Wednesday, July 05, 2006

The angry, angry Left.


And if you can handle it, I think I have one more post in me regarding dishonest Canadian wankers and the insufferable assholitude of one Joel Johannesen of "Proud to Be Canadian." If you feel like keeping up, Barbara Kay's original article is still here, and the ever-so-animated comments section that goes with it is still here.

First, a couple of brief issues we can dispense with in short order. Not surprisingly, Joel is still lying, when he writes in comment 29:

Canadian Cynic: Attention! Upon further investigation, typing canadiancynic.blogspot.com works fine. Always did work fine.

Typing a www or http:// in front of it screwed it up, and caused the error message you reported to the world as my unquestionable attempt to censor you / blacklist you / or otherwise preemptively ban you personally even though I don’t know you or your blog from a squirrel.

In the first place, how idiotic is it to suggest that, if you start a URL with either "www" or "http://", it's going to be blacklisted? What kind of moronic system administrator would you have to be to put that kind of filtering in place?

More to the point, though, that claim is simply a lie as you can see for yourself in comment 7 where I used a "tiny" URL to get around the "blacklisting" and the "http://" at the front of that URL worked just fine. Joel is now simply lying at random but, at this point, it's pretty much what we've come to expect from him.

Joel also makes it clear for all of us what he thinks of his accountability for what appears at his web site when he writes (in comment 26):

(Also: I don’t answer for Barbara Kay —and she doesn’t spend her vacation time reading your comments at PTBC. So as I already suggested, write to her through the National Post in order to get the much needed answers to your inquiries. Members can email her from here, and as you know, folks can make respectful comments right here. I think that’s enough for now.)

So even though Kay (one of Joel's masthead columnists) has been accused of just flat-out making shit up, Joel doesn't seem terribly, terribly concerned. If we don't agree with Kay's "facts," we can take it up with Kay as Joel has better things to do. Apparently, that wussy fact-checking stuff is for liberals. But here's where we step back and look at the bigger picture.

If you read the first few comments, it's a bit puzzling how fast the discussion descended into vitriol and name-calling, isn't it? Based on nothing more than a couple comments from myself and "macadavy" about obvious blacklisting that is happening, Joel launches a blistering attack on his critics, accusing us of "gross misrepresentation" and other such rubbish. A Mr. Mattt Enss in comment 10 tries (very politely) to return things to civility, and he is also savaged. What the fuck is happening here?

What's happening, if you haven't figured it out by now, is that Joel is responding to the most mundane critisicm with totally out-of-proportion rage but, in fact, it's all part of a carefully choreographed script. Rather than actually respond to the issues, it's Joel's job to lash out at his critics and try to drag them into mindless name-calling, for a couple of reasons.

First, if he can make the discussion about personalities and not facts, he can distract everyone from Kay's blatant dishonesty. By the time we get to comment 17 or 18, Joel has insulted the rest of the commenters so much, they've all forgotten what started the discussion in the first place, which is exactly what he wants. And if he can keep the anger cranked up suitably a little while longer, he can start kicking people out. (Oh, look, there he is in comment 23: "And by the way, I’ve heard enough out of you now. You’ve abused your priviledges [sic] here. Don’t post here again.")

It's amazing, isn't it? Early on, things could have been resolved with a simple, "You're being blacklisted? Hmmm ... that's odd, you shouldn't be. Let me check into it and I'll get back to you." Instead, Joel made sure that didn't happen with a neck-snapping attack on early commenters, which guaranteed that the entire dialog was going to go to hell in a handbasket. Which is, of course, exactly what he wanted. But it doesn't end there.

Because now, Joel has proof positive of the existence of "the angry Left." If he ever needs evidence of just how angry we liberals can be, all he needs to do is drag out this comments section down the road, carefully hide the fact that he started this whole brouhaha, and happily point out how, no matter how polite you try to be, well, those liberals are just a bunch of offensive, insulting, unhinged, deranged moonbats, see? But that's par for the course these days, isn't it?

