I realize Freddie’s jimmies have been rustled, but come on:
Well, I don’t have an army of rabid, anonymous commenters, and I don’t have the protection of a job, and I don’t have the visibility of writing for a big publication. But I refuse to be bullied by people who are unable or unwilling to fight without chumming the water for a mob that can say what it wants without consequence. […]
Today I learned that Balloon Juice is a big publication, that comments by anonymous commenters amount to mob action, and that there’s a “very real sickness within American liberalism”. All because someone disagreed with Frederik deBoer.
Even though I am despicably and cowardly anonymous, somehow I’ve retained enough perspective to realize that people disagreeing with me on the Internet is not persecution.
jayjaybear
First rule of holes, Freddie: Stop digging.
Cacti
Makes you wonder how a shrinking violet like de Bore got into online political commentary in the first place.
His innocence is obviously abused anytime someone get’s saucy and has the temerity to disagree with him.
RSR
Richard Cheese – Down With the Sickness
http://youtu.be/o39etJFlW7k
NSFW audio
Schlemizel
OH POOR FREDDY!!! Please, oh please, tell me where to send the sympathy card & what I can do to make it up to him (despite ignoring his site & never going there which is what I have been doing all along)
MattF
The whole notion of ‘anonymous commenters’ is a category error. The people who comment here regularly may not use the names on their birth certificates, but calling them anonymous is just missing the point. Also, seeing deBoer pick up the ‘icky librul’ meme is sad. He should know better.
mattH
Small point of clarification, most of those attacking him, like 99%, are psedonymous not anonymous.
Morzer
Fredward de Boner has evolved from “Someone is wrong on the internet” to “Everyone but me is wrong on the internet”.
Baby steps for the purer than thou of heart.
kwAwk
I’ve been there. Speak anything that looks like an opinion contrary to the popular approved opinion around here and you will be called all sorts of names and even pointedly told to go find another blog.
So which is it mistermix? Are you saying that Freddie is wrong in his analysis or that you just don’t think his analysis means much because online belligerence doesn’t matter?
scav
His jimmies are rustled; his jammies are ruffled; his rutabegas are in a state of high dudgeon. How dare there not be consequences for speech mocking his paean to consequentionless speech!
taylormattd
What the fuck is wrong with these white, sexist, privileged libertarians and conservatives that they ALL, without fail, are the whiniest bitches on the planet? I mean seriously, what is it? Never in my life have I seen a group of people who dish out so much, but cannot take the slightest pushback. The victim / persecution complex is almost breathtaking.
JDM
@Schlemizel: (despite ignoring his site & never going there which is what I have been doing all along)
That’s censorship!
FlipYrWhig
Shorter every de Boer post ever : Someone was mean (back) to me on the Internet, which proves that there’s only one flavor of leftism, mine.
Why anyone gives a rip what this precious twit thinks about anything is mindboggling.
LanceThruster
Any last words before we burn you at the stake?
Morzer
@Schlemizel:
Liberal-fascist-bubble-dweller!
Xantar
@taylormattd:
Are you talking about Freddie? I don’t think he identifies as conservative or libertarian.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s all about shits and giggles, baby. His shits and our giggles.
cleek
quick, get LGM on the horn, we have to coordinate our next attack on deBoer!
evolved beyond the fist mistermix
@kwAwk: I think Freddie’s piece that started this dust up is wrong in many ways. The post at LGM to which he objects was a pretty civil discussion of a couple of the problems with it. DougJ’s comment on his initial post, to which he wildly overreacts, in which DougJ basically points out that Sterling was a terrible racist slumlord who did serious damage to African Americans, is another. Freddie ignores the substantive criticisms because, from what I can tell, all he wants to do is wind up and spout off. Then when people call him on those issues, he takes his offense to the level of the snippet I posted here.
Morzer
@cleek:
When should our liberal fascist Panzer divisions cross the blog border?
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk: all I did was swat this hornets’ nest, and then for some reason all these hornets swarmed me!
evolved beyond the fist mistermix
@cleek: How many divisions does deBoer have?
srv
White – check
Male – check
Misogynist – check
Glibertarian – check
Victim – check
It took Jim Henley 40 something years or so to grow up, how long will it take Freddie?
shortstop
For being such rugged, self-sufficient individuals, some of these libertarians sure do need a lot of love and validation. Even when they haven’t done a goddamn thing to earn it.
deBoer’s responses to his commenters sound exactly like the outpourings of Frank Burns. “Show me where I said that!” “Retract that!” “Apologize!” There’s really nothing about this guy that inspires other human beings to keep him company for even a few minutes.
SatanicPanic
LGM and BJ are mostly the same commenters anyway
taylormattd
@Xantar: Definitely not conservative. Sometimes libertarian, however. I guess I should have included Naderite imbeciles on the list.
kwAwk
@evolved beyond the fist mistermix:
I’ll go read more on it, but it hasn’t eluded me that DougJ does in fact like to go around trolling people.
Trollhattan
“No-one expects a comment inquisition! Our chief weapons are snark, occasional facts, and snark.”
