Martyr of the Day: Mark Butterworth
Via Digger, it seems a blogger named Mark Butterworth is whining over Stephen and Virginia Pearcy’s threats to sue him for urging people to contact her employer over their obnoxious, hateful but constitutionally protected displays they’ve been placing on their second home. In a follow-up, Mark complains that the Blogosphere hasn’t overwhelmingly risen to his defense. In my opinion, the Blogosphere should indeed speak up, but only to tell Mark he’s full of crap. As vile as the Pearcys’ views may be, it’s one thing to criticize them in the Blogosphere (as I myself have done), and quite another to go after someone’s job over something like this. I’ll leave to the labor and tort attorneys to decide whether or not the Pearcys have a valid cause of action against Butterworth. All I’m going to say is that there is an ethical line here, and Mark Butterworth has crossed it. Freedom of speech is for everyone, not just for conservatives.
Ace of Spades has more.
UPDATE: In a snotty email, Butterworth insults my abilities as a lawyer for even entertaining the possibility that his assholery may be actionable. He appears to be relying on two cases, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982) and Organization for a Better Austin v. Keefe, 402 U.S. 415 (1971), to which he was referred by Eugene Volokh. I’ll reserve judgment on the legal issues until I’ve had the opportunity to review these cases myself, but will note that even if the cases prove Butterworth to be right on the law, that doesn’t make him any less of a prick for doing what he’s doing.
UPDATE x2: As Kevin Murphy has rightly noted in a comment, these two cases are not on point. One applies only to prior restraints, the other to politically motivated boycotts of businesses. Neither comes close to dealing with anyone attempting to use anyone’s employer as a means to go after him for expressing unpopular political views off the job.
UPDATE x3: Commenter Mikem thinks I’m being too hard on this guy, so here’s a sampling of what a sweetheart he is. I’ll spare you the details of his first email, which he may have sent with the unreasonable expectation that it would be kept private. In my reply to that moron-mail, I made no bones of the fact that anything he said could and would be used against him, so he can scarcely complain about me reproducing this
From: Mark Butterworth
To: Xrlq
Sent: 19 Apr 2005 11:31:46
Subject: thoughtless nonsense
Well, at least he got that part right.
Sir,
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/Sheehan_v_Experian/19980817_dwyer.order
… Which points to a court order denying a TRO against a guy maintaining a gripe site about Experian. Yeah, that’s exactly what Butterworth’s case is about. It’s also a District Court ruling, not a “circuit” court ruling as the legal eagle claimed in his prior hatemail. The distinction is important because one sets a binding precedent while the other does not. Not that it would much in his case even if it did, of course, but even a vaguely relevant precedent means more than no precedent at all.
http://www.aclu-wa.org/Issues/cyber-liberties/sheehanbrief.html
… Which provides rock-solid proof that … the ACLU agrees with the above-referenced ruling.
I have all the confidence in the world because the case is essentially open and shut.
Yes, of course. After all, if one judge in Washington rules that a huge credit agency can’t obtain injunctive relief against a guy who gripes about their business practices, surely every judge must agree that no one can sue anyone for meddling with their job over a dispute having nothing to do with their business. I mean, that’ s so blindingly obvious. How could anyone not see it?
Your disservice lies in attempting to practice law, not serve the blogosphere.
There you go. Some schmoe who can’t even compose a grammatically correct sentence, and almost certainly couldn’t get into an accredited law school, nevertheless knows enough to tell ME how to do my job.
If you maintain a serious disagreement with me, take it up with my advisor, Eugene Volokh of the Volokh Conspiracy, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, the ACLU, and The California Anti-SLAPP Project (CASP).
None of whom, I might add, have weighed in on this controversy, at least not publicly.
What is it about the profession of law which seems to bring out the thug and punk in people? You and Pearcy seem two of an arrogant kind though perhaps opposites in politics.
Got that? Butterworth acts like a Class A prick, trying to get someone fired over their political views expressed off the job, and that makes me the bully for telling him he’s acting like a jerk.
