Category Archives: Slander Culture

TWAT News: Reverend needs lesson on the downsides of blasphemous libel

An opinion piece from NBC News could have easily fallen past my radar but it caught my eye, and I decided to give it a look. What I’ve found is that old dogs really don’t learn new tricks.

For one thing, the opinion piece is part of the “Think” series, which you may remember for their attempt to make gamers out to be Nazi sympathizers for the Alt-Right (Note: this is not an exaggeration, they literally attempt this). One thing I can hand to NBC News is their audacity to name their series for what they’re attempting to do for their regular audience.

However, my main issue with this piece is against it’s two writers, in particular, the reverend who should know the Bible better. Because his hit piece touches on themes of racism and slavery, I became interested in knowing what he looks like. And here he is:

rev barberA modern reverend wearing an expensive ring and a pre-Christian pagan symbol? You don’t say.

The Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, hereafter just William Barber, has much to learn about the topic of defamation. A willingness to make a group of politically-involved individuals out to be a bunch of racists who wish to reinstate slavery who actually have no inclination to do so is the behavior of a small but vocal minority that is very annoying on social media, rather than a man who has taken upon himself the task of representing the way of truth and life.

While William Barber does provide scriptural citations, the citations he makes are not specific to the matter that he is addressing, which includes Trump’s willingness to build a wall to protect American interests.

Whether William Barber cares to admit it, the Bible does not command against a country acting to protect its assets. In fact, the book of Nehemiah starts with Nehemiah returning to Jerusalem to have its wall rebuilt. As this undertaking was going on, Judah’s enemies (Philistines, Samaritans, Arabs, and Ammonites) were doing everything that they could to obstruct it, and they were soundly condemned as a result. If William Barber is to maintain the premise that he understands the inner workings of Scripture, he should at least have an elementary understanding of it’s historical events.

Perhaps more relevant to what William Barber might be going for, becoming politically-involved endangers his church’s status as a tax-exempt 501C3 organization.

However, that’s not the main issue that I have with William Barber today. Towards the beginning of his piece, he brings up the matter of Trumps alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels as a means of segueing into his main point. The fact that the allegation is just that, an allegation, and not proven, is key here. William Barber speaks of this adulterous affair almost as though it were a proven fact, and not as a mere accusation with the potential of being baseless.

If William Barber understood the Bible and lived by it’s principles, he would not presume guilt against a person for adultery before the matter was determined by a judge in a court of law. Even judges have to carefully consider the information presented to them after both sides of a case have made their testimonies.

Related to this, the Bible teaches “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is the ninth commandment. What’s more, the Bible says, “You shall not spread a false report.” (Exodus 23:1)

How does one know whether a testimony or report is true? Obviously, a person cannot make such a determination unless they were an eyewitness, victim, or perpetrator of a crime or carefully considered the evidence including confidential information that is usually only available to select individuals involved with a proceeding. Obviously, this means that ordinary members of the population who are only exposed to either allegations or arrest information from mainstream media sources do not have sufficient information to determine guilt.

This is the level of scrutiny with which the movement that cultivates political advantage through false accusation falls apart, as does the #MeToo movement that is used to snipe the careers of celebrities so the accusers can bask in the short-lived glow of cheap notoriety.

Believe it or not, wanting to protect America’s national interests (whether or not the means to do so are misguided) does not make a person racist. Disagreeing with you on some matter that you’re politically involved in (which may affect your 501C3 tax-exempt status) does not make a person a nazi, racist, sexist, or a whatever-a-phobe. People are getting better at seeing past the cynical misrepresentations that are a favored tactic of the Social Justice movement, which is one of the many reasons why people are getting sick of it.

I’m getting sick of defending Donald Trump, and I wasn’t really a big fan of the guy to begin with. But I know pretty well that the tactics that are used against him can just as well be used against any member of the population, which is why I feel a pretty strong urge to stand up and point out what I see that’s wrong. Personally, I’d rather be using this blog to talk about Pokemon.

If William Barber knew the Bible anywhere close to as well as he lets on, he’d know that defamation is a sin, and the Bible is particularly strong in its condemnation of it. I wonder whether he’s even aware that “Devil” is not a name, but a title, and it means “slanderer” or “accuser”. The enemy of mankind is known for his main trait. We have to be careful about whose work we are doing!