Morzer
@SatanicPanic:
We are no longer blog but borg – and not of the Scandinavian variety either!
shortstop
@cleek: No phone needed! We have our super sekrit playbook! You know, the one they hand out while deBoer’s in the bathroom, and then when he comes out and asks us why we have this funny look on our faces, we casually say, “No reason.”
FlipYrWhig
@Xantar: For some reason he identifies as True Left. Some sort of left that takes as its credo absolute joylessness and hectoring. Maybe Oliver Cromwell republicanism?
scav
@Cacti: Online political commentary? I’ve been in weekly geographic colloquia that seemingly would have permanently crimped his jim-jams, even with the mandatory first questions coming from the grad students (and there were named wrestling moves for some of the tenured throwdowns).
Fred
DeBoer is persecuting all of us rabid, anonymous commenters. How dare he? I think I need therapy now. I should sue.
Who’s Freddie deBoer? I need to know so I can tell my lawyer. Do I need to make one of those little sideways smileys here?
Oh yeah. Congrats to Balloon Juice for being promoted to The Big Bad LameStream Media. It’s lonely at the top.
Morbo
@Xantar: He can identify however the hell he wants, but it won’t change the fact that his behavior makes him functionally equivalent to the Friedersdorfers of the world.
Mustang Bobby
Mr. deBoer, if you want nothing but a fawning commentariat, open a Grindr account, not a blog.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It’s not that I don’t know who Freddie de Boer is, exactly, it’s just that I keep forgetting, and when I’m reminded, I don’t care.
Am I part of the churning mob? or a madding crowd? a flock of rabid lambs?
RSA
I didn’t realize that by commenting I’d joined Cole’s Militia. I guess I need to buy a gun now.
Morzer
@newwave:
Such an unimportant blog that here you are scrabbling frantically at the catflap to be let in… for what.. the 100th time after being banned?
Something about your case is not entirely convincing.
evolved beyond the fist mistermix
@kwAwk: Here’s the comment:
The worst you can say about that is that it is snarky. I would say that the reason Freddie reacted so harshly is because it cleverly got to the point of what was so weak about his piece.
shortstop
@evolved beyond the fist mistermix:
I don’t spend enough time with this fellow to know (see deBoer, Freddie, rank unlovability of, above), but has he ever responded to a substantive criticism? From what I’ve seen, it’s unguided-missile emotion with him all the time. Emotional age: 13.
raven
@Fred: Who cares?
Alex S.
Get a job, Freddie!
My second offer: Is this the third DeBoer war?
Citizen_X
Putting on my concern troll dunce cap, I will say that, yeah, commenters can get into a feeding frenzy. (Real-life consequences? Zero.) Here, and pretty much anywhere on the intertubes. But this whine is just, oh, how shall I put it?
Yeah. That.
Belafon
@kwAwk: And yet we still let you on here, and on the internet in general. Being yelled at, especially when it’s just BEING YELLED AT, is not being silenced.
Ripley
The white guy.
Joel
Yep.
FlipYrWhig
The blogosphere presence most like de Boer’s has to be Jeff Goldstein. Eternally resentful grad student who takes his thwarted ambitions as a sign that the world finds him such an awesome threat that it has to hold him back.
Parents, take this as a warning: when you tell your kids that the reason they don’t have friends is that the other kids are just jealous, sometimes they believe it, and on that precept they live the rest of their lives.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
And he’s prettty fly
Villago Delenda Est
I beg and implore the public at large: will someone please change Freddie’s diapers.
Morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s the Loner Boner.
aimai
I’m a regular over at LGM, more than I’m a regular here and I’m starting to feel sorry for FDB. It actually must be scary to have made yourself into a laughingstock and be unable to get people to stop. I’m not ashamed of anything I posted because for the most part we were all joking around but after a while its like shooting fish in a barrell, its not sporting.
If the poor kid could only climb down off his high horse and joke back he’d be ok. I hate to say it but its true.
Citizen_X
@Alex S.: Begun, the DeBoer wars have.
Morzer
@aimai:
He might just be getting his rocks off to being abused. If he doesn’t want the attention, it’s not as if anyone is going to force him to come and rage against the Great Leftwing Conspiracy on its army of coordinated blogs.
catclub
@RSA: Next we’ll need a union, like the cheerleaders.
Belafon
@evolved beyond the fist mistermix: That’s pretty good.
peach flavored shampoo
Jobless, says crazy shit on his blog, and complains about it? Who does he think he is….Armando?
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig:
FTFY
SatanicPanic
@Morzer: On second thought- let’s have a blog fight with them (us). Everyone has to take a loyalty oath and no backsies. That would be the leftiest thing to do.
West of the Rockies
@evolved beyond the fist mistermix: Well said! DJ’s comment was clever, concise, and well-aimed. You throw a rock in a pack of dogs and the one you hit yelps.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop: National Federation To Oppose The Insulting of 13 Year-Olds and Tweens on line two for you.
evolved beyond the fist mistermix
@Belafon: DougJ said it, not me. And thus began the thousand megabyte war.
shortstop
@Morzer: I think it’s like being super drunk and convincing yourself that if you excuse yourself and go lie down, everyone will know you were plastered, but if you walk and speak slowly and exaggeratedly, no one will notice a thing. He can’t stop talking and he’s convinced his next sentence will redeem him.