May you have a nice day.
Why thank you, I will. May yours be filled with the blogstorm you whined for, minus the sympathy you essentially claimed as an entitlement.
Mark
Hmm, maybe the real question is, what is it about guys named Mark?
UPDATE: Looks like the new Marky-Mark has something else in common with the other Marky-Mark: both have self-published books they hawk on Amazon. This Mark’s book has an average customer review rating of 4 1/2 stars, which sounds pretty impressive until you notice that this average consists of one 4 start rating by some guy who thinks it “bridges all religons,” and one 5 star rating by … Mark Butterworth. How lame is that?
UPDATE x2: Claire dissents, at least on the crushing of dissent issue. Presumably not on the “reviewing your own book on Amazon is hella-lame” issue.
April 18th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Those two cases don’t apply. Keefe is about prior restraint, and NAACP is about boycotting businesses to force political change in a county.
If I were Digger, the one that would really worry me is Batzel v Cramer (AKA Batzel v Smith):
April 18th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
Why should I worry about that? I never published their email or urged anyone to contact their employers. I also didn’t report them for any crime to any legal authority or attempt to file suit against the Pearcy’s on behalf of anyone.
All I did was publish information as it came in and commented on it.
April 18th, 2005 at 11:30 pm
[...] orts on good polling from Iraq that has gone underreported from the MSM. XRLQ weighs in here on the underwhelming response to threats made to sue a certain blogger w [...]
April 19th, 2005 at 12:13 am
Stephen And Virginia Pearcy Threaten Bloggers With Lawsuits
You remember the Pearcy’s, the ones who hung a soldier effigy from their second house in Sacramento while they ran off to Berkeley forcing their neighbors and tenants to deal with the fallout of their political hate speech. Well…
April 19th, 2005 at 12:49 am
Digger–
Actually, if they complained about you reposting the tenant’s claims, you’d have a defense in Batzel. Although if you now believed that the tenant’s claims were suspect, you’d do well to mention that in an update.
Doesn’t help Butterworth, though.
April 19th, 2005 at 12:52 am
It only provides limited help to Digger, either. Note that he didn’t just repost their message, he added commentary of his own which treated it as factually sound. Which is fine – if it is.
April 19th, 2005 at 4:08 am
Why the viciousness, xlrq? I am one of your fans, I read your comments at Patterico’s and I usually find myself in agreement with you. But this looks like turf protection to me.
This is not a blogger versus blogger dispute that should not go further. This is an understandable reaction to a mean hateful campaign by the couple against a large number of people. It is also very public, at the obvious wish of the couple.
I can see where private communications or disagreements should not involve employers, but this is decidedly not one of those, i.e., private or personal.
April 19th, 2005 at 8:04 am
How so? Butterworth is mad at the Pearcys over their political speech. So am I. But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to go to their bosses and try to get them fired. If it were, all political bloggers with day jobs should shut down their blogs right now, because regardless of political orientation, if you say what you mean and mean what you say, it’s almost a given that some reader somewhere is going to be offended by it. And if conservatives give this Butterworth joker a pass, we’ll be in no position to complain when the moonbat bloggers won’t step up to the plate to help us.
That’s a slippery slope I don’t even want to begin sliding down. It has nothing to do with turf protection. AFAIK the Pearcys aren’t bloggers, so even if it were about turf protection, I’m not even sure what turf to protect. What you call viciousness, I call following the Golden Rule. I’m coming down just as hard on Butterworth as I would want liberal bloggers to do if a rogue liberal blogger did the same thing to someone whose publicly expressed views offend the left just as much as the Pearcys offend the right.
April 19th, 2005 at 2:58 pm
You have to love a lawyer who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, the very cases and issues involved, doesn’t do his homework, and shoots his mouth off without knowing even the basics facts.
Hmm, sounds just like the Pearcys. Pathetic.
April 19th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
The Pearcys work for Orrick in San Francisco. Doing what they’re doing wins them brownie points around the office.
