Vakkotaur

I've been trying to hold off and not comment on this mess. But ignoring a problem does not make it go away. And instead of quietly dying the death it so justly deserves, it's been festering and what it has brought out is both revealing and disappointing. This post is 100% my idea. I shouldn't have to say that, but it seems I do. If my word isn't good enough for you, guess how much I value yours?

What happened was this: One person made a comment about people with whom he disagrees tending to perform a certain action, implying that only those people would stoop to such an action. One of the persons with which he disagrees pointed out a counter-example. And. That. Was. It.

Instead of seeing the counter-example as what it was, he got on his high horse and trampled all over the facts, declaring that a friend was attacked. This is utter bullshit. At absolute worst this third party was referenced. Things did get hotter as frustration mounted. It's not easy keeping ice-cool when someone is insisting there was an attack and demanding an apology for an action that was not an attack.

Since then, there have been a few more posts. Each has now banned the other - and I'll note the wrongly accused and genuinely provoked "attacker" (who isn't) did so not as an opening shot but as a last resort. One post of his false accuser says a few rather nasty and false things. These are said both in the post itself and in followups. I will now address a few of them.

He has been called, now, selfish, hateful, and insane. My word, what a set of misperceptions - at absolute best. See, I live with him. I don't always agree with him. But I know him a damn sight better than any of his accusers.

He is the selfish person who volunteered his time at inconvenient hours for 17 years as a paramedic. That was pretty damn selfish of him, wasn't it? Why he musty really hate people to want to save their lives and not get paid for it, even at 4 AM.

He is the insane person to whom I have handed firearms that I have loaded myself and therefore knew they were loaded. I am alive. That is not the normal state for a person who gives loaded weapons to a an insane person.

He is the hateful person who stopped on the road into town one late fall or winter night to help a stranger get her dead van out of traffic. And then did his best to get it going again. Damn, he must really hate people. How selfish of him to stop and help.

He is the selfish person who when Bill Holbrook asked about a zip drive, offered one right off - and not only did not ask for payment, but declined it when offered. How selfish of him to give something away to someone who has need of it.

He is the one who had an IRC server on a network he was not entirely comfortable with not to exert control but because he felt an obligation to provide service when he could. How hateful of him to offer a service to those he knows - going in - disagree with him. How terribly selfish.

This is the hateful person who gets along with folks who would be outcasts of the radical right he is falsely lumped in with. He has met - knowingly - atheists and transgendered and pro-choice folks and gotten along with them just fine. He also gotten along with those who would disagree mightily with the others. How hateful of him not to berate any of them for being themselves.

He is the insane person with whom I, and others, have trusted our lives. We are all alive. In fact, we aren't even wounded. Not by him, anyway.

This is the selfish person who when given too much change, points out the error and saves the clerk the hell of trying to figure out where that money went. How selfish of him to not keep the extra money.

And you know what else? He's the person who is not writing this. He isn't blowing his own horn. He isn't saying how good he is. I am.

He is the person with which I live. He a person I know very, very well. He is the person I really wish others would stop lying about. It really makes them look foolish. And if they shouldn't like what I've said, well that's just too damn bad. If everyone were as "hateful" and as "selfish" and as "insane" as him, the world would be a far better place.