Always the next sentence.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: If we can have a tree house and a sign that says “No Freddies Allowed!” I think it would be perfect.
Trollhattan
It bears noting that he’s evidently not equipped to help his own “cause,” however misguided it may be.
People’sMob’s exhibit #1:http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/05/lgm-hall-fame-induction-ceremony/comment-page-1#comment-1075906
FlipYrWhig
@aimai: if he climbed down off his high horse he’d be just another plebe. If not for the horse, he’s got no height at all.
At any rate, he seems to have adopted the Fred Phelps approach: be a nuisance hoping that it provokes someone to retaliate, then complain about having been vilely wronged.
Punchy
If his skin gets any thinner, he’ll qualify to become a DKos FPer.
ShadeTail
@kwAwk: Oh dear, you’ve had to suffer through people disagreeing with you, sometimes very heatedly! We’ll wait while you go find a couch to faint on and some pearls to clutch.
Villago Delenda Est
@aimai:
He can’t do it. No sense of humor. It’s part of his true political makeup.
He’s actually a contemporary American “conservative”.
Morzer
@shortstop:
I think it all began when he was cut from the LOOGies practice squad. And, to be fair, failing to make their roster must be a pretty severe blow to one’s self-esteem.
Belafon
@evolved beyond the fist mistermix: I know. I didn’t mean to imply that you said it.
On that same note, wasn’t Freddie the one who had started to get a bit more realistic when he was here? I remember someone, all libertarian, started writing posts, and people started putting so much evidence that he started having to back up his posts, which in turn led him to moderating his writing. Then he left because he got a regular writing gig somewhere else.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Cole is too modest to talk up the fact that he and his army of rabid, kitten-skull-fucking jackals have HuffPo quaking in its boots.
As a political commenter, Freddie, you’d make a damned good fast food wrangler.
Amir Khalid
Freddie deBoer quit posting here years ago, of his own accord — so he said at the time, anyway. But for now, he’s still on the list of front-pagers, as John Cole pointed out. He can post his defence on Balloon Juice anytime he wants. Let him do so. He has nothing to fear, beyond a not readily impressed Juicitariat. I reckon that as a group we are as contentious as any blog commentariat, but more thoughtful and less prone to petty personal feuds than most.
Morzer
@Belafon:
ED Kain, as I recall.
SatanicPanic
@aimai: So many of us comment on both that all told it’s not that many people snarking on him. He probably takes way more abuse from one dumb comment over at Gawker than he gets here.
scuffletuffle
That was the most entertaining thread I’ve seen in the last couple of days…it got my morning off to a riotous start. Scared the kitties laughing, I did. Poor, poor trodden-on Freddie.
Morzer
@Amir Khalid:
YOU LIE!
(Sorry, my inner Joe Barton temporarily overcame the forces of light and justice.)
Trollhattan
Oh Lord, he’s gone mental. (Does he have a real “job”?)
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/05/lgm-hall-fame-induction-ceremony/comment-page-1#comment-1076957
scav
@Morzer: I was rather thinking it was also the sort of fame at any cost mentality, it doesn’t matter how or why or for what was likely as well. The Rob Ford / Donald Trump school of Politics: Academic polemic via autotune. He just hasn’t managed his full boy band status yet and is whimpering. Not that the “I have enemies, I must be correct!” self-justification-pleasuring isn’t a side-bennie.
Belafon
@Morzer: That’s right. Thanks.
ShadeTail
@aimai: Speaking for myself, it isn’t about sport. It’s about pointing out what a horrible person he is, and how wrong he is about everything. It’s important to not let assholes like that go unchallenged.
Alex S.
@Belafon:
That was Erik Kain (or Cain?). He is currently blogging about video games and fantasy on Forbes – which actually might be his true calling.
JustRuss
And there, kids, is the tell. (OK, one of them) I’ve had plenty of disagreements online, but I would never use the word “fight” to describe them. It’s entirely possible to discuss issues and disagree, that’s part of the process. Sure, snark and mockery are frequently involved, but I still wouldn’t characterize that as fighting.
Apparently people who go to blogs looking for a fight often get their feelings hurt. Whocouldanode?
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan: Give him a shovel, and he can’t stop himself from digging the hole deeper. It’s his nature.
FlipYrWhig
@Morzer: yeah, I get them mixed up. I can’t help it. Earnest white guys all sound alike.
Morzer
@scav:
Freddie’s biggest problem, leaving aside the ludicrous persecution complex and sexual pathologies, is that he just isn’t a very good writer. He makes sentences into rambling paragraphs and doesn’t seem to know which of several windmills he wants to tilt at on any given occasion.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
He’s cowering under a bed just thinking about that.
moderateindy
It is true that the left can be just as dogmatic, knee-jerk reactionary, and shrill as the right on some issues, nuclear power being an example.
