A little background, now. As I mentioned before, I made one (count it, one) post to alt.support.boy-lovers entitled "Not from me, you perverted bastards". My issue with that particular forum was the part about pedophilia, not the part about homosexuality, and I made a similar post in alt.sex.pedophilia, the heterosexual pedophilia group.

In an admittedly (and rightly) unfriendly post, I offered a scenario for what I would consider a just reward for a child molester. The original was lost when Suba had Dejanews purge the archives of my old posts from my account with them, apparently by writing to them pretending to me, given Dejanews' policies on such things. But here is a link taking one to an attempted reconstruction of that scenario, recast for a later heterosexual child molester. This one is unsuitable for younger readers.

Was it harsh, and unpleasant? Yes, it sure as hell was. But remember who we're talking about. This wasn't some oppressed, misunderstood minority that I was insulting in this post. This was a pack of child molesters who had set up a pair of newsgroups to promote their crime. If you wish to weep for someone, weep for all of the children that they harmed before the police caught up to them and started thinning their ranks online.

I made my post, and soon was set upon by a pack of screeching ninnies. "You suck, I hate you, you're a big asshole". Oh, I was a-tremble. The lead idiot - I believe his name was "Johnnyboy" started writing in to demand that I read all of his group's FAQ. Of course, I already had read it - up to the point where it mentioned the "oppression issue" - and cut out. The gist of what I saw was that pederasts should obey those 'backward' laws, as long as they were on the books. This isn't a rejection of child molestation, it's a call for self-interest and maybe self-preservation. Johnnyboy demanded that I read it all, going so far as to monitor my computer usage and ask me if this activity or that was more important than his FAQ - as if how I spent my time was any of his business. I told him to get lost.

Like most PCers, he then decided to win through sheer persistance, going on to e-mail me five times in one night alone, demanding that I read his FAQ. Finally, I told the dimwit that if he didn't go away, I'd file suit for online harassment against him and his provider, reminding him that if this came to trial, the full sordid details of the case would be hitting the press. Like any good PC poster child, he then wrote to a minor administrator (in this case, my system operator) to lodge a ludicrous accusation (in this case, that I had "sent threatening e-mail"), countingon the combination of the cowardice of the administrator (and his own willingness to go ballistic as he lodged the complaint) to make it stick. He wouldn't be disappointed.

"Break the law, and face the lawful consequences" is legally a threat? Maybe in an anarchist's wet dream, but not really anywhere else. Picture the absurdity. "Ya hona. I want you to arrest duh chief of police. He sez dat if I knock of da bank, he's gonna put me in jail. Dat's a threat !" No, that's reality, and we can't have a working system of law without such a reality being kept in place.

Some idiot calling himself "abusergod@aol.com", apparently using one of those free disks they circulated so freely, started the feeblest mailbombing ever seen, sending 100 copies of a 1 line e-mail reading "mailbombed with Moxie" while a handful of cabal wannabees sent a few garbage files. Nothing that took for than 90 seconds to clear from my space. A mail filter wouldn't have even suffered indigestion, gulping a bomb like that down. Todd Bodenstein (or was it Alex Strasheim ?) freaked out - a complete, pitiful loss of nerve. My account was suspended, according to them, because I was mailbombed. Yes, Alex/Todd, that's just the best way to deal with bad behavior - reward it.

I went up to confront the dynamic duo, and was told (pointblank) that this is why they suspended my account, pleading that they couldn't handle the stress of being mailbombed. Today, I would have the sense to tell them to grow up and stop being such whiny little babies about it. Dealing with trolls is just part of the job. But back then I never had the heart to say things like that, and so I asked whichever of the two was there, what I could do to make things easier. "How about posting through an anon account and setting up a mailfilter ?" They agreed to help me learn how to do the former (a promise never kept) and initially offered help setting up the mailfilter as well. Shortly afterward, they refused to admit having offered to help with the anon account, and told me to go to suba.general to seek help from one of the people there with the latter because they didn't know how to set up a mailfilter. A little hard to believe, seeing as the software (for doing so) was already on the market.

I went onto suba.general, posted the question as suggested, and was promptly trolled by one Mr. Petro (then, as I discovered later by reading his online resume, an employee at Suba). Yes, that's right, an employee of the man who told me to post the suggestion, there. Petro, who posted as "Petrol at Firehouse", complained that by making it harder for someone else to harass me into silence, I'd be violating HIS freedom of speech, citing an alleged principle of free speech he called "the Heckler's Veto" (1). One that oddly enough, I had never heard of before and haven't since. I compared this "principle" to an assertion that if we prevented radical fundamentalists from persecuting those following other religions, that this would constitute a violation of their freedom of religion. "So", I said, "I guess to you, the Ayatollah Khomeini was a freedom fighter".

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