ROFL
my buddy?
It would be unfair to refer to you as his "buddy" if what you had done was argue your position that he should be allowed to continue to blackmail, and stalk, and sexually harass, and reveal private information about the family of, a female poster (who, he knew, suffered from PTSD) to the point that she and her husband consulted an attorney and she became ill. It would even be unfair to call you his "buddy" if you merely mocked his victim.
But though you said (not to him, though!) that you didn't approve of his behavior, what you did was to befriend him, post warmly to him, engage with him in entirely respectful chats on miscellaneous issues, none of your posts to him suggesting that possibly he should lay off the lewd posts to and about Poet and others.
So I accept, since you say so, that deep in your heart you didn't feel he was a "buddy" of yours.
But you posted emotionally supportive buddy-buddy posts to him, and defended his "right" -- a right he'd obtain via the threat of a lawsuit he could wage free, being a semi-retired lawyer, and SI would have had to spend money to defend -- to continue the harassment.
You were so emotionally committed to defending the indefensible that you offered in his defense the 'logic' that since SI wasn't enforcing the TOU against him, his behavior wasn't a violation of the TOU! (Refer to the TOU themselves, to see how weird that was.)
So I'll change the statement, since everyone gets to say who the buddy of their heart is: You walked and quacked like a buddy. And that's no lie.
BTW:
I called the head of the ABA's ethics committee in his state and described exactly what CH was doing on SI, including the false accusations, threats, sexual harassment and pretending to be a practicing preacher on IHub, to which he'd followed Poet to her Poetry Corner. I was advised that if my description of his posts was correct (it was), he had violated the ethics committee's standards, and I was encouraged to register the complaint. Amusingly enough, the head of the ethics committee to whom I spoke was someone whom CH had attacked in a letter to a trade publication the subject of which was ethics.
But since I wanted only one thing from him, for him to stop the sadism, and since after I informed him by PM of my conversation with the ethics committee chair he left me alone, and Poet left SI to recover, and because I didn't want, over what might be some temporary derangement or emotional illness on the part of someone who for all I knew had had an unblemished career, to harm him, I didn't fill out the report.
I do want to tell you that when you write about how unkindness and bullying are so unacceptable to you, that such behavior is not tolerated in your school, and remember how buddy-buddy you acted, quacking and quacking cordially in one friendly, supportive exchange after another with that sadist bully, I've got to laugh.
That's inaccurate. I don't really laugh. Actually, it makes me feel kind of disoriented. Because I believe in the work you do. But that it's you whose doing it? Well, it's a strange thing.
And how does one teach children about kindness and respect for others when one doesn't "believe in" apology? Sincere apologies can heal people who have been hurt. Apology has evolved in all cultures. I always wonder if you believe in teaching children not to pay attention to apologies, not to care about them, not to make them.
Reminder, third time: You wanted to be on his side against his victims', but not because he needed you, ion. All that was asked of CH was to cease and desist the sadistic stalking and sexually insinuating lies. That was it. Just stop. (After he stopped, he was accepted back into the RW fold.) |