It's all part of a pattern in which right-wing dumbasses say the stupidest and most dishonest things, to which one might raise a quiet objection. When that objection goes unanswered, one might raise it again, a little more forcefully, to again be met with either silence or dismissive derision. And the pattern continues, being slowly ratcheted up until the leftie critic finally loses it a bit and says something intemperate, to the sudden accusations of, "Angry liberal! Angry liberal! Deranged, unhinged moonbat!" Which is, as I'm sure you can see, exactly what has happened here.

The funniest part of all of this is that, in the end, it's Joel who, commenting from right-wing Bizarro World, thinks that everyone else owes him an apology, as he writes in comment 29:

I suspect all the stupid and malicious allegations will be respectfully withdrawn now and apologies will flow to me like water.

I’ll be right here waiting.

Why, yes, and even after Joel's sputtering denigration of folks who tried to keep a civil tongue while they were pointing out his overwhelming dumbfuckitude, it's all of us who owe him an apology, which will make his wanker beerfests down the road even more entertaining, "Not only did they insult me and call me names, man, they never even had the grace to apologize after. Boy, those liberals sure are angry, aren't they? Hey, honey, another round of Zimas for me and my posse here."

And in all of this, should we ever expect to get some clarification on Kay's bogus quotes? Not if Joel has anything to say about it, I expect.

TOTALLY GRATUITOUS AFTERSNARK
. I'm moderately amused by Joel's outrage at what he calls "gross misrepresentations," given that his site advertises Ann Coulter's new book, "Godless," a piece of dishonest swill that has been savagely panned for its appallingly dishonest distortion of biological evolution.

Apparently, mind-numbing dishonesty and absurd misrepresentation is OK if you're a wanker.

12 comments:

Joel Johannesen said...

Continuing to call me a liar will not get you farther ahead, my friend. I suggest you stop it.

Meanwhile, just about every word you type is premised on lies and deceit.

And did you write the blog entry about Barabara Kay and PTBC being Canadian "loons" and "couple of depressingly innumerate dumbasses" BEFORE posting your accusation at my web site, accusing me of selectively chosing YOUR unknown blog to "blacklist" ("preemptively"!)?

Why yes I believe you did, you polite altruistic gentleman. And I think if you review past rants on your own blog, which from what I can see is obsessively, totally dominated by my web site and your apparent rage against it, that you have been less than "polite" and even remotely respectul or tolerant of views that don't identically match your own, in the past -- well before this set of insulting accusations and defamations. I don't believe you can say the same of me vis-a-vis your blog.

Some folks are now reviewing some of the things you've written in the past. And I suggest you be mindful that you're dealing with people with characters and reputations to defend, and actual names.

David Webb said...

Oooh, empty threats! Delicious! Maybe after the 3 p.m. bell, out by the four square court Joel?

Be mindful CC. Joel has top men working on it now. Top...men.

Joel Johannesen said...

Well dave t I'm sure your comments were as polite as can be, but you didn't post them at my web site.

And david, great value in your comments there. Way to address the issues.

Anonymous said...

Joel, CC wrote this in your comments section:

"I’ve apparently been blacklisted from this site without ever having posted a comment here previously"

There's not a word of that sentence that is untrue, but you immediately called him a liar. Now I know CC calls people names with the best of him - but you started this one.

For everyone else, I submit the following without comment or edit, and I'm sorry for the long post:



Your "membership" has been activated and is ready for use. Now that you're
activated, please make use of your privileges!

If you're a LIBERAL, please remember that:

** You are a guest at ProudToBeCanadian ("PTBC"); and it is a
privately-owned facility, and yes, privately-owned things are still allowed
in this country;

** You are granted a priviledge by us as the owners of this site to post
comments. You do not have "a right" to make comments at PTBC. Please be
aware of the difference. You are not automatically "entitled" to anything
at PTBC;

** We're under no obligation to provide you with a platform, at our expense,
to rant on and on about liberalism, the "Canadian value" of abortion,
smoking pot, socialism, or any other liberal-left ideal. Nor are we
obligated to even allow you to post any of your comments at all whatsoever,
and we may delete them if they break our very reasonable rules, and we are
under no obligation to consult with you first;

** And most of all remember that character assassination attempts or even
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simply on the basis that you're a moron. If you type "homophobe", you may
be banned for life or just a for a while.