But Freddie’s entire premise on this situation amounts to what exactly? If you act, and speak in a bigoted, or offensive manner there should be no pushback, or consequences? Eich should get a free pass because he has particular relgious beliefs? Those same beliefs, not so long ago, were used to object to inter-racial marriage. Perhaps we should give a pass to the terrorist group in Nigeria that kidnapped those girls when they sell them, because the leader said that Allah tells him he should sell them.
Of course I totally get Freddie’s motivations, and mind set. In his world he wants to say stupid crap, and not have any repercussions. Even if it’s simply people telling him he’s being a douche.
Morzer
@Alex S.:
Might be, but he really isn’t much fun to read. Say this for ED Kain, though, he is at least more concise than Freddie.
Belafon
@Alex S.: Thanks.
@FlipYrWhig: Especially when they’re in the same shade of black and white as every other writer on this blog.
Anoniminous
I thought BJ was a pack of snarling jackals writing hot and ill informed banter. But “an army of rabid, anonymous commenters” is pretty cool, also.
ETA: Too.
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: If it were BJ vs LGM the Balloon Juice sign would say “no puns! no droll humor! only angry rants! and fuck Freddie!”
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
To be fair, it’s a beautiful shovel and the soil is apparently pretty soft down there. Still….
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig: He’s a Leninist, like all contemporary American “conservatives”.
Schlemizel
I have a confession – I do not read every post nor every comment on BJ and even less of LGM (PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME BAD NAMES MY FRAGILE EGO CANNOT TAKE THAT!!) As a result I totally missed the pissing contest that set this off. How bad was it?
On one had I have some sympathy. It can be painful to br on the opposite side of an argument here. I have been called names & told to FOADIAF, thats not fun. OTOH, almost everyone on earth was born with a pair of gonads, nut up or egg up as the case may be & make your stand. If you really feel you are not making headway sigh and walk away. My guess is if we had these disagreements face to face we would still argue but the vitriol would be less, toughen up, know that the Internet is just a place and soldier on.
Schlemizel
@Morzer:
I had almost forgotten Eddy.
Damn you for reminding me!
raven
@Schlemizel: “almost everyone on earth was born with a pair of gonads” Uh, you sure about that?
SatanicPanic
@ShadeTail: Let’s not forget this latest battle started with his defense of Donald Sterling. I mean, I get that it must kind of suck for Freddie to have people going after him so hard, but damn, it’s hard to feel too sorry for a dude writing a defense of a man who denied people housing based on their race.
kwAwk
@FlipYrWhig:
Well as long as we’re in agreement that it is a hornet’s nest and not a bag of care bears…
Morzer
@Schlemizel:
I just wish we could have these disagreements face to face….
Morzer
@raven:
That was a hypothetical, not a statistic.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon: Yeah, that was ED Kain. I vividly recall when he made some utterly ridiculous assertion in an FP post, and the Juicitariat jumped on him like a duck on a June bug. He actually had the presence of mind to realize that the commenters had a more than valid point and reconsidered his position. This was a strong indication that he is not a totally useless waste of skin, unlike some other people we’ve encountered here.
FlipYrWhig
I just realized what this strategy is: to draw a foul, Freddie is (hilariously) flopping. He’s been whining to the blogospheric refs all day. Maybe he’s been watching a lot of Manu Ginobili lately.
Schlemizel
@raven: Yes:
The gonads in males are the testes, and the gonads in females are the ovaries
No higher source than wiki
shortstop
@raven: You don’t know what gonads means, do you?
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: From wikipedia:
So, pretty much, yes.
/shakefist Schlemizel
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
ED Kain has a sense of humor and can take a joke against himself, which puts him at a substantial advantage compared to Freddie.
West of the Rockies
Actually, this is rather sad. A few hours or days from now, most of us will have moved on with life, but this will become part of FdB’s personal mythology. A story to be remembered and repeated in tones of world-weary lamentation. For ne’er was there a story of more woe, than this of Freddy and his fragile ego.
RSA
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I’m not sure what a job would protect him against, in this context.
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: I must have missed that. I remember him whining a lot and then I stopped reading him.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop: “That word…it does not mean what you think it means.”
? Martin
@aimai:
That was always the problem he had here. He wanted to be treated like the NYT treats David Brooks, but he came here and got treated the way we treat David Brooks. He wanted to have a debate with the world, but not with us.
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk: well, I guess sometimes you’re the hornet, and sometimes you’re the guy with the stick. Welcome to the Internet, where people have opinions about things.
Schlemizel
@Morzer:
That would be grand. Not only would we be nicer to each other we could knock back a pint or two and have a good time. No matter how much we argue & snipe we can never forget the real enemy is trying to destroy us.
Villago Delenda Est
@West of the Rockies: So true.
raven
@shortstop: I do now.
shortstop
@West of the Rockies: And his humility. Don’t forget his oft-referenced humility.
shortstop
@raven: Here’s a couple of Cadbury creme eggs to celebrate. They’re a little stale from Easter, though.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: That sign probably is standing by hot and ready in Cole’s garage.
Morzer
@Schlemizel:
Joking aside, yes, it would be fun. I think that’s one thing Freddie doesn’t get – that people do just have fun online, that they don’t actually mean half of the things they say seriously, and that if you are going to prosper online you have to be able to laugh at yourself and not start a war with the world over every little thing someone else has a different viewpoint on.
kindness
Anyone have any word on how the meetup with Digby went last night? I was hoping for pics but alas.