From a more worldly standpoint, William Barber should be more careful about how he expresses his viewpoints, as his careless accusations have the potential to be viewed as blasphemous libel, which is a form of defamation. Because William Barber is a public figure, it would be very easy for someone to sue him for damages in a court of law. And if someone has a case against him (such as Trump, for example), I say “go for it”. I’m really sick of seeing this kind of thing coming from mainstream media outlets.

EDIT (31 Jan 2018): Stormy Daniels herself has come forward and confessed in a letter that the affair never happened. Because the affair never happened, William Barber’s accusation came to a puttering stall.

What did we learn today?

NBC News has lost its mind.

Who’s up for watching a train wreck in slow motion?

You can tell that NBC News has done something special here, considering the like/dislike ratio of this video:

nbc news disliked

Oh, hold on…

NBC News subscription count wah waah

Considering that NBC News is a huge media institution, that subscriber count is pretty low. For comparison, here’s the subscriber count for a YouTuber:

sargon subscription count

That guy’s subscription count is higher in spite of the fact that he’s not an outlet for the corporate media. He’s just a guy who gets on YouTube and talks about how crazy left-wing fringe groups such as feminists are. Even though he’s just a guy, he has more power on YouTube than NBC News. This is in spite of the fact that the YouTube main page tries to shove the channels of old media outlets up our butts.

Back on subject, NBC News has attempted to connect GamerGate with the Neo Nazi protests in Charlottesville and the grassroots movements that got Trump elected, and dragging Discord’s name through the mud, while they’re at it.

That in itself is a mouthful, and I don’t really have to say anymore. But I’m going to keep going. That old media is finding new ways to disappoint us is surprising at this point.

I’ve said already that old media doesn’t have to convince the smartest people among us for their ideas to gain traction, they only have to convince enough idiots to make a difference, and they are the ones that they are primarily aiming for. Today, the idiots that old media are aiming for is an old group that we’re already familiar with; the Pharisaical busybodies that see video games as some boogeymen that cause violent crimes. The tune has apparently shifted, because the social engineers have determined that the most effective way to drag someone down is to call them “racist” or “sexist”, because those are the words that currently have the most impact. Therefore, these ad-hominems are now being thrown at gamers.

If you’re among the brighter people among us, you’d look into matters before arriving at a determination, rather than taking old media’s word for it. Better yet, you wouldn’t have used old media to inform you to begin with. Of course, anyone using their brain will know that the connection between racists and sexists with video games just doesn’t exist. There’s a certain baseline for intelligence that NBC is aiming for, and they decided to exclude those who can think above it.

Today, NBC’s efforts to mislead the public are backfiring in a huge way, considering that most people play video games in some form, and understand that the presence of racists and sexists among us is greatly overstated.

If you haven’t watched the above video yet, here’s an interesting point to keep in mind as you do so:

Cherry Picking fallacy:
When only select evidence is presented in order to persuade the audience to accept a position, and evidence that would go against the position is withheld.  The stronger the withheld evidence, the more fallacious the argument.
Description from LogicallyFallacious.com, “Cherry Picking”

Can you find examples in the video above? Here are just a few to get you started:

  • Discord is made out to be a haven for racists, even though such communities on Discord are few, if any even still exist. Discord themselves have even shut such a community down.
  • GamerGate is made out to be a sexist movement because some members have made sexist remarks, as the video shows. In reality, these members don’t represent the movement as a whole, as the vast majority of the GamerGate movement are for ethics in game journalism. It’s their stated objective.
  • Footage was shown of someone using racist language in a game’s voicechat feature. This is treated as representative of gamer culture as a whole. It should be obvious why this is unfair.

I only went about halfway through the video before I decided to stop taking examples. It doesn’t stop there. It just keeps going.

gamergate romantic(EDIT 8-Nov-2017: This tweet has been found to have originated from Kevin Dobson, who directed them to Anita Sarkeesian. The problem? The Kevin Dobson tweets were issued a day before the #GamerGate hashtag was coined. NBC News has been caught editing the #GamerGate tag onto a tweet not associated with them to vilify them. It just gets worse and worse.)

But while most of it was a train wreck, there is one part that made me bust out laughing. That part starts at 3:41. That’s the part where Lester Holt, with a bright, enthusiastic smile, asked me to subscribe to NBC’s YouTube channel.