April 19th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
To explain, by turf protection I meant lawyer’s turf, not blogger’s turf. Protecting the ‘jump factor’ that lawyers enjoy when they threaten to use their credentials to bring down financial disaster upon the disrespectful.
I’ll say again (grumble), this is not a blogger-blogger dispute. You use an example of slippery slope that deals with a different type situation. You are not the only blogger who is doing that, but it is frustrating to make a point based on the facts and have it transformed into a dissimilar example.
The Pearcy’s have, very publicly and very proudly, been hanging American servicemen in effigy. When told that they were offending people, they reacted by increasing their protected activity. They are not bloggers expressing an opinion on their website, which is a situation that I could understand bloggers being wary of.
What if they were hanging a ’suit’ with a “lawyer” sign around its neck? Or a ‘rabbi’ with “Jew”? I know that you would be as outraged as I am, xlrq, but would you still call a blogger an asshole or prick for suggesting that other lawyers or Jews (or anybody) let their employer know that they will not do business with their hateful employee?
I think that Mark Butterworth could do a better job of ingratiating himself to the lawyers who can help him, but he shouldn’t have to do it in the first place. I don’t blame him for being angry. He deserves support. He is standing up for our troops and deserves better than being called an asshole and prick.
April 19th, 2005 at 6:47 pm
Butterworth is an arrogant S.O.B. who knows nothing about the law, yet considers himself qualified to comment on my abilities as a lawyer. To say he could do a better job ingratiating himself is a bit of an understatement, to say the least.
I’m not sure why you see the slippery slopes as dissimilar. No, the Pearcys aren’t bloggers, but yes, the issue is exactly the same. If it’s OK to try to get Virginia Pearcy fired (illegally, I might add) over an obnoxious political display on her own house, how can it not be OK to do the same thing to any blogger who offends you (e.g., Markos “Screw Them” Zuniga)? Freedom of speech shouldn’t mean one thing in the Blogosphere and another everywhere else. If I have a right to speak my mind on my blog, the Pearcys have a right to speak theirs in other venues, and anyone who would interfere with either rightly deserves to be called a prick, or worse.
I should note further that as ugly as their message may be, it’s not what you suggest it is. Each time they’ve hung their fake dead soldier, it has been accompanied by a clearly visible sign reading “Bush Lied, I Died.” It should be clear to anyone who isn’t trying to misunderstand their message that they are blaming President Bush for the deaths of soldiers, not advocating that anyone should murder them. That pretty much kills your analogy to the lawyer or rabbi effigy.
Browse my archives for a while, and I think you’d be hard pressed to say with a straight face that I pull punches for lawyers. Quite the opposite; if anything I’m more likely to lambaste lawyers than non-lawyers for crappy legal-ish arguments, both because I expect lawyers to know certain things the average citizen can be excused for not knowing, and because bad lawyers reflect poorly on my profession as a whole. Besides, if this were really about protecting any kind of turf, don’t you think I’d side with the conservative blogger, with whom I automatically have two things in common, over the ultra-liberal, possibly overlitigious Berkeley liberals, with whom I share nothing in common except a profession (and, in Virginia Pearcy’s case, an alma mater)?
Sorry, I just don’t work that way. If anything, I may be a bit harder on the Pearcys because they have the potential to make me look bad as a lawyer, and I’m probably also a bit harder on Butterworth than I would be on a liberal who was equally hostile to the free exchange of ideas. As conservative bloggers, I believe we have a duty to police our own. I think it’s a good thing most of the flak he’s caught thus far comes from fellow conservatives, and not from liberals who would gladly pounce on the issue to prove that conservatives generally oppose free speech.
As to “standing up for the troops,” I’m not a military man myself, but have to think that if I were, I’d resent this guy even more than I do. My response, I suspect, would be along the lines of “Great, I risked life and limb ending fascism abroad, just so this little twerp could create his own brand of it here!” But my conjectures of what I would think under the circumstances are relatively unimportant compared to what the real military guys do think. Hopefully some of the milbloggers will soon chime in.