Villago Delenda Est
More Noisemax inadvertent humor:
Megyn Kelly: Fox News Often Stands Alone
Sort of like the village idiot. Alone. Naked. In the middle of a field. In a snowstorm.
Villago Delenda Est
@kindness: There was a post about it in last night’s comments, can’t recall precisely where, but it was attended by other fabulous online celebrities as well.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well, what does Megyn Kelly expect to happen to a “news” organization that specializes in painting its face with its feces?
Villago Delenda Est
@Xantar: He behaves like one, despite his unsupported assertions to the contrary.
Schlemizel
@Villago Delenda Est:
I thought I’d catch hell for the ‘egg up’ part. I sort of like that as the alternate.
Villago Delenda Est
BTW everyone, happy VE Day. The day that Pat Buchanan mourns. The day that represents the death of the last hope for the Master Race.
FlipYrWhig
@? Martin: he doesn’t want a debate with the world, he wants the affirmation of the world that they were entirely wrong until they heard The Right Answer from him.
Schlemizel
@Morzer:
What I remember of Eddy is that he would drop these turds onto the front page and then never comment when called out. He cried to JC when called out on it & went off in a huff for a short time. Came back and discovered he could not defend 90% of the shit he was spewing against any sort of investigation and went away on reasonable terms. Freddy is a blank to me, don’t remember him here & never read him now.
Jewish Steel
@kwAwk:
Nothin’ gets past you!
Seriously though, the LGM-BJ cabal has me a little worried. I have head there is one dark wizard who can turn your comments to pie! I seen it!
Goblue72
@peach flavored shampoo: thanks for reminding me of that hot mess douche. He’s half the reason I gave up on the GOS.
(Just google my nym and Armando)
Morzer
@Schlemizel:
I’d have to defend ED Kain a bit here – he did respond in comments sometimes – and he was willing to rethink things somewhat when challenged. He certainly never descended to Freddie’s depths of raging self-pity against the cruel, cruel world.
Schlemizel
@Villago Delenda Est: So you don’t see the GOP being successful in the long run?
Citizen_X
@Schlemizel:
The People’s Front of Judea!
Schlemizel
@Schlemizel:
OH GEEEZZE – now I am exactly the horrible type of anonymous poster Fred warned me about ;'(
shortstop
@Schlemizel: Many years ago, when the internet was young and the ability of giant herds of the slavering unwashed to brutally victimize thoughtful, humble grad students was limited, I remarked admiringly of some female politician, “She’s got some ovaries on her.” Admittedly, this was far from the funniest thing I’ve ever said. But I didn’t expect two guys to get so enraged at my inapt analogy. They were really, really pissed that anyone would “appropriate the testes like that.” I thought they were joking and cracked up. They were not.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel: Dr. King I think had it right, for the long run. It will be slow, and it won’t be easy, but in the end (assuming we don’t all drown or get slagged by a passing asteroid) the current configuration of the GOP will lose.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop: ZOMG. What a weak set of balls on those two.
scav
Different cultures and classes and context have different bounds and modes of entirely licit and unproblematic disagreement and mocking and I’m thinking Internet norms count as their (choose from one of the above). People that can’t code-switch are rather disadvantaged. And they look silly, oh dear. Refusing to learn but only speaking your single language LOUDER AND REPEATEDLY while denigrating the natives in your under-breath rarely leads to successful interactions.
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: It was probably just shrinkage.
shortstop
@scav: Nicely done.
Goblue72
He is (unless he’s graduated) a PhD student in….wait for it, wait for it…Rhetoric & Composition.
He also likes really tight shirts –
http://fredrikdeboer.com/
Schlemizel
@Villago Delenda Est: So VE day really was the end of the last best hope for the master race.
Schlemizel
@shortstop:
I have sadly made the same mistake of assuming someone was joking only to discover they are really idiots. Such is life.
TooManyJens
@shortstop: Appropriate the Testes is the name of my new album.
Cassidy
@taylormattd: You forgot the liberaltarian, emoprog set. It’s not a good whine fest without them.
Morzer
@Goblue72:
“My name is Fredrikus Maximus Boricus, father to a murdered blog, husband to a murdered meme. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel: Yes, which is why Pat Buchanan has such a sad on this day.
Poor Sturmbahnführer Pat. The tragedy, it is so oppressive.
Villago Delenda Est
@Morzer: “If you’re looking for justice here, you’re looking in the wrong place”
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: You mean like asking “Do you have a rhume?” louder and louder until the guy behind the desk finally realizes that you meant a Zimmer?
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Or, if you mean John McCain, asking for a rheum with a view.
Villago Delenda Est
@Goblue72:
Good grief, I just startled cats two counties away by my ROTFLMAO.
ranchandsyrup
Someday (but it won’t be soon), our culture will rid itself of its addiction to adopting the victim’s stance in rhetoric. Maybe it will be Freddie’s thesis? Prolly not.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Freddie suffers from an affliction common to libertarians; when you fail to appreciate how groovy they and their ideas are they accuse you being too stupid to appreciate them.
