Yes folks. The defenders of all that is moral and righteous at Facebook have once again adjudicated that Going to Getugly has transgressed their strict standards for civil discourse. You know… the standards which the social media giant judiciously and equally enforces for all those who use their platform. The penalty for my misconduct this time is that I am banned from using Facebook for 30 days. Perhaps next time it will be permanent.
The cause of my banishment to the Internet’s hinterland is, once again, an individual who grants himself the liberty to defame and dehumanize anyone who doesn’t mirror what he considers the moral perfection of his own opinions but who finds unvarnished criticism directed at him to be intolerable to his ego. And so he reported one of my remarks as ‘harassment‘ to Facebook…. exactly the way a spiteful child runs to the teacher to report a playground rival who has bested him in front of the other children…. “Missus! Missus! Johnny called me a mean name!”
As far as I can tell this was not some emotionally tender adolescent attempting to demonstrate her social justice warrior bona fides and who found herself out of her depth in a debate. Despite the incongruous first name of ‘Darling’… my accuser appears to be a grown man. Darling is an adult who is apparently so confident in the superiority of his insight and moral status that he felt no hesitation in denouncing anyone who didn’t share his views as a “Nazi sympathizer”. And yet when confronted about this tactic his impulse was to appeal to the higher authority of Facebook in order to have his critic silenced… a response that until fairly recently would have been regarded as a humiliating concession and unthinkable to anyone who expected to be regarded as an intellectually mature adult.
Here is the notification from Facebook alerting me to my infraction and highlighting the comment which earned my punishment:
The context for all of this was an opinion piece in Canada’s National Post newspaper. In the piece Phillip Cross argues that the self-styled ‘anti-fascist’ Left are today the people most closely mimicking the mindset and conduct of actual fascists.
Of course this has been self-evident to objective, ethical people from the start and they have been saying so for several years now. The mainstream media is a little late to the party after largely aligning with the violent Leftist extremists. They have justified this by using Orwellian double-think to claim that acting exactly like Hitler’s Brownshirt thugs becomes virtuous if the mobs beating up random people in the street are wearing t-shirts with the phrase ‘anti-fascist’ printed on them while doing it.
The response to the column from Darling was to simply announce that “This article was written by a Nazi sympathizer…”
As is the norm in our age of intellectual and ethical impotence, Darling felt no obligation to substantiate this extraordinary accusation. The fact that Phillip Cross was condemning conduct reminiscent of the Nazi regime in the column was irrelevant. The only consideration for Darling and for others on the Left who conflate their subjective ideological preferences with moral perfection was simply that the author was being critical of people who self-identify as on the Left.
There are no principles for Leftist ideologues like Darling. Mobs of politically motivated goons beating up people in the street is not, in itself, an issue for them. All that matters is whether they personally share the ideological convictions of the goons doing the beating up. If they do… then gangs of masked thugs deciding who deserves to be kicked, punched and pepper sprayed is something which they as members of the self-appointed enlightened class will gleefully support. And the only plausible explanation for anyone not sharing their enthusiasm for such righteous violence is that you must be one of their moral inferiors who deserve to be kicked and punched.
I make no apologies for characterizing this form of reasoning as idiotic. The current fashion among Leftists of casually calling people Nazis is bad enough. Arbitrarily applying the label ‘Nazi sympathizer’ to someone who is arguing against mimicking the actual Nazis regardless of whether the activity comes from the Left or the Right is self-evidently idiotic. It is absolutely appropriate to say this directly in this context as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.
Apparently I was not the only one who thought so. Here is a snippet from the start of the thread in question:
This article was written by a Nazi sympathizer…
Robert M: The farther to the left you go the dumber it gets.
Darling D:
Robert M, You literally support Nazis, but go ahead and brag about how smart you think you are…
Ronald G: Darling D… I guess you have never experienced a left wing government that has total control. Keep voting Liberal and you soon will. I have had family and friends live and escape from them….You don’t have a clue or you are a bot.
Darling D:
Ronald G, Um…I live in Canada and have been living under left wing Governments my whole life… America was founded on Liberalism and left wing ideologies…If you hate the left, you hate your own country….
Gustapher A: Darling D you obviously choose to remain ignorant to which side is blatantly silencing and controlling freedom of speech
It was at this point that I joined the thread:
Going to Getugly: You’re making yourself look like an idiot, Darling.
Darling D:
Going to Getugly I am not making myself look like a fucking Nazi though… It’s a shitty look. You might want to fix that.
It was after having alerted Darling to the fact that he was not doing himself any favours by pursuing this particular line of argument… to which he responded by calling me a “fucking Nazi”… that I made the comment which Facebook agreed constituted ‘harassment’. Harassment of the guy who just called me a “fucking Nazi”.