April 19th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
Butterworth is truly an idiot! He’s one of those pathetic soles who rotely repeats that same old cliche, “Free speech has consequences.” He expects that statement to end the discussion.
Well, Mr. Misguided-Issue-Spotter-Butterworth, if something said is “free speech,” then, by definition, it is “protected speech.” That means it’s supposed to be protected from UNLAWFUL consequences.
When the Pearcys placed the dummy on their house, they engaged in protected speech. Butterworth’s defamatory speech and tortious interference with Ms. Pearcy’s business relationship–his so-called “consequences”–were not protected speech. His “consequences” are exactly the kind of thing from which the First Amendment is intended to protect us all.
Butterworth is an idiot who gives conservatives a bad name!
April 19th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
I didn’t mean he should ingratiate himself to you, just the lawyer community in general. If my sense of the timeline is right, you had already called him a prick right out of the gate. I wouldn’t expect him to blow kisses in response.
I really wish you had responded to my hypothetical regarding lawyers and/or Jews. I waste a lot of time posing hypotheticals to leftist websites that never get answered, for what I think are obvious reasons, and I was hoping you would actually answer.
I don’t buy into the explanation you offer for the Pearcy’s action. If you truly believe that they are not actually hanging a soldier in effigy, but instead simply criticizing Bush, well, we probably will never see eye to eye on this. I will say that, being a former Marine and not a miliblogger, I am outraged by the Pearcy’s actions although I understand that it is free speech to hang the image of my fellow Marines, but hate speech to hang the image of most anybody else. That is the problem with serving your country. The satisfaction must come from within because for sure many will hate you for defending ‘amerikkka’ and many others will turn away from defending you in fear of being isolated, smeared and sued like Butterworth.
I definitely don’t agree with your interpretation of their message. Again, I’ll ask this: Would you grant a similar interpretation to a hanging black man or Jew, especially if the hanger was a well advertised opponent of their symbolic victim?
Many people have pointed out that Pearcy’s employer is already well aware of his activity. That seems obvious to me also, since the Pearcy’s have gone out of their way to publicize their status of ‘just trying to support the troops’. So essentially Butterworth is guilty of supporting a boycott against an organization that considers the Pearcy’s public campaign to be acceptable. Or do you believe that they would not get rid of someone who hung a Jew or black American in effigy?
April 19th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
First of all, let’s get the time line straight. I didn’t call him any names off the bat. I told him in a comment, politely but firmly, that he had crossed an ethical line and may have crossed a legal one as well. He responded with a string of insults. Then I called him a prick. Then he responded with further insults, which are the ones I reproduced here. I suppose I could post his original message, too, but seeing as I had not yet warned him that anything he said was liable to be republished, I thought it best not to.
Second, I’m happy to answer your lawyer/Jew hypo, but I’m not going to pretend a good analogy is a bad one. If the effigy had been of a lawyer, I probably wouldn’t care. If if were of a Jew, I would. [Yes, I am a lawyer. No, I'm not Jewish.]
Third, hanging a black or Jew in effigy probably would not be protected political speech. Hanging a soldier in effigy in the sense you accuse the Pearcys off may or may not be, but it would be close. Doing so the way they did it – where it was clear the target of their hatred was Bush – is not. Using images of dead soldiers as a way to get at their political enemy is a sick thing to do, but it’s not the same thing as advocating the murder of soldiers. In fact, it’s not even compatible with advocating the murder of soldiers. If the Pearcys’ intended message was that killing soldiers is cool, why would they say “Bush lied, I died?” Surely you’re not arguing that that was intended to be a pro-Bush statement!
April 19th, 2005 at 10:06 pm
I guess I wasn’t clear in stating my hypothesis. I’m not asking whether or not my examples are objectionable. They certainly are and they are certainly protected free speech, especially once I added that magical sign that says ‘Abortion is killing black men’, or ‘Zionism is killing Jews’. Hey, all of a sudden my apparant hate becomes support.