Schlemizel
@Villago Delenda Est:
I was trying (and failing spectacularly) to suggest the the GOP was the last best hope but failed. It wasn’t a great joke, obviously worse than even I thought.
Pat will always be remembered for his great speech at the ’92 RNC and the great Molly Ivins response, “It probably sounded better in the original German.”
Tone In DC
@taylormattd:
I like it.
A Humble Lurker
@Morzer:
The word ‘vengeance’ doesn’t get used often enough in every day life.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: Maybe evaluating how people respond to ludicrously badly constructed arguments on the Internet is the fieldwork component of his dissertation.
scav
@FlipYrWhig: So he’s going for the big-data approach and building his own warehouse of auto-generated examples rather than free-range?
FlipYrWhig
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: but he’s not a libertarian either in argument or self-definition. He identifies as Left and blathers on about revolution and social justice, which only happens by the hard and serious work of because reasons, that’s why. Whatever is it, he’s the only one who’s figured it out, and everyone else is DOIN IT RONG. Feminists are doing feminism wrong, liberals are doing justice wrong, probably dogs are whizzing on fire hydrants wrong.
Elly
@aimai:
He’s not really a kid anymore… judging from this comment – http://www.theawl.com/user/4188/fb48804036/ – he was born ~1982, which makes him roughly 32 years old.
I’m with you, though… it’s like he’s walking around with a “kick me” sign on his back at this point. It almost feels cruel to continue mocking him.
FlipYrWhig
@scav: I was thinking of those social science experiments with the identical resumes topped by white-sounding and black-sounding names. But I like your hypothesis. There’s also a good chance he’s intent on running 10,000 iterations.
elm
For somebody who studies rhetoric and composition, he sure can’t write convincingly.
Example, from his recent attempt:
Rewrite to:
That takes 73 words down to 17 and delineates what he should try to demonstrate in the rest of his post. The shorter form also makes it clear that the claim is weak and uninteresting.
Richard Bottoms
Who in the hell is Fredrick DeBoer and why should I care?
I’ve been reading Balloon-Juice since the days before John Cole came to his senses about the GOP, libertarians, and Iraq.
So pardon me if I ask, who are you?
Seriously, I’ve never heard of you and while it’s possible I’ve read something you’ve written Fred, your existence was unknown to me until reading about your insignificant dispute with a guy who runs a blog.
Now it might be because I’m a Negro and I mainly focus on writers who take positions on issues of mass incarceration of black men for petty crimes like smoking weed and cops who shoot 93 year old women dead, or cops who murder car crash victims who make the mistake of looking black & scary.
I don’t have time for crybabies with hurt feelings.
There are real problems out in the world, including a pack of lawless a**holes next door in Nevada actively pursuing another Waco so they can have their Apocalypse. The only disappointment Sean Hannity has with Cliven Bundy is he didn’t die like he was supposed to, martyr to the cause of oppressed white men.
Grow the hell up.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@elm:
This. Freddie is verbose, priggish, thin skinned and utterly devoid of a sense of humor. That combination does not lend itself to successful blogging.
FlipYrWhig
@elm: there are certainly people who do that — feeding frenzies and dogpiles happen. There are also dumbfucks who say inflammatory or clueless things, then get dogpiled. Getting dogpiled for being a dink isn’t the same as getting dogpiled for being a brave truth-teller, but one of the things that makes dinks dinks is their tendency to confuse the two.
Frankensteinbeck
@shortstop:
This kind of ‘Ewww, a girl touched it!’ misogyny baffles me. It’s really ugly and hateful and not at all rare, either. It just makes no sense. It doesn’t control, it excludes. Why in Celestia’s name would a significant portion of the male population want to make women go away? Not keep them around to hurt them, not cozy up to them for sex, not patronize them as sex objects, but kick them entirely out of the tree house? Even for hate, that’s weird.
FlipYrWhig
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: unless you’re friends with a guy who happened to fall into a trove of classified documents.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel: Al Franken called the ’92 election for Clinton in the middle of that speech.
SatanicPanic
@elm: If the takeaway from that is- hey don’t defend racist people like Sterling because liberals will spend hours one-upping each other in their criticism of you- what am I supposed to be upset about? Good! That’s what you get!
JPL
@Richard Bottoms: He was a front pager here who had his feelings hurt by our mob mentality.
ellie
What the hell? I have been reading Balloon Juice all morning. Always on the wrong thread :(
ericblair
@FlipYrWhig:
Or when a writer gets a steady stream of complaints from readers that they can’t understand what he’s getting at. The successful writer will at least consider that it may have something to do with the writing. The less successful, won’t.
Ksmiami
@Richard Bottoms: exactly. With crumbling infrastructure, injustice and poverty why are we talking about this unlikeable douche?
LongHairedWeirdo
Um. I don’t want to take a side in the greater fight, but… Balloon Juice *is* a pretty big publication in the blog world. This comment is at least comment 172 on this thread. And it’s not uncommon for threads to go that high or a heck of a lot higher.
