The blogs

[_RockSlider]

Would someone who has captured the two blogs before they were deleted, please post them up here?

[Guest]

My Malevolent Stalker
October 27, 2012 By danpeterson 8 Comments


For the past six years or so, a person that I’ve nicknamed my “Malevolent Stalker” has been making anonymous internet accusations against me, overwhelmingly on a particular predominantly atheist/agnostic internet message board, of dishonesty, spying on others, racism, harboring homicidal fantasies, religious bigotry, fascist inclinations, greed, sadism, slander, “homophobia,” libel, sexual perversion, anti-Semitism, voyeurism, deliberately seeking to destroy the lives and careers of others, and even — so total and comprehensive is his bizarre, obsessive hatred for me — of bad taste in music, art, and literature.

For several years, I tried to set the record straight in the same forum where he’s most active in his implacable assaults on me. I soon gave up trying to persuade him, of course. I simply thought that his charges shouldn’t be allowed to stand uncontradicted, without explicit denials from me. Eventually, though, even that grew so time-consuming and frustrating that I abandoned the effort. I haven’t posted on his message board for at least a year now, and very possibly not for two.

Several observers assured me that it was only my responding to him that kept him going, and that, if I no longer paid any attention to his lies and half-truths and insinuations, he would eventually lose interest.

This experiment has now been tried, and it has failed. Decisively.

Scarcely a day passes without some new defamatory post from him. Rarely has an entire week passed — for six years now — without a denigrating “revelation” from my Malevolent Stalker exposing me, yet again, as a callous and unethical swine.

How do I know this? I know it because, although I haven’t interacted with him for a very long time, I still check in on his board out of curiosity (not merely for his antics but for other things) every few days, at least once a week — and because, even when I don’t, others write to tell me what he’s up to.

I’ve been informed recently that his real name is Jason Echols, and that he sometimes also posts, elsewhere, as Chino Blanco. I have no personal knowledge as to whether this is true or not, and, if it’s false, I sincerely apologize to Mr. Echols. (At least one person insists that there is no single “Malevolent Stalker” — I’m not supplying the pseudonym or the venue that he typically uses to defame me, because I see no particular reason to give him or the place such publicity — but that the Stalker is a kind of “collective,” probably including but not limited to an alienated, unbelieving Mormon whose name I know and who teaches at a state university in the eastern part of the United States and is definitely, at a minimum, an ideological fellow-traveler of the Stalker.)

It occurred to me today — there are several active threads, in the usual place, harshly attacking me yet again — that, after six years of this, I have no obligation whatever to take such accusations in submissive silence, nor to protect the identity of the person(s) making them. So here are two comments:

1) The current wave of claims, about my compensation as editor of the late FARMS Review or, as it was briefly known, the Mormon Studies Review, is so far from the truth as to be laughable. And, contrary to what the Stalker alleges, I’ve never lied, nor even been inaccurate, about the very limited compensation that I did receive in connection with my work for the Maxwell Institute. My salary never depended upon that connection, and, now that that connection has been severed, my salary remains unchanged.

2) Several people over the years, and a growing number over the past few weeks and months, have urged me to consider legal action against my Malevolent Stalker. At least two attorneys even volunteered their help a few years back. Right now, I’m disinclined to do so, however, both because (having myself been the target of a lawsuit a number of years ago — a baseless and malicious one, filed by an anti-Mormon activist in California, that was eventually dismissed “with prejudice” by the court in California) I don’t much care for litigation and because I just don’t want to waste my limited time and energy on such distractions. Moreover, slander and libel laws are, for good reason, very demanding, and, although I’m confident of my moral case, I’m not absolutely sure that such a complaint would prevail in court. It could, in other words, turn out to be an expensive and enormously draining waste of time. But — and here’s the point — I haven’t altogether ruled the idea out. Six years is a long, long time. My Malevolent Stalker’s incessant defamation grew old soon after it started, and I don’t know how long I’m going to continue to put up with it. Have his efforts hurt my reputation? Probably. But possibly not among more than a handful of people already disposed to disdain me and all my works. Has he hurt my career? Probably not. But it’s difficult to be certain. These are areas of ambiguity. Still, I probably won’t let this go on forever, nor even for a whole lot longer, without some sort of serious response. And, even if my Malevolent Stalker is still unknown (that is, even if he isn’t Jason Echols or a collective that includes that professor back east), his anonymity (and the complacent security of his aiders, disciples, and abettors) wouldn’t long survive the legal process of discovery.