My hypothesis is: Would Jewish and Black bloggers be pricks and a disgrace to free speech if they called for a boycott of my employer, or for my employer to fire me?
April 19th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
Let’s put Mr. Xrlq’s precipitously bad, gratuitous advice and vulgar comments aside for the moment and break things down. What I have done is say to someone, in essence, “If I were you, I’d fire that rotten so and so for what they did. And I hope you get the same advice from a million other people.”
Mr. 4 Consonants (sp?) fears a slippery slope of any or all bloggers having their bosses told the same thing from some adversary. That is entirely the risk of free speech. Someone may hold you to account for thoughtful or careless words and make you pay for them. That’s the risk every time you publish your opinion, thoughts, or beliefs. Everytime you shoot your mouth off at the water cooler. (Sexual harrassment, anyone?)
No one is entitled to keep a job when they offend their employers or customers unless they have a contract which cannot be broken no matter what. (That’s ideal and not how the world quite works, okay? I know that, but the principle was once active without restriction, and acts as an underlying foundation that hasn’t entirely vanished from the law and the freedom of association.)
Obviously, no one wants to be fired for what they do on their blogs or in the streets, or outside their homes in public — but it is perfectly acceptable to the principle of free speech that you may suffer because of others protesting, complaining, boycotting, shunning, and insulting you.
That is why the prinicple of free speech is so radical and frightening. That is what my forefathers died for. The idea that we should tolerate any “protected” speech is absurd. You can say it, but it doesn’t mean you won’t pay for it.
Now the Pearcys threaten to make me to pay for my free speech which a few consider unprotected. I say my speech is protected, but anyone who wants to boycott Amazon (or tell them to cut me loose) for selling my book or for archiving my music for download is free to do so and damage my income. The same with Blogger or Surewest or whatever server handles my traffic. They can call or email my wife’s employer and complain about us to them and get her fired.
What they can’t do is lie about us, libel or defame us in order to damage us. I haven’t done that to the Pearcys.
I’m sure 4 Consonants will have lots of niggling legalisms to brandish at me, but I believe I have essentially stated the case as my forefathers would have understood it and how our men and women in Irag and elsewhere understand it. If our present courts don’t understand this, then heaven help us.
April 19th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
I haven’t followed the details of this, but I do think that contacting people’s employers over non work-related speech Is generally uncool. I would think the presumption should be strongly against it.
April 20th, 2005 at 7:05 am
Mikem, I think we need to define our terms more clearly. When you say “protected” speech, do you mean speech protected against the government by the First Amendment, speech protected against your employer by the Labor Code, or speech protected by an unwritten moral code, the violation of which makes one a prick? There’s no question that if Mark Butterworth were a government entity, he’d be unconstitutional. But he’s not, so the Constitution is irrelevant. He is, however, encouraging an employer to violate the law (see, e.g., Sections 1101 and 1102 of the California Labor Code), but more importantly, he’s being a bully trying to chill the free exchange of ideas, and that would make him a prick even if he were in the right from a legal standpoint.
Pure, otherwise apolitical hate speech gets First Amendment protection, but I’m not sure it gets Labor Code protection, and I am sure it contributes little or nothing to the public debate. I still don’t think anyone should be going after anyone else’s job over it, but frankly I wouldn’t blame a bunch of Jews who went after a guy who hanged Jews in effigy, or a bunch of blacks who went after the guy who did the same to blacks. If Butterworth were military himself, and acted out of a mistaken perception that the Pearcys were advocating his murder (or, for that matter, out of an accurate perception that they were cynically using him in a sleazy way to get at their real enemy, the Republicans), I’d more be inclined to cut him some slack, too. Or at least, I would have been until he went off on me. Which, may I remind you, proceeded (and, to a limited extent, caused) my calling him bad names.
April 20th, 2005 at 7:59 am
No one is entitled to keep a job when they offend their employers or customers unless they have a contract which cannot be broken no matter what.
