Mailvox: look, it’s the Internet

There is no excuse for the despicable behavior of psychotic feminist brownshirts, but I nevertheless find it very difficult to have any sympathy in this situation:

I have been attacked by internet stalkers from places like Whitewashed Feminists. We have recently had to contact a lawyer because they terrorized my daughter, who is homeschooling, by posting pictures of her children on immitation blogs. She had removed the pictures a full year ago. When they discovered they were gone, just last week, they found pictures in their own cache and posted them.

They have been “punishing” us for removing posts. It reminds me of a spoiled toddler. Sometimes a toddler goes through a stage where they will not tolerate any changes. They fuss and scream if you remove their plate from the table or cover them better with a blanket. Then when you put it back, they fuss and scream because they don’t like that, either.

These cyber terrorists have several impersonation blogs about me and have stolen many copyrighted photographs. We finally had to contact a lawyer. Do you have any ideas for us on how we may actually put a stop to this? Many of our friends have had to remove their blogs,but these terrorists attack even worse if you do remove your blog.

Other than cease-and-desist orders, followed up by legal action if they refuse to comply, there’s not much that one can do. The object lesson is the same one that’s been obvious since 1998: don’t put anything on the Internet that you’re not comfortable handing to your worst enemy.

Never, ever, put pictures of children up on the Internet. Not on Facebook, not on invitation-only Live Journals, and certainly not on public blogs. It’s not only reprehensibly stupid, it is completely disrespectful of a child’s right to make his own decisions about his public profile in the future. True, sometimes this is unavoidable, such as when a child happens to be in the news for one reason or another. But barring that, no responsible parent should ever upload a picture of a child to the Internet, no matter how proud one might happen to be.

Finally, there is no such thing as a “cyber-terrorist”. It’s a silly metaphor; impersonation blogs are hardly the online equivalent of hijacking airlines and shooting hostages dead on the tarmac. Like it or not, there’s no space for crying on the Internet.

Posted by Vox Day.

Mailvox: the morality of participation

In which BN and I engage in a brief discourse regarding his questions about the moral propriety of accepting government stimulus incentives:

It is my contention that it is wrong (as in objectively wrong in the ‘objective morality is derived from that whole sola scriptura concept’ sense) for individuals to participate in a program like Cash for Clunkers (and take it as obvious that it is wrong for the government to be offering it in the first place). I’m having a hard time getting feedback from folks in my non-web circle (mostly church folks whose opinions on morality I actually have any use for) so thought I’d come to a place where A) I’ll respect the opinions, or at least the worldviews of the people giving the opinions and B) there will be no lack of arguments, either in opposition or support. This topic has been bouncing around in my head for awhile, and was rekindled this morning when I read about your speculation of a potential Cash for Casas or Dollars for Debt down the road. So, in short, is it immoral for an individual to participate in a program like Cash for Clunkers?

No, I don’t think so. Most people don’t have a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of economics to grasp the issues involved. It is, however, very stupid to participate in it if you were not actively planning to buy a new car anyhow, though.

So then, are you saying that if a person does have sufficient understanding of the economics involved than it would be immoral? It mostly became interesting to me because I don’t seem to have a problem being all self righteous and following through on the principle in the case of Cash for Clunkers because it’s just a car… but when I read your Dollars for Debt notion, I caught myself thinking… “Hmm… I might just be able to set the principle aside in this case.”

I think in that case it would at least be possible to make the case for its immorality. I don’t have a strong position on it, not having ever thought the matter through. I think I’ll post it on the blog, and we’ll see what folks think.

Posted by Vox Day.