[_RockSlider]

thanks, proved to be as I remember in another discussion.

I hope someone caught the retraction?

[_sock puppet]

He’s Not the Stalker
October 27, 2012 By danpeterson 5 Comments


The person whom I mentioned below as, possibly, the real-life individual behind the internet persona of my Malevolent Stalker flatly denies that he’s the guy. Thus, unless some serious evidence to the contrary surfaces in the future, I’m going to take him at his word.

Which is, of course, far more charitable than my Malevolent Stalker has ever been with regard to me. To reapply Mary McCarthy’s famous January 1980 comment to Dick Cavett about Lilian Hellman, the Stalker believes, or, anyway, the Stalker pretends to believe, that every word I speak or write is a lie, including and and the.

My sincere apologies to the person concerned.

This was, however, a somewhat useful effort from my perspective. Something has been cleared up. That’s not bad. I was told several weeks ago, if not two or three months ago, that he was the guilty party. I appreciate having that laid to rest.

My post below is, otherwise, still in force. My patience with the Stalker is wearing thin.
« Really, Really Disturbing Claims about Benghazi

On the Origin and Nature of My Blog »
He’s Not the Stalker
October 27, 2012 By danpeterson 5 Comments


The person whom I mentioned below as, possibly, the real-life individual behind the internet persona of my Malevolent Stalker flatly denies that he’s the guy. Thus, unless some serious evidence to the contrary surfaces in the future, I’m going to take him at his word.

Which is, of course, far more charitable than my Malevolent Stalker has ever been with regard to me. To reapply Mary McCarthy’s famous January 1980 comment to Dick Cavett about Lilian Hellman, the Stalker believes, or, anyway, the Stalker pretends to believe, that every word I speak or write is a lie, including and and the.

My sincere apologies to the person concerned.

This was, however, a somewhat useful effort from my perspective. Something has been cleared up. That’s not bad. I was told several weeks ago, if not two or three months ago, that he was the guilty party. I appreciate having that laid to rest.

My post below is, otherwise, still in force. My patience with the Stalker is wearing thin.
Comments
1. bobjones says:
Verifying this bit of information may have been a good idea prior to making the accusation, no?
In any case, your posts confuse me as your “stalker” is merely stating that you were compensated to edit the FARMS review. You, yourself, made this abundantly clear in your letter to Dr. Bradford.
What, exactly, are you trying to deny here?
o danpeterson says:
“Verifying this bit of information may have been a good idea prior to making the accusation, no?”
I had reasons for believing it to be true, but didn’t know it to be true. Anyway, the identity of my Malevolent Stalker was, at the most, a matter of tertiary importance in the context of the overall post. Mr. Echols denies being the Stalker, I take him at his word, and I’m at peace — though, plainly, some of you folks aren’t.
The more serious point — a point that you and several others here seem to be entirely oblivious to — is that nobody should be subjected to such anonymous insinuations and defamatory distortions, and certainly not for six years.
“In any case, your posts confuse me as your ‘stalker’ is merely stating that you were compensated to edit the FARMS review. You, yourself, made this abundantly clear in your letter to Dr. Bradford.”
And I’ve never denied it. In fact, I think I’ve explained it even to him. No, his claim isn’t merely that I was compensated. It’s that I was compensated lavishly, and, of course — he being the kind of person he is — that I lied about it.
I was, in the last several years of the Review‘s existence, paid a token per-issue fee for editing the Review. Nothing anywhere near the amount that the Stalker suggests. I would guess that it would probably, if apportioned on a per-hour basis, come to something like the U.S. federal minimum wage. (Remember that this was an assignment that I had on top of my normal teaching, research, and administrative duties as a faculty member.) I was never the copy or production editor of the Review; we had such an editor (though s/he also had other assignments), along with several others who devoted some degree of time or another to helping with the production of the Review. These people were (and are) salaried, or, in some cases, received an hourly wage. I never did. My salary came, and still comes, from my faculty appointment.
“What, exactly, are you trying to deny here?”
In this specific case, his claim about how much I was paid is vastly too high. But the list of falsehoods, half-truths, and distortions he’s dished out about me over the past six years is far, far longer than just this instance.