I think that’s the flaw in your analysis. California labor law tends to see it differently, rightly or wrongly. In addition, the fact that you are neither the employer or a customer is going to present a problem.
BTW, as an employer, I believe that my employees get to do what they want off the job. I tend to be pretty flexible with on-the-job speech as long as the work gets done. So I don’t think California law is wrong on the issue.
April 20th, 2005 at 8:40 am
What the discussion might better focus on is how to damage our political enemies in a perfectly legal manner rather than the specifics of one case.
While the government has no business punishing speech any more than it does religious choice, properly crafted protest and boycotts are another matter.
For example, if one wishes to boycott a business because of the actions of an employee, but does not libel, slander, or make assertions of fact that cannot be proven, then this should be explored.
Leftists deserve no mercy, so how may we legally do the most damage possible to them on every level? How can we legally work around worker protection laws? How can we give employers information kits so they can blacklist employees legally, impede or terminate their careers, etc?
Finding conservative employers is easy enough for us. Let’s give the Leftists (who are now making common cause with Jihadists) hell. Politics is war, our enemies are dedicated to destroying the West, so let’s be creative and have at them. We need a blacklist toolkit.
April 20th, 2005 at 10:08 am
It seems to me that attacking others for their speech in any way other than to disprove their speech is childish and admitting defeat. If you can’t make them look stupid by refuting what they are saying and attack their very lives (through their livelihood) you are a very small person who I wouldn’t want on my side no matter what the law says.
XLRQ, I’m sure you rembember Barney the Netkkkop from the Emperor’s place. I thought he was a jackass for trying to get somebody fired. And I think Butterworth is just as much a jackass.
The link really is good because the Emperor is a master of invective and netkkkops really set him off. It’s beautiful to behold.
I also agree that conservative bloggers should police their (our) own. Let the liberals be the hypocrites and change the way they feel depending on whether or not it is good for them.
April 20th, 2005 at 10:10 am
You say XRLQ, I say XLRQ. Who’s to say who’s right?
April 20th, 2005 at 10:33 am
The Barney the Netkkkop episode was freaking hilarious. All I have to add…
April 20th, 2005 at 11:31 am
To the leftist ‘lurqer’ trying to sell himself as a typical conservative commenter out to silence all who disagree with him, I give an ‘F’. One need only glance at leftist controlled campuses and their speech codes, newspaper trashings and the successful attempts to marginalize conservatives to recognize the ideological underpinnings of your strategy.
Xrlq: Protected as in constitutionally protected. Again, that was not the area of my question. But you did answer it, in a way. I assume that ‘I would not blame them’ is a no answer to my question and I support your position. So now I have to just accept the fact that those who serve and in this case, die for their country do not deserve the same respect or support. I’ll accept that you disagree with that, but what else differentiates your strict condemnation of Butterworth’s actions from your ‘I wouldn’t blame them’ acceptance of those who would do the same for other groups?
As to the name calling, I am not going to chase around to a dozen websites for comments left by the two of you, but from looking at just two or three, my impression is that it started from you, but I could be wrong.
I know from reading your comments over a long period of time that you are not anti-American or objectively anti-military. There are few comments that you have made that I find myself in strong disagreement with. But I object to your leaving Butterworth out to dry and giving support to the Pearcy’s attempts to silence him for defending our military dead. I think you have to really reach to conclude that the Pearcy’s are not trying to be disrespectful to our war dead, but are just protesting Bush. Their politics, as they display them publicly, would not lead to that conclusion. They were told that they were hurting our servicemen and women with their display and they laid it on thicker. And the fact that you understand a Butterworth doing what he did to protest an idiot who hangs a ‘Black American’ with an anti-’anything’ sign as cover, pretty much leaves free speech principles behind as a argument in your favor.
Veterans put up with vicious hateful speech, protests and discrimination during and long after Vietnam. So why does the military still not qualify as deserving of Butterworths type of support, when other groups do?
