By Scott Tibbs, November 11, 2013
Should people who post fantasies about children being anally raped in HeraldTimesOnline comments be banned from posting on the site? Or is the real problem people who stand against such evil and condemn it? This is a rhetorical question, of course, but the moderators on HeraldTimesOnline.com apparently do not know the answer.
Back on October 21, I posted an opinion on a matter of public policy with social and religious implications. In response, anonymous HTO user "evenkeel" posted a despicable, reprehensible and viciously nasty personal attack against me. This attack was completely unprovoked, in response to an opinion he did not like.
| "Scott… were you sodomized as a child? It's okay… you can tell us. We'll do our best not to say you asked for it." |
This is an incredibly evil thing to say. To suggest that a child could "ask" to be violently anally raped shows that this person has a depraved and diseased mind. Imagine if "evenkeel" had said that to someone who had been sexually abused as a child, and the pain it would cause.
This is why allowing people to hide behind fake names in HTO comments is a terrible and destructive policy. "Evenkeel" would never dare post such a wickedly evil thing if his name and reputation were attached to it. The Herald-Times could immediately clean up much of the filth in HTO comments and restore the civility that Herald-Times editor Bob Zaltsberg claims to want by eliminating anonymity and requiring that every username be publicly attached to the user's real first and last name - just as is already the case for letters to the editor.
This past weekend, "evenkeel" said I looked like a "fool" for a phrase I used questioning Barack Obama's record on national security and privacy. I pointed out that he has no credibility to decide that, after the evil he had posted a few weeks earlier. The Herald-Times moderators responded by deleting several of my posts in that thread for accurately reporting what had been posted in their own comments section - with a link to a screenshot of the post.
My posts were not harassing, because I was responding to an unprovoked insult against me. My posts were not libelous, because I accurately described what "evenkeel" posted. Truth cannot be libelous. My posts were offensive, and they should be. What "evenkeel" posted about me was despicable, perverted and evil.
But I am the victim here.
I am the one who has been subjected to perverted fantasies about me being violently anally raped as a child. Yet according to HTO moderators, I am the one who is the bad guy for exposing evil. What is wrong with this picture?