And if your readership engaged in a large scale mocking of anyone, it would be pretty nasty, too – I would have to forgive some bitterness if I had that size readership and my readers started mocking someone elsenet.
That said, heat, kitchens. Also too, if you think you are being bullied, don’t show that they’re getting under your skin or you invite further bullying.
Tim C.
I kinda liked ED Kain in a way. Not the best by any stretch, but he didn’t come off as a raging jerk to me. Looking at some of FdB’s other gems like “Liberals Secretly Want to Torture People”
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/12/torture-and-bad-faith
Look, this is a long standing thing. It’s an old argument. Do we take the best of the two candidates who we agree with on most things, or do we say that it’s a bridge to far and vote for our ideal candidate even if it means the absolute worst candidate will win. We’re gonna fight about that forever. It seems to be this formula.
1) Somebody in left blogistan in a comment said something sexist/racist/homophobic about something
2) Somebody else in left blogistan disagreed with me, maybe using harsh language.
3) 1+2 = Me never having to make a coherent point again and all my critics are the real monsters.
Finally, look I get the whole recording a private conversation as a way of possibly extorting money in a divorce settlement is creepy, but the level of exploitation in American sports that usually involves white owners against usually non-white athletes really does make a difference…. doesn’t it? And last I checked we weren’t governed by the NBA, so I’m not sure the whole freedom of speech thing applies…
Paul in KY
@Xantar: He sure sounded Libertarian to me.
Paul in KY
@Morzer: Case DeBoer is in motion at this very hour!
Richard Bottoms
@JPL: I take it he was one of those liberals helpfully doling out advice that we Negroes need to see the “big picture” about assholes like Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling?
You know what, fuck that. America still exists and is not Bosnia or Northern Ireland precisely because black folks turn the other cheek all the time.
Well to quote Elvis Costello, you won’t get to make a lampshade out of me.
Sean Hannity and his crew are salivating over the prospect of another Waco.
It’s they spark they need to set fire to the pool of gasoline Rush Limbaugh and the entire GOP have been pouring over the heads of scared old white people for three decades.
Liberals like Fred concern troll racist rich old white men ranting about the Negro instead of working on freeing thousands ground under the wheels of a 70 year old drug war, then wonder why no black person cares what they have to say.
fidelio
@Richard Bottoms: There’s a mountain range or two in the way but if you use a telescope and look east you can see me holding up a cigarette lighter.
This. So much this. FdB’s whining butthurt reflects the worldview of someone who has been sheltered from dealing with the real problems of life, and who has not chosen to go out and engage with any of them in a way that might cause pain, sweat, or dirty hands. He’s right up there with the 101st Chairborne and similar idiots in terms of actual comittment to the real work of making the world a better place. Which involves pain, sweat, dirty hands, aggravation, personal risk, disappointment and all of that.
Paul in KY
@raven: Females have ‘gonads’. It is where the eggs are.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I think he gets graded by number of words used.
Paul in KY
@Richard Bottoms: Well said!
Someguy
I wonder what would happen if somebody pointed out to Freddie’s employer that he is on the internet defending racists, rapists, anti-gay bigots and the like.
Morzer
@Someguy:
He’d probably get a gig as Donald Sterling’s body man (and silly rabbit).
Richard Bottoms
@Someguy: Somehow you manage to propose something stupider than the feud itself. Yes, we need blog police to track down someone writing words we don’t like.
Truly more important and effective than doing something about police shooting dead old women and unarmed black men.
Cliven Bundy was a martyr in waiting, the spark to set off the tender of dozens of armed whack jobs spoiling for a revolution.
Donald Sterling, the poster boy for rich old white men can do pretty much whatever they want.
The GOP is looking to eliminate any science research they don’t like, such as anything having to do with reproductive rights.
Voting rights and civil rights are under attack in a manner more nakedly racist than since the days of fucking Bull Connor and you think Fred DeBoer having an opinion you don’t like rates attacking his livelihood.
DeBoer does have one real point, there are some assholes on our side. Where he’s wrong is in thinking we don’t them call out.
Richard Mayhew
My biggest question about FDB is his belief that BJ and LGM are cooridinating the attack against him instead of a mutual opportunistic point and laugh Schelling point.
Has he seen how us frontpagers routinely bigfoot each other — he thinks we can coordinate with other writers at other sites if it does not involve puppy pictures— stop sniffing that glue
Richard Bottoms
It can be hard to accept most of the time we’re not that important to the course of history. Who gives a shit about some guy with an opinion.
Does FDB write legislation?
Does he run a federal agency, command troops, dole out millions in donations? If the answer to those questions is no, see above re: not that important.
And neither am I that important.
I just happen to work on software for a living, so I am online almost all the time and occasionally I take the opportunity to drop my 2 cents.
Morzer
@Richard Bottoms:
Leaving aside the silliness of much of what Freddie has done to himself today, I believe his original complaint was that someone had sent him an email consisting of just a picture of the building in which Freddie’s office is located. Freddie leapt to the conclusion that it was someone from the LGM commenters stalking him, although what his reason was for that belief I don’t know.
gorram
@Alex S.: To take your joke seriously, I didn’t even know about Balloon-Juice, and I remember when he and Sady Doyle (and others) got into a dust-up. If that’s the first war, then there’s at least one more between this and that – when he basically huffed away from Balloon-Juice. So, if we call them that, this is (at least) the third deboer war, indeed.