April 20th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
First, let’s dispose of the name calling canard once and for all:
You don’t need to “chase” anything. You’ve already commented on the same entry where I first commented, so you know full well that I didn’t call him any names then. He responded to that comment with a highly abusive email. By the time I read it (and, probably by the time he sent it) this blog entry was up, but none of the updates were, the first being in response to his abusive email.
So enough with the bit about me starting the name calling. That simply did not happen.
Yes, but. “I wouldn’t blame them” is not the same thing as saying “it was the right thing to do.” Note that in your example, you asked if I would call a Jew or black guy a prick for pulling a Butterworth on a guy who hung members of his respective race in effigy. I said no. It would be the wrong thing to do, but it would be an understandable response from an aggrieved party, which is different from bully tactics from a self-styled net cop.
Perhaps you should re-read my previous comment before continuing this discussion further. Pay special attention to this part:
Last and least, if caring more about maintaining the free exchange of ideas than helping Klansman stay anonymous makes me a hypocrite in your book, so be it. FWIW, California law agrees with me on this point, providing some protection to all lawful employee conduct off the job, but more to political activities in particular.
April 20th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
As to the name calling, I read you calling him an asshole, a prick and an SOB, all in public view. You reference a private email exchange that I can’t see, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt as to the content.
When I commented about this earlier, on my life, I thought you might come back and say this if I called you on it. That’s enough for me trying to pin your high principles down. We could do this for days and I will never get you to take a clear stand. Again, you infer that Butterworth does not deserve the same consideration because he is not actually armed forces. Again, I wonder if you have the same standard for non-Blacks or non-Jews who speak up for those groups.
Also, in your comment above (”…bully tactics from a self-styled net cop.) and in earlier posts and comments, you have tried to paint this as a blogger versus blogger dispute. I have seen this used to place Butterworth’s position in an incorrect context so many times I have become convinced that it is a deliberate tactic. It doesn’t help your side to be seen as misrepresenting the picture to garner support. Butterworth blogged about a well publicized campaign to insult the military dead under cover of a Bush protest, not another bloggers comment or internet activity.
April 20th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
My stance has been clear all along, even as you’ve been doing your damnedest NOT to see it. People should not attempt to stifle other people’s free speech, they really shouldn’t do so by attempting to get them fired over non-work related activities, and they reall, really, really shouldn’t do so in states where actually terminating the employee under those circumstances is illegal. Is that not clear enough? The rest is just distractions. Are there certain extenuating circumstances where I’d have a hard time getting too mad at somebody for violating these basic principles. Sure. A black or a Jew as a target of an effigy burning is one such situation. Some random guy in Sacramento with nothing better to do than issuing fatwahs against people he doesn’t even know, is not.
I never claimed this was a blogger vs. blogger dispute, and frankly, I’m not sure why you keep bringing it up. Do you really think it’s better to use one’s blog to harass a non-blogger than it is to use it to harass another blogger? Or casually assume that Bullyworth’s next target (or that of anyone, liberal, conservative or otherwise who may copy his tactics in the future) won’t be a blogger? I certainly don’t, and neither does Bullyworth himself.
Your “this isn’t a blogger vs. blogger” argument is probably the most bizarre part of this thread. One minute you’re falsely accusing me of defending territory, the next you’re bashing me for not treating the issue as territorial enough. Make up your mind already. Am I allowed to support everyone’s free speech, or am I supposed to support it only for my own kind?
April 20th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
“I never claimed this was a blogger vs. blogger dispute, and frankly, I’m not sure why you keep bringing it up.”
You just now called Butterworth a “net cop”. Is it that unreasonable for me to assume you meant net cop? Am I reading too much into that by saying you are portraying this as a net dispute and not what it actually is?
“One minute you’re falsely accusing me of defending [lawyer's] territory, the next you’re bashing me for not treating the issue as territorial enough.”
I have no idea what the second part means. Honestly, I’m not being cute. I just don’t understand what you are referring too.