No, Lester Holt. No.

Is there a fast, easy way to tell when someone is lying about a sex assault allegation?

Sex assault allegations seem to be coming up with increasing frequency in politics. It’s a trend that arguably became more mainstream with allegations against Bill Clinton, it has more recently derailed the campaign of Herman Cain, and Donald Trump currently faces allegations of sexual misconduct.

Even outside of politics, an allegation of sexual misconduct can be what it takes to derail the accused’s life, whether or not the claims are baseless. In a sense, it’s become a kind of go-to cheap shot for someone who wants to bring another person down, and this approach is attractive due to how much damage it does for very little effort.

Due to what’s at stake, it’s important that we know of a solid, consistent method for telling whether a person is lying to the public about allegations of sexual misconduct.

There is a method that is strongly consistent, and the reasoning behind it is solid. It goes as follows:

If an alleged victim of sexual misconduct takes their allegation to information media before taking it to police, there is a very strong chance that they are lying.

The reasoning behind this is as simple as it is compelling. If it were the interest of the accuser to hold a sexual predator accountable for their misconduct, their most practical course of action would be to report the incident to the police, as soon after the incident as possible. The police can then launch an investigation to collect evidence and, in so doing, increase the likelihood of a conviction, which would greatly decrease the likelihood of subsequent sexual assaults.

If it were the interest of the accuser to cause an extraordinary amount of harm to a person’s reputation, their most practical way of going about it would be to bring such allegations to the media, who, in the interest in providing the public with compelling stories, would do most of the work of attacking the reputation of the accused, especially public figures.

If a person were lying about a sex assault claim, it would not be in their interest to report it to the police. Because the police would launch an investigation, claims made would be scrutinized in the interest in reducing the likelihood of a false conviction, the investigation process would search for evidence of a crime that never occurred, and the judicial process would provide ample opportunity for the accused to make a defense. False claims generally don’t hold up under ordinary scrutiny, and would be far worse off under the kind afforded by the criminal justice system. What’s more, the police don’t like being lied to, so the person making a false claim may be prosecuted for falsely reporting a felony.

There are those who would point out that victims of sexual assaults have a difficult time coming forward due to the scrutiny that they would face. The scrutiny of law enforcement is trivial compared to the public attention that they would face, whether or not their claims were sincere. However, by design, a person who lies by taking their claims to social networks or the mainstream media can do the damage they please while avoiding accountability. Due to the “deep pockets” principle, a person is more likely to sue a media outlet for committing libel per se, because the media outlet would have more potential for compensating for damages than some woman who works at JC Penneys, even though the media outlet merely took the woman’s word for it.

On the other hand, when the matter is reported to the police, there is little potential for public attention, and such a claim, if true, could be verified, and the offender can be held accountable. The likelihood for this occurring decreases with time as the victim sits on the incident without reporting it. In fact, the statute of limitations exists to protect citizens from baseless and frivolous claims that allegedly occurred a long time ago, especially considering the tendency of the human mind to recall events with increased inaccuracy as time goes on. Considering this, the sooner a sex assault victim reports the incident to the police, the better.

Based on the simple criteria above, consider on a case-by-case basis where alleged victims of sexual assault are taking their claims, whether their claims are directed against Bill Clinton, Herman Cain, Donald Trump, or anyone else, for that matter. Are they really seeking justice, or are they motivated by something else?

Justice served: woman who falsely reported rape jailed

rachel soderblom

Usually, when we hear a story about a woman falsely accusing a man of rape, we hear about how the allegation tears down every aspect of the man’s life while the woman doesn’t have to face any kind of consequence. The story I’m sharing with you today has a refreshing change of pace.

I’ll preface my next statement with the following: If you’ve actually been raped, report it to the police. That’s the best shot at getting the rapist convicted so he won’t do it again. Don’t wait, just do it, and cooperate with the investigation. You’d be helping society in doing so.

As any SJW or regressive leftist can tell you, if you decide to falsely accuse someone of rape, the last thing you want to do is report it to the police. If attacking someone’s reputation with a false allegation is not beneath you, the most practical way to go about it is to take it to social media. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, pick your social media outlet. However, actually taking it to the police could backfire.

