiny Ass Bigot: I have no real argument so all women are bitches cunts whores sluts because they disagree with me.
Everyone else: Dude, you’re an asshole.
Justin the Whiny Ass Bigot: WAAAAHHHHH You’re being mean to me. Waaaahhhhhhhhhh
I’ve seen it charged on Twitter and elsewhere that FTBers post about ‘dramatic’ issues solely (or at least primarily) to get blog hits and thus advertising revenue. This was never convincing because if you look at, for example, PZ’s blog, you’ll see hundreds of comments (a decent indicator of reader interest) even on stories that have nothing to do with Deep Rifts.
Yet if you look at Justin Vacula’s blog, you see nothing but tumbleweed on his regular blog posts. Only posts like today’s seem to attract a (vocal) audience. Yet I’ve seen nobody on either side accuse Justin Vacula of profiteering. Why? Because he plainly isn’t – he’s writing (badly) about something that’s important to him. That’s by far the best explanation. Perhaps if one good thing comes of today’s endless string of self-regarding non-sequiturs and entitled babbling, it will be that his supporters might not read the worst possible motive into every blog post made on FTB. But I doubt it.
Why does anyone pay any attention at all to Vacula?
In my case, PZ, it’s for two reasons. First, he lacks the smallest bit of subtlety. Second, he is at least a local leader. One makes him useful for demonstrations of tactics. The other highlights that this is not a problem confined to the internet.
For the LOLs, PZ. For the LOLs.
Oh, and also so that a semi-supporter of “A Voice for Men,” someone who thinks nothing of casually posting someone’s personal address to a forum hostile to said person, doesn’t earn enough power to cause damage.
Well in this case it was because he came here and asked me to. I’m an obliging and helpful person.
So anyway, clearly Vacula is not going to correct the lies he told about me. He prefers to be on the record telling malicious, determined, calculated lies about a woman he dislikes who received what appeared to be a threat.
Funny tastes some people have.
Ah, i see my name for his wasn’t long enough. Clearly, it should have been Lying Cowardly Worthless Shitbag Bigot Vacula.
@Bjarte
Oh, he’s the one who posted Amy’s home address and writes for the hate site called A Voice For Men? OK, never mind. He sounds like a sociopath, so no amount of reasoning or asking for any form of common decency will ever work.
I know Vacula personally through a friend who he insists on talking to despite her thinking he’s full of shit. He asked me out at one point because I, GASP, was a female atheist at a college near his. I was turned off immediately by his dismissal of my feminism and his clear arrogance.
A few years later, I find out that he is essentially an MRA who resents women for not fucking him. He’s degrading toward women and thinks he deserves a hot chick, even though he isn’t willing to change his appearance. He also thinks women should be sexual objects for men by having casual sex more and posing nude for “activism.” As to why he hates feminists in particular, I can only speculate, but he believes men are naturally creepy pigs when it comes to lusting after women and that there’s nothing wrong with that.