You make a clear statement, in absolutist terms, of your position on free speech. Although I think there should be exceptions, I admire a clear stand. But then I note your previous remark that “Third, hanging a black or Jew in effigy probably would not be protected political speech.” (And I agree it should not be protected.) Of course, you are not saying that you agree that this is fair to the ‘protesters’ but you certainly don’t protest it or indicate your disapproval. I think it is not unreasonable for me to wonder what your clear stand is.
“Sure. A black or a Jew as a target of an effigy burning is one such situation. Some random guy in Sacramento with nothing better to do than issuing fatwahs against people he doesn’t even know, is not.”
Oh well. …random guy in Sacramento (I doubt if you actually know Butterworth either [I don't], let alone what connection he or family members might have to the military) …issuing fatwahs (no need to comment)… people he doesn’t even know (HUH?).
“Am I allowed to support everyone’s free speech, or am I supposed to support it only for my own kind?”
Good one. Forgive me but…Is Butterworth allowed to support the dead soldiers’ dignity, or is he supposed to support it only for his own kind? (Assuming you are right and he does not have some military connection)
April 20th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
It certain is from his end. I use the term “net cop” because that is the way he is operating, just like Bend Over Barney did a couple years back. That he’s using the net to go after someone else off the net is a minor detail, that certainly doesn’t make his behavior any more benign. If anything, less so, as it suggests that not only isn’t free speech safe on the net, it’s not safe anywhere else, either. So if there’s a problem with calling him a net cop, it’s only that I’m being too generous. What he really is is a net cop who can’t even stay within his jurisdiction as a net cop.
You’re right, that is confusing in this context, through no fault of yours or mine. Up until your 11:31 a.m. comment, we both used the phrase “protected speech” to refer to do different things. You were thinking First Amendment, I was thinking Labor Code. The First Amendment clearly protects hate speech, even to the point of allowing Nazis to march in Skokie, but it does not apply to private employers. What does apply is the Labor Code which, in California at least, prohibits employers from firing or not hiring employees on account of their political views, but which AFAIK does not apply similar protections to hate speech. [Then again, I suspect that most public hate speech is political speech, so it may well qualify for protection on that basis.]
Now that we are clear on the terminology, allow me to rephrase the prior comment:
Morally, I think it’s wrong to go after someone’s job over any lawful speech or conduct done off the job, off the job premises, etc. I don’t think it’s as bad to harass haters as it is to harass dissidents, but I do think both are wrong, nevertheless. Legally, (under the Labor Code, that is) it’s a bit murkier, as the political speech protections may not apply, but there is still some protection for any legal activities outside of work hours and off the company premises. Plus, as odd as it may sound, situations have occured where a third party was held to tortiously induced an employer to breach an employment contract by termination an employee, even though the underlying contract between the employer and the employee was at-will. So any campaign like Butterworth’s potentially runs the risk of lawsuits, not just angry blog entries like mine.
Of course he is allowed to support their dignity. Everyone should. That was never the issue. The issue is how, and issuing workplace-fatwahs ain’t it.
April 20th, 2005 at 8:24 pm
XRLQ: Hopefully some of the milbloggers will soon chime in.
I did chime in two days ago here.
April 20th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
D’oh! I knew that.
April 21st, 2005 at 6:51 pm
OK, Everybody: Time Out, Dammit!
We swear: Every bloody time we think everything is alright with this world, some looney tunes on our side of the fence decides to cross over the line and force us to come to the defense of people we normally…
April 21st, 2005 at 9:02 pm
Chuckle. The Idiotarian says “we’d have had no beef with that” if someone beat up the Pearcys for their display but that what Butterworth did is as releveant as “waiting outside her kid’s school in order to beat him or her up.” The voices of reason and defenders of the faith are spreading their wisdom. Heaven help us.
October 14th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
I think Mr. Butterworth is an absolute genius. He certainly has created quite a stir and caused you all to think and motivated you to reply. I’m proud to have him as a namesake!