Going to Getugly: Actually by making yourself look like an idiot… which you haven’t denied… you are convincing everyone that you are incapable of generating a perspective that any thinking adult would take seriously.
What some would label “harassment” others may call clear and accurate analysis. I’ll leave it to you to reach your own conclusion.
Our brief exchange continued….
Darling D:
I am not the one supporting Nazis, but go ahead and keep thinking people take you seriously…. Getting called stupid by Nazis is one of the best things that can happen to anyone…
Going to Getugly: No Darling. You don’t get it. You have proven that you don’t have the intellectual maturity to generate interpretations of the world on the other side of your skull that have anything to do with reality. In other words… you calling people ‘Nazis’ is like a blind person calling the Mona Lisa a bad painting. It’s meaningless gibberish.
Darling D:
Nobody is comparing you to the Mona Lisa… You came out to attack ‘Antifascists’ for defending against literal Nazis. If you don’t like being compared to Nazis then stop marching with them and defending them. You bring nothing to the table except hate. It is sad and pathetic.
Going to Getugly: Like I said… you don’t know what you’re talking about Darling. You make up nonsense and you tell yourself that it has some relationship with the real world. I’m sure that inside your head it seems very clever and insightful to you. But to all intelligent people out here on the other side of your skull it’s just irrational, juvenile ranting.
Darling D:
Intelligent people never have to refer to themselves as such…
And that was the totality of my interaction with the delightful Darling D.
So to sum up: The guy who randomly called the author of the article, me and several other people ‘Nazis’ over multiple profanity-laced posts reports me to the morality squad at Facebook for harassing him… and Facebook unquestioningly takes his side and bans me from the platform for a month.
By now the grotesque irony of the situation must be settling in.
We have a newspaper column warning that the people mimicking the actual historical Fascists are those on the Left who loudly proclaim their opposition to ‘fascism’. We have someone who perfectly fits that description reacting to principled criticism of his ideological comrades by attempting to discredit and demonize the author by applying a dehumanizing label to him. He then reacts to criticism directed at him by reporting his critic to authorities who represent his own ideological proclivities and who have the power to censure dissidents.
Is there any doubt that the likes of Darling and the other unprincipled, self-righteous Leftists described by Phillip Cross in the article would be the very people reporting their neighbours and coworkers to the Gestapo had they lived in 1930’s Germany? Or to the Stasi had they been around in East Germany in the 60’s and 70’s? Or to the KGB in Soviet Russia or the to Red Guard in Mao’s China?
It is clearly the same despicable impulse transferred to the Internet age. Whether it’s coming from the Left or Right it amounts to the same thing: These are people who have exchanged independent autonomous reasoning for the instant, effortless certainty and ego affirmation that comes from total identification with a popular ideology. All complexity and nuance is stripped from reality and instantly replaced by a simplistic binary dynamic: People who unquestioningly conform to the ideology are morally perfect and incapable of being wrong. Everyone else is morally deviant, incapable of being right and therefore deserving of whatever the ‘good people’ feel justified about inflicting on them.
Maybe right now they feel justified about calling people ‘Nazis’ and reporting them in order to have them silenced. Tomorrow they may feel justified in supporting people being beaten up in the street. Maybe at some point down the road they will feel justified about supporting something a lot worse.
There is an ironic postscript to all of this. On the morning I received the notification that Facebook had accepted this random complaint deeming me morally unfit to interact with other users of the platform I got a private message from a different random Facebook user. The message read:
HT Hey, I just want to thank you for standing up to truth and what is morally right. Thanks
This individual had seen something I had written on another thread about a different subject which had struck a chord with him and so he went out of his way to let me know. Needless to say hearing from like-minded people like this is immensely encouraging and humbling. It has happened many times.
And that’s what is so poignant about all of this. To the gatekeepers at Facebook and the other social media platforms who control so much of what we see and hear these days… the opinion of the person who messaged me doesn’t count. Neither do the opinions of the dozens of other people who have made similar supportive comments. Neither do the opinions of 300 Facebook users and growing who subscribe to Going to Getugly because they find something there that resonates with their own perspective.
The opinions of all of these people… your opinions and mine…. are instantly overridden by the opinion of a single disgruntled narcissist whose worldview aligns with that of the gatekeepers.
The takeaway is that we are in an era in which all of this is becoming increasingly normalized. Something has clearly shifted in the culture when someone so lacking in principle, character and intellectual maturity as a Darling D has the power to have people whose perspective he dislikes silenced.
