Why All Bloggers Should Stay Anonymous
Because if you’re not anonymous, the sickest people on the Internet (hate tip: Patterico) know who you are. I knew Frisch was an idiot, but I never knew she was that depraved.
UPDATE: Frisch has been rightly fired for her threats, but still doesn’t get it and in all likelihood, never will.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
It’s sad that some whack job would threaten a man’s child over words on a computer screen.
Myself? I’ve never been anonymous on the ‘net, beyond the figleaf of not using my last name; I’m single, so there’s nobody to threatn but me and, well, the sickest people on the internet are welcome to bring it.
Neither my blog nor any postings I’ve made on various bulletin boards make any secret of where I can be found at work every day.
Potential creepy stalker types would do well to note the name of the business, however…
July 7th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
I agree with our host. And even with anonymity (which is after all a relative thing given the way we can be traced through our IP providers and addresses) a carbine and a pitbull is not a bad idea either. This is one sick lady. What is even more disturbing are her network of enablers who give her publicly-supported jobs and provide her with publicly-supported internet access. That perverts network is an established fact but may be outside the context of this thread.
July 8th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Why some prefer [blogging] anonymity…
There has been a slew of posts around the DE blogosphere recently debating blogger anonymity. Some think wanting anonymity is a funny joke. Maybe those who think it’s silly to want anonymity (or at least a degree of anonymity) should……
July 12th, 2006 at 1:07 am
Of course, this sort of behavior is only bad when obscure lefties engage in it. When more prominent righties do it, that’s beyond reproach.
July 12th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Links to Glenn Greenwald have about as much credibility with me (and I’m not alone) as do links to Moveon.org, Media Matters, Democratic Underground or Lean Left entries not authored by you. If you have evidence of a prominent right-wing blogger engaging in the same behavior as Frisch, feel free to link to it directly. If you have any evidence of me saying it was OK, then by all means, link to that. Otherwise, your attempt to turn this into a left/right issue is a point not taken.
July 12th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Save me some time: Are there any bloggers on the left that you won’t preemptively dismiss?
The practice I object to (and that has happened repeatedly with this Frisch incident) is holding up the worst examples of obscure nobody doing something vile as if the example typifies the behavior of the side that obscure nobody is on.
What elicited my response here was frankly me (hopefully) reading too much into your classification of this incident under “Liberal Morons.”
July 12th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Sure. For starters, the negative implication of my statement that I will preemptively dismiss “Lean Left entries not authored by you” is that I won’t preemptively dismiss Lean Left entries that are authored by you. Other examples include Aphrael and Hugo Schwyzer, both of whom I rarely agree with but always respect. On the national level, Joe Lieberman (who I agree with on the war on terror, but must agree to disagree with on almost everything else) and Alan Colmes (who I’d probably listen to a lot more if his co-host were smarter) fit the bill.
That’s a fair objection for what it is. However, the appropriate response for the left would be to unequivocally condemn Frisch, not to draw phony moral equivalencies between her genuinely psychotic ramblings and Misha’s over-the-top rhetorical style (which I also don’t condone, BTW).
Definitely. Note that I didn’t only file this post under “Liberal Morons,” but also under “Scum,” which I feel is the more accurate description for anyone who makes death threats to anyone’s toddler. Had she done so for apolitical reasons, rather than in response to Goldstein’s conservative political views, I’d have filed the entry under “Scum” alone. And I like think that if she’d said the same stuff to Markos Moulatsis for his liberal views, I’d have written a near-identical entry and filed it under “Non-Liberal Morons” with equal alacrity. I’ve done that to other conservatives for less - though in this case I’m not sure why I forgot to include “Scum” as well.