** You will have to tread lightly, respectfully, and remember that you're
among people who are committed conservatives (despite the teaching at
schools and from the liberal media which permeates our lives), you're not
necessarily among friends, and nobody will reach out to you for a group hug.
And if you do remember that, you'll get along just fine and last forever at
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If you're a CONSERVTAIVE, show your support for the conservative cause by
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Anonymous said...

Of course, I meant "best of them", not that CC is a peerless name-caller...

David Webb said...

joel scribbled:

"And david, great value in your comments there. Way to address the issues."

joel, I was adressing the issue of your silly threat to CC. It was choice comedy from you and deserved notice.

David

Joel Johannesen said...

Adam said:

There's not a word of that sentence that is untrue, but you immediately called him a liar. Now I know CC calls people names with the best of him - but you started this one.

Wrong.

It wasn't that he simply reported a snafu and inquired about possible solutions (after calling Barbara Kay a "loon" and "depressingly innumerate dumbass") in his blog entry he was so eager to advertise there. He said:

"Since I’ve apparently been blacklisted from this site without ever having posted a comment here previously..."

...which was immediately followed by:

"What’s with the pre-emptive banning?"

... I indicated, after looking at the web site in question, that I didn't believe him. I would likely know that no sites that I know of are specifically "blacklisted", much less one I've never heard of, and "preemptively" at that. As you now know, the issue was in the manner in which the URL was typed, which was the result of ".blogspot.com" being added to our security filters.

I never entered the fray by calling him a liar, I asked him by what set of facts he reached that conclusion, which was purposefully malicious and leading. I said that to label it as being purposely "blacklisted" was a "gross mischaracterization". I assume you read the thread, and you know that I was playing on a previous commenter's words, who claimed that Barbara Kay's column was a "gross mischaracterization".

Since it was all about "gross mischaracterization", I though that was a wily comment.

He wasn't purposely singled-out and blacklisted, of course, he just wanted to leave that impression. He wanted to grossly mischaracterize the facts.

Of course, I believe he and you know all this.

He was free to post comments -- he always was -- it's just that he got a message when the URL he tried to type in his message, in his effort to steer readers to his blog, got rejected by our blacklist, which, as I've explained had nothing whatever to do with purposefully "blacklisting" him, whom I've never heard of, "preemptively".

I finished that comment with these words:

"Please reconsider your words and be more careful in characterizing the nature of this web site.

Thank you."


His friend Matt Enss then chimed in with:

"he was complaining... about how a program is used to automatically block any comments that contain a reference to a certain web page... Apparently it’s impossible use that url in a comments post on here, regardless of what context you use it in; you’re not even allowed to complain or mock the site, let alone point out criticisms Canadian Cynic (CC) has made about Barbara Kay’s post."

which repeats the mischaracterization of facts as I'd already explained, and maliciously leads readers to believe something which is not true.

CC continues to (for example) contend that he can't register as a member, but that's a lie. He couldn't enter his URL into the registration form, while the technical glitch was active. But a URL isn't necessary to register. So he also allows that lie to linger here.

And all the while, he insults me personally, by name, and calls me a liar, and similarly my columnists, and slurs and offends and defames as many people, by name, as possible, who are in any way connected to my web site, some of whom are professionals with reputations to protect. And this defamation carried on before this incident, as I've found out.

As you can see here at this blog, it is something of an obsession to constantly setup dramas about PTBC, and swear and cuss and accuse and defame.

And the whole thing is premised on deceit. I was not premising any of my comments on deceit.

Joel Johannesen said...

david wrote:

"joel, I was adressing the issue of your silly threat to CC. It was choice comedy from you and deserved notice."