I’ve included the full transcript of Darling D’s thread below to give you an opportunity to decide for yourself how credible you find his claim of being the victim of ‘harassment’. I’ve also included links to stories that have appeared in the last couple of days that are directly related to this issue of the social media giants pursuing a policy of cleansing their platforms of perspectives that don’t conform to fashionable Leftist ideology.
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Darling D:
This article was written by a Nazi sympathizer…
Robert M: The farther to the left you go the dumber it gets.
Darling D:
Robert M, You literally support Nazis, but go ahead and brag about how smart you think you are…
Ronald G: Darling D… I guess you have never experienced a left wing government that has total control. Keep voting Liberal and you soon will. I have had family and friends live and escape from them….You don’t have a clue or you are a bot.
Darling D:
Ronald G, Um…I live in Canada and have been living under left wing Governments my whole life… America was founded on Liberalism and left wing ideologies…If you hate the left, you hate your own country….
Gustapher A: Darling D…. and you obviously choose to remain ignorant to which side is blatantly silencing and controlling freedom of speech
Going to Getugly: You’re making yourself look like an idiot, Darling.
Darling D:
Going to Getugly I am not making myself look like a fucking Nazi though… It’s a shitty look. You might want to fix that.
Going to Getugly: Actually by making yourself look like an idiot… which you haven’t denied… you are convincing everyone that you are incapable of generating a perspective that any thinking adult would take seriously.
Darling D:
I am not the one supporting Nazis, but go ahead and keep thinking people take you seriously…. Getting called stupid by Nazis is one of the best things that can happen to anyone…
Going to Getugly: No Darling. You don’t get it. You have proven that you don’t have the intellectual maturity to generate interpretations of the world on the other side of your skull that have anything to do with reality. In other words… you calling people ‘Nazis’ is like a blind person calling the Mona Lisa a bad painting. It’s meaningless gibberish.
Darling D:
Nobody is comparing you to the Mona Lisa… You came out to attack ‘Antifascists’ for defending against literal Nazis. If you don’t like being compared to Nazis then stop marching with them and defending them. You bring nothing to the table except hate. It is sad and pathetic.
Going to Getugly: Like I said… you don’t know what you’re talking about Darling. You make up nonsense and you tell yourself that it has some relationship with the real world. I’m sure that inside your head it seems very clever and insightful to you. But to all intelligent people out here on the other side of your skull it’s just irrational, juvenile ranting.
Darling D:
Going to Getugly, Intelligent people never have to refer to themselves as such…
Ronald G: Darling D, you have never lived under a truly left wing government and missed my point. I don’t hate anyone but I can’t sit back and endorse the nuzzling of the press 600 million worth of the control of the Internet Copenhagen accord. Without a free press or a free internet we are going down a path that will be impossible to recover from without drastic measures. That is what the Nazis did and Stalin.
Barry B: Darling D, I love the left, the left that cared about Canada and people. The new left just gets angry to look good on the internet. They mostly accuse people who did nothing wrong just because they don’t try to listen to their opinions. They name call and try to hurt people to feel good. Much like you.
Darling D:
Barry B., Yawn…. If you’re not anti-Nazi, then you aren’t left wing enough… Get fucking real… we’re talking about anti-fucking Nazis… that isn’t a confusing position… I don’t need to listen to the peoples position that support Nazis marching in places like Charlottesville… That’s who were talking about… Fucking Nazis…
Jacquline F: Yes…everyone who doesn’t see things the same way you do, is a Nazi🙄 I think you’re late for your Antifa meeting.
Darling D:
Jacquline F, Um…Nazis are literally what Antifa is against…It’s not complicated to figure out which side of that equation to be on.
Barry B: Right. Everyone hates Nazis, we know that. But also your leftist bullshit is hateable as well. Clear enough darling?
Darling D:
Barry B, It’s clear enough you’re making up excuses for Nazis… Week deflection…
Barry B: You’re obsessed with Nazis; you should get help; they don’t exist any more except in war movies. Most of us live in 2019 where we have modern issues, which we’re trying to discuss.
Darling D:
The topic was Antifa and the article was trying to compare them with fascists/Nazis… Nazis literally marched openly in Charlottesville. The ‘Alt Right’ don’t like the Nazi label. It’s why they are trying to rebrand. And the Alt Right fucking loves Nazis. Get real.
Barry B: well if we must debate these mythical nazis, the article rightly points out that modern leftists are similar to nazis. That insight is dead on, just using outdated terminology. You dont just chase ghosts, you are also wrong. And rude too. Well done.
John O: Darling D, wow another disturbed person. These articles really bring out the lack of intelligence in Canadian society. You should seriously seek help.
Darling D:
John O, You think I need help because I don’t like Nazis?… You should elaborate on what exactly you don’t like about my anti nazi stance?….
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