2. thenarrator says:
There is this crazy idea I heard of a while back. I know it’ sounds extreme, but I still think it’s worth considering. It’s called asking the person. If Jason’s denial on your blog was sufficient for you, then it would have been sufficient if you asked him privately. You’re on Facebook. There is this amazing thing that you can do with Facebook: you can plug in someone’s name (like Jason’s), do a search, and then you can send them a message. It’s incredible what technology can do today.
o Jason Echols says:
Dan and I were Facebook friends until recently. So recently that I hadn’t noticed he’d defriended me until very recently (i.e., until folks started messaging me that Dan was on some kind of pointless rampage that involved me).
Reply
o Jason Echols says:
I’m not at peace, Dan. I’m in the private sector. I eat lawsuits for breakfast and file counterclaims over lunch. I am not “the person concerned” … my name is Jason Echols and you apparently thought it would be fun to take a stab at me. Put up, show up or post an apology worthy of your BS accusations. I’d suggest the latter.

[_Chap]

... my name is Jason Echols and you apparently thought it would be fun to take a stab at me. Put up, show up or post an apology worthy of your BS accusations. I’d suggest the latter.

And what did DCP do in response to this? He deleted his blog altogether.

I suppose that counts as 'Choosing The Right'?

[_sock puppet]

... my name is Jason Echols and you apparently thought it would be fun to take a stab at me. Put up, show up or post an apology worthy of your BS accusations. I’d suggest the latter.

And what did DCP do in response to this? He deleted his blog altogether.

I suppose that counts as 'Choosing The Right'?

And I thought it counted as slithering away.

[_Harold Lee]

To be honest I hope he does sue. I'd love for the world to read the dribble the foremost Mormon logician is coming up with. This was also cooked in the mind of the world's leading Mormon apologist, the same person that the church spokesman diverts official answers to? He sues and the non-mormon world reads his initial response. His life's work loses credibility because, well just read it. He essentially took any reasonable option of suing off the table himself with that article.

If anything the countersuit would have more weight in my opinion. Jason is definitely defamed. He shouldn't do anything either though because it's the internet and, well, it's the internet. The weirdest parts of society feel most at home and get the loudest voice here.

[_bcspace]

Speaking of blogs, I really enjoyed the Encyclopedia of Mopologetics. Bring that back.

[_sock puppet]

My Malevolent Stalker
October 27, 2012 By danpeterson 8 Comments


For the past six years or so, a person that I’ve nicknamed my “Malevolent Stalker” has been making anonymous internet accusations against me, overwhelmingly on a particular predominantly atheist/agnostic internet message board, ... .

For several years, I tried to set the record straight in the same forum where he’s most active in his implacable assaults on me. I soon gave up trying to persuade him, of course. * * *

It occurred to me today — there are several active threads, in the usual place, harshly attacking me yet again — that, after six years of this, I have no obligation whatever to take such accusations in submissive silence, nor to protect the identity of the person(s) making them. So here are two comments:

1) * * *

2) Several people over the years, and a growing number over the past few weeks and months, have urged me to consider legal action against my Malevolent Stalker. * * * I probably won’t let this go on forever, nor even for a whole lot longer, without some sort of serious response. And, even if my Malevolent Stalker is still unknown (that is, even if he isn’t Jason Echols or a collective that includes that professor back east), his anonymity (and the complacent security of his aiders, disciples, and abettors) wouldn’t long survive the legal process of discovery.

* * * * *

38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.

42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

DCP: More publican or perfect in Christ's way?