Thirty-four year old Rachel Soderblom of Jackson, Michigan found this out the hard way after falsely reporting to the police that she had been raped. The police used DNA identification to implicate a man who did have sexual relations with her. After the man was arrested, he told his lawyer what had happened, and soon afterwards, police determined that the woman’s story didn’t line up with her friend’s claims that they set her up with him.

For those of you who don’t know the justice system very well, there is a process of questioning and collecting evidence to evaluate the veracity of an accusation. This is what is referred to as an “investigation”. As in, no, don’t count on the police to take everything you say at face value.

Rachel claimed that she was raped at random in a parking lot, when in fact her friends hooked her up with the man, and the two had arranged their sexual encounter with the man making claims that he could “make her go straight”. Rachel eventually fessed up, saying that she invented the claim that she was raped to hide the fact that she cheated on her lesbian partner, and that she did not intend for there to be an arrest.

As a result, Rachel Soderblom was convicted for falsely reporting a felony. She faces 100 days of jail time, followed by two-and-a-half years of probation. She has also been ordered to pay $1483 in fines and legal fees.

Matters like this don’t typically conclude this nicely, and it is great to see a story like this come up to discourage those who are considering the same thing. After all, the criminal justice system is intended for, you know, criminal justice, and is not intended for stupid BS.

One problem I had with this matter is that Soderblom got off way too easy. One hundred days in jail is way to short of a sentence for this kind of thing. As I see it, she should have gotten the very same sentence that she intended for her victim. At least there is a punishment for clogging up the system with BS claims instead of real cases.

My opinion of Gamergate

vivian_james_sd_by_yahlantykan-d8rkg59
Vivian James by Yahlantykan on DeviantArt

Surprisingly, I’ve gone this long without issuing an opinion of Gamergate and the controversy surrounding it. Depending on who you ask, it’s either a misogynistic movement of lonely men who don’t want women playing video games, or it’s a movement standing against corruption in game journalism and fighting back against the self-appointed social justice warriors (SJWs) that are mischaracterizing their movement.

If you believe the former, you believe the media’s official narrative about Gamergaters. If you believe the latter, you believe what Gamergaters are saying about themselves.

However one views the Gamergate movement, there is no denying how it got started: A woman by the name of Zoe Quinn released a so-so text-based game about depression, and it was given a glowing review on a gaming website. Later, Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend revealed that she was cheating on him, and that the game received undue attention because she was in an affair with the game journalist that reviewed it. As one might expect, people were outraged, and the Gamergate movement was born.

Incidentally, here is a link to a WikiHow article on how to make your own text-based adventure game.

Zoe Quinn became a target of harassment and ridicule, which is to be expected, considering what she did. But rather than accept that what was happening to her was a consequence of her own poor decision-making, she instead played the victim, claiming to be attacked by misogynists. She made her appeal to both cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian and the press, and they both ate it up.

I’m going to say straight-up that I don’t believe that Gamergate is a movement of misogynists. What I’ve seen from gamers in my long history of seeing them is just the opposite; they like seeing women in video games, and they favor the image of the female protagonist in games that is strong, independent, resourceful, and intelligent (does the name Samus Aran ring a bell?). But that doesn’t mean that Gamergaters aren’t going to be mischaracterized.

Gamergaters have challenged a corrupt press, and the results have been predictable. The press has long been in a position in which they have the trust of people and control of information, enabling them to sway public opinion in favor of positions and worldviews that are in line with those of journalism at large. It’s something that conservatism has long complained of as the liberal-controlled media has long perpetuated stereotypes of those of those of conservative persuasion.

A case in point is the recent exposure of Planned Parenthood’s operation of selling baby parts in violation of federal law. In some cases, the subjects of harvesting were infants that were extracted alive. One would imagine that, if even a little bit of video evidence of this got out, there would be an outrage, and the people behind the crime would all be held accountable. However, there has been volumes of undercover video released, and it seems like the general population is largely unaware of what happened. This is because there has been a media blackout of the video releases, except for a short time when Planned Parenthood peddled its official narrative that the videos were doctored.

Now, gamers are starting to see what it’s like to be libeled by a huge, rich, privileged media machine. To add to their problem, coming against them is another, far less sophisticated group that also cares little about facts: radical feminism.