*waits for someone to add that there were even more multi-platform internet fights that he’s started*
Richard Bottoms
@Morzer: Yeah, that would freak me out too. Unless I was a public figure in the age of Google Maps and social networking.
I am going to guess he did something stupid like say where he works, perhaps tweeted from there with geo-location turned on?
Welcome to the 21st century.
If you don’t want to be known or tracked, don’t get in the public eye.
And see above re: not that important to the course of history.
Omnes Omnibus
@Richard Bottoms:
His blog showcases his complete academic CV including his address.
Richard Bottoms
@Omnes Omnibus: Dumbass. You run a political blog, that means you piss people off, me I keep my professional life and my snarky opinions separate. Not always successful as a strategy, but even assholes generally follow the rule that your personal life only matters if you raise it yourself.
Omnes Omnibus
@Richard Bottoms: Yeah, there are enough loons out there that it was a dumb move on his part. This, however, doesn’t remotely justify any kind of IRL threat against him.
Richard Bottoms
@Omnes Omnibus: Didn’t say it was justified. What I was saying was how could you not expect that it might and thus take steps to mitigate it?
This is the 21st Century, so you can find anyone, anywhere on the planet… eventually, the key is not making it so easy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Richard Bottoms: I wasn’t suggesting that you said that. I was just being careful not to say anything that could be interpreted as a “He was asking for it” statement.
Richard Bottoms
@Omnes Omnibus: My mistake, I was relying on reading comprehension to do the same thing.
Captain C
@FlipYrWhig:
The first person who calls you an @$$hole is probably just jealous of your talent. The hundredth, well, they’re probably on to something.
(paraphrased from a quote by Mara Wilson)
InternetDragons
@Richard Bottoms
I like you. Post more often.
It’s always so refreshing to get a dose of thinking from those grounded in the cool, crisp breezes of reality. There are many who comment on this blog that fit that lovely category, and any one of them is worth more than the mewling, narcissistic FDBs of the world. Spare me from their ilk.
Some of us are focused on trying to create positive change in this world. That makes it pretty much impossible to take someone like him even remotely seriously, and I say that as someone who is in a work environment that’s actually pretty academic at times. I’m in public health, though, so we do tend to be brought back down to earth by details like folks dying without health care. Makes it hard to think the world revolves around arcane internet disputes.
Richard Bottoms
@InternetDragons: I take pride that back in day, before John Cole wised up he once told me to go fuck myself for needling him so hard about Iraq being a disaster. I managed to survive without looking for a fainting couch.
Geeno
@Amir Khalid: That’s why I love these people – even the ones I hate.
Richard Bottoms
@Geeno: I learned not to let blogs consume my day, I have software to write so I leave the battlefield to others.
Play nice, and remember our job is to beat Republicans and to definitely kick them when they’re down, right in the nuts. Figuratively speaking, for you literal types.
Hillary in the study, with a lead pipe.
Morzer
@InternetDragons:
How can one be grounded in a breeze?
Just askin’.
mtiffany
Short deBoer: “It’s a heavy, heavy burden being the only intellectually honest person on Earth. I deserve a cookie. Or sainthood.”
If he weren’t so high from huffing his own farts
deBoorish (was that too ad hominem?)deBoer might understand that individuals, by definition, are not going to perfectly agree with everything every definable group or consituency stands or advocates for. He thinks himself a principled dissenter when in fact he’s just a reflexive contrarian; of course everyone who has ever been two years old has already learned that skill. The rest of us just outgrew it.FlipYrWhig
@mtiffany: even shorter de Bo(n)er: “I like to argue.” He really enjoys the give. Not so much for the take, tho.
Figs
Has anybody pointed out that he’s excoriating internet commenters for saying what they want “without consequence”, right after he defended Donald sterling against any and all consequences for what he said?
different-church-lady
@Morzer:
Every Wednesday at 4:45 PM, following afternoon tea.
different-church-lady
@LongHairedWeirdo:
That is the saddest thing I’ve ever read about the blog world in my life.
different-church-lady
@Figs:
Yes.
different-church-lady
@Xantar:
Apparently he’s a socialist.
different-church-lady
SEAGOON: I tell you, Major Bloodnok, I must ask you to parade your men.
BLOODNOK: Why?
SEAGOON: I’m looking for a criminal.
BLOODNOK: You find your own, it took me years to get this lot!
neoconstantine
Sorry, is Freddy(Freddie) DeBoers a real person? Sounds like a P.G.Wodehouse character. One of the dimmer ones.
Morzer
@neoconstantine:
He’s Gussie Fink-Nottle, but without the good manners.
Annamal
@different-church-lady:
Bwahahhahaha
Goons forever.
Paul in KY
@Richard Bottoms: Rock on!
LAC
@Ripley: correction: the white guy blogger- there, that clears up things and I can make him out. Wow…still don’t care