Yes I know that's all "choice comedy" to you david, unfortunately you fail to appreciate or respect the fact that some people like me blog using our actual real names; we have wives and families, reputations, web sites, and so on to protect; as well as the duty to be mindful of the respectable people -- columnists -- who lend their name to our site.

The deception and defamation of me and my columnists and my web site that I explained in my comment is more to the point I think, rather than what you characterize as my "silly threat to CC" and my "choice comedy".

David Webb said...

Mighty JoelTron~! wrote:

"Yes I know that's all "choice comedy" to you david"

That should be David. My real actual name. And internet threats have been funny since the beginning. They are "a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing....".

"unfortunately you fail to appreciate or respect the fact that some people like me blog using our actual real names"

JoelTron, if you want to stand on a street corner and yell at the world, and wear a name tag while doing it, then bully for you. I don't solicit funds from the three people who read my blog, so I don't need to publish my whole name. But don't go demanding respect from me. Or a group hug.

"The deception and defamation of me and my columnists and my web site..."

...is largely a creation of your imagination. Let it go. But keep those top men reviewing CC's work so that you can maintain your sterling reputation and untarnished character.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Joel is now saying that CC started the name calling with a post at this site. Now, if Joel had read that post, name calling is certainly a fair thing to say (not all name calling is unjustified, but anyway, that's not my point).

Joel has also said that he had never heard of this site before CC commented "Since I’ve apparently been blacklisted from this site without ever having posted a comment here previously". Joel says this, in writing, in part with "...against a web site I’ve never even remotely heard of, ever..." .

The comments, at Joel's site, seemed to be polite enough. The word blacklisted came up because that's what his site was telling people. It was a misunderstanding! If people are rude elsewhere (like say CC, at his own site) want to try and comment on Joel's site, and aren't rude about it, why drag that into it. Most people, CC included, get the difference in acceptable language in different places. Just like non-internet situations. At CC's own place, swearing and name calling is fine (and often making a point through humour). When he goes to Joel's place, he stops that.

So, not allowing Joel to invoke the "but you wrote it somewhere else and were rude about it" rule, the name calling, at Joel's site, began with Joel. If he is claiming otherwise, then all previous statements ever made in other internet locations apparently count toward this particular argument. Which would be silly. Has CC ever insulted his website before? Hell yes, used mean names too. But Joel, by his own admission, never read those words.

Joel Johannesen said...

dave, that was another trite and insolent reply.

Blogging using my real name is my problem, yes. But it also opens up the possibility for people to defame me, unlike in the case of anonymous bloggers. It's just the law, and peoples' lives and reputations, and that of their families, that's all. Folks will deal with it the way they see fit.

And by the way, "Let it go"? I left that matter alone a long time ago -- you're the one who keeps bringing it up and referring to it. I'm merely responding.

And I do have a good character and a good reputation in my community, dave, including within my chosen occupation. I want to preserve that. I figure you would too. Thanks.

aweb, have you read many of the blog entries at this blog in the past?

Start there. Then read the post CC made at my blog. I only needed to read the one which he linked to at my site, which was a post about preemptively calling Barbara Kay -- a person who deserves respect -- a "loon" and a "dumbass", among other crass, personal insults in tone and verbiage, before he even had the answers he was so earnestly seeking.

People are allowed to do that (up to a point), yes, but it will influence how I deal with his comments at my web site. I'm sure you see that.

As to the rest of what you wrote, I'd have to give you credit for spinning the bajeezus out of the issue. But no, it doesn't change history.

Anonymous said...

Once again Joel Johannesen exposes himself as the small-minded, trite, myopic knucklehead that he actually is. And, it's right there, in black and white, on his own website for all the world to see. This is far from the first time - Spend some time browsing through the comments archive over at proudtobecanadian.ca and you'll see example after example. Will the faithful, neo-con, wannabe regulars on that board finally figure it out though? Of course not! Their powers of observation and keen sense of discernment is finely honed on an exclusive diet of Fox news.

Does anyone want to give me a dollar for each instance of "Fox news is the ONLY news I watch!" comment that I can locate somewhere on proudtobecanadian.ca?