After they became involved, a surprising group came along to oppose them: liberals themselves. After so long of being the beneficiaries of a media that presented their narratives, they started to speak up against what they see as wrong with radical feminism’s tactics, possibly because it was their entertainment that was being challenged.

As tempting as it may be for conservatives to view the battle between feminists and moderate liberals as a liberal problem, it’s an opportunity that conservatives seem to be largely passing up to point out that they too have been victims of similar targeting and stereotyping, and now that liberals are on the receiving end of it at the hands of one of their own fringe groups, perhaps they’ll be in a better position to understand that there’s something wrong with it.

Similarly, non-gamers seem to view Gamergate as a gamer problem. However, it’s another symptom of the corruption of the press that has long been preying on the masses. It’s interesting that it has been gamers that have taken a position in the battle against corruption in the media, and more surprising still is their passion to continue, long after many people would have just given up.

But that’s not so surprising considering that many of them have been influenced by an art form that allows them to vicariously experience the battles of heroes, and encourages them to keep trying until they win.

Feminist slander campaign backfires, perpetrator loses job

foot bullet

When you voice your opinion on the internet, there is a possibility that someone is going to issue disagreement with you. That’s a possibility to prepare for in just about any marketplace of ideas. However, not everyone has that kind of maturity.

Recently, a YouTuber with the handle Thunderf00t expressed criticism of Anita Sarkeesian’s methods as a radical feminist. In response, fans of Anita Sarkeesian have (issued polite disagreement? No, they) threatened him.

One in particular by the handle of Laughing Witch took things a little further. She decided that the best way to handle his criticism was to invent a lie against him, and then attempt to ruin his life by telling that lie to his local newspaper, his local police department, and even to his own employer in an attempt to get him fired.

I’ve expressed before that modern feminism has serious honesty problems. However, this case takes things to a whole other level. I’ve disagreed with people on the internet before (I might even disagree with a few things Thunderf00t has said). But to this day, I haven’t decided that the best way to handle such a thing is to try to attack their job. Yet, Laughing Witch has found someone who has disagreed with the methods of radical feminism, and made up a lie about him being a Nazi and a hater of Muslims. He has also been accused of being a member of a conservative group, but that’s not an insult. Again, the lie was propagated to his local paper, his local police department, and his own employer in an attempt to destroy his livelihood and his standing in the community.

If you’re interested in a legal reason why this is a bad idea, look up the word “libel”.

Obviously, these claims aren’t even consistent. For one thing, Nazis historically didn’t hate Muslims. In fact, even Hitler expressed admiration of them. Also, the term “Nazi” is short for “National Socialist”. Conservatives are not socialists.

Of course, things like “facts” haven’t been known to make much of a difference to radical feminists. Not only did Laughing Witch slander Thunderf00t with these claims, she actually bragged about her actions on YouTube using her real name. That’s some kind of confidence.

Afterwards, radical feminists on YouTube celebrated getting Thunderf00t fired. This is in spite of the fact that Thunderf00t was not fired. This tells us what we need to know about radical feminism, it really doesn’t matter to them what’s true.

Laughing Witch bragged that she was immune to backlash because she was the vice president of the company that employed her, which was headed by her husband. She even expressed that she was pleased with her sudden influx of subscribers, probably not realizing how many of those subscribers were just interested in watching a ship sink fast.

loose lips

As it turns out, the ship sank faster than expected. Laughing Witch was actually fired from her job as Vice President of the company that employed her. Meaning, yes, this overconfident radical feminist was actually fired by her own husband. What’s more, she also removed her own YouTube channel (possibly at the request of her husband, who likely saw her online activities as being a serious liability for his company).

There are few things that I dislike more than slander. Because of this, it brightened my day to see that someone who attempted it fell into her own snare.

socrates slander

We probably haven’t heard the last of Laughing Witch. Persons such as herself usually love attention. She might appear again later with a new handle or with a Patreon account begging for donations, claiming to be the victim for all the problems that she brought upon herself.

Still, that someone would consider doing what she tried to do is pretty alarming. I think it’s a sign that radical feminism is quickly becoming more maladjusted, especially with someone like Anita Sarkeesian for them to get behind. Her fanbase has already demonstrated itself to be one of the most dangerous fanbases among YouTube personalities.