Sad Simpson and Schadenfreude

Due to my post, The Crossroads Carnival of Malice, Part One. Simpson has posted about the two subjects of the news reports I linked to. He HAD to. He knows some of his floggerettes read my blog, so he had to acknowledge it some way -- to issue a denial, of sorts. Actually, it's an attack, a true lashing out, aimed mostly at me, but includes Carl Roden.  He even gratuitously brings in Susan Hathaway, who probably doesn't even know about these posts.

It's a toss up, who he hates most -- me, for challenging his lies and talkin' back to him, or Susan, for ignoring him from indifference.  

Let's subject his sad, sad post to a little truth detecting, shall we?

He then turned to frequenting other groups, including one managed by our good friend Connie Chastain.

This refers to Ray O'Hara, who was a member of my Facebook Group, 180 Degrees True South (a companion to my blog of the same name) when it was an open group. O'Hara was invited there by a member, not me. His only contribution to the group was to lie about the Confederacy.

I received numerous complaints from other members that O'Hara's posts were troll-like, and he wasn't there to discuss, or even debate, just to harass. I removed his membership. Eventually, many proSouthern members requested that the group change its focus from debate to a discussion group for issues of interest to proSoutherners. I changed the name of the group to Due South and made it closed. (At the end of this post, see the image of a Facebook search index of Due South using the search term O'Hara, with a few lines of each post that give an idea what each was about.)

Not long after the news account of O'Hara's arrest was posted (April 2012), the person who invited him to the group sent me a link. (See a screenshot of the private message thread below.) Until my "Carnival of Malice" post, I had never posted the link or info from it publicly, anywhere -- not on my blogs, not in a Facebook post or comment, not in a comment anywhere -- except very recently, when I sent the URL of the news report, to someone by private message.

Both of these stories are upsetting and nauseating.. So is the news that Connie Chastain, who does Susan Hathaway’s “heavy hitting,” is now conducting background checks on commenters on this blog....

Ah, the indignation of someone to "tiptoes" through the Internet looking for Southern heritage people to smear, who combs Facebook, who combs comment threads following news stories, who obsesses over Flagger videos and photo albums, who stares, mesmerized, at Google Earth looking for Flagger land, who emails and tweets the media in Richmond about the Flaggers, who contacts the Richmond police... All looking for SOMETHING to smear the Flaggers with. Oh, and note that the mention of Susan is gratuitous, as she has nothing to do with my post or the subject matter -- it just reflects Simpson's hatred of her.

...much as several Virginia Flaggers went after individuals this past summer.

The Virginia Flaggers didn't go after any individuals this summer. The photo of the package showing Kristin Konate's address was put on Facebook by Kristin Konate.

I am not conducting background checks on Crossroads commenters. There are a few commenters whose names I have Googled, to see if they had credentials as educators or historians, simply because of the content of something they posted. (Some truncated names or obvious aliases would probably not turn up much information and I wouldn't have searched those.)  If I don't find what I'm looking for in the first two or three pages of the Google search index, I give up the search. It's not important enough to me to do more than that.

One of the names I Googled was Michael Confoy. Here is the Google index that comes up with the search term "Michael Confoy."

https://www.google.com/search?q=Michael+Confoy&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-beta&channel=sb

This is the second URL in the index:

http://chantilly.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/three-men-arrested-after-attempting-to-solicit-minors

So it's not like I had to do a lot of digging to find the info on his arrest. In fact, I had no idea of that circumstance when I Googled his name, and wasn't looking for it, or anything criminal or negative. I was looking for information that would confirm his association with an educational institution of some kind.

But it is the second link on the page. I mean, you can't miss it.

I have known about that news report for a year or so. Until my "Carnival of Malice" post, I had never posted this link publicly anywhere -- not on my blogs, not in a Facebook post or comment, not in a comment anywhere -- except very recently, when I sent the URL of the news report, to someone by private message.

If Googling is what Simpson conceptualizes as conducting a background check, I have to wonder how he got such a responsible position in education.  Or maybe that's a good indication of how dumbed down education as become.

Chastain can’t get her facts straight, as usual, at least when it comes to me. She claims that someone I’ve despised for some time (and she knows this from a previous exchange on Al Mackey’s blog) is a friend of mine …

Ah, Simpson, think of it as my doing the same thing YOU did when you wrote these:

...our good friend Connie Chastain....
...our favorite fiction writer...
...Tripp Lewis's good friend, Rob Walker...

If you're going to attempt this sort of velvet glove satire, don't complain when it's done back to you.

But we can expect these sort of lies from someone who claims to be an expert in false accusations … .

I've never made such a claim (and this is the second time he's lied about this. The first time, he said I claimed to be an expert in false rape accusation.)

Connie adds that the commenters on this blog are not concerned about issues involving sex, pornography, and minors.

Typical Simpson lie -- by omission. What I said was, "They don't care when somebody on THEIR side does it..." which a quick check of Crossroads comment threads has verified.

Carl Roden followed up with some of his typically crude comments.

@$$-kissers? Yes, that's crude (but certainly symbolically or euphemistically accurate). There are, however, things more offensive than crudeness. For example, suggesting Confederate heritage folks self-immolate the "Buddhist monk way" -- with a flag and gasoline. (That suggestion, BTW, was made by a registered sex offender).

He just likes to write fiction about sex between minors.

Actually, it was a romance. A fictional story "about sex between minors" would be erotica.  I've read Carl's story. It would not be classified as erotica. It would not even be classified as erotic romance. Sex certainly occurs in YA fiction; some people think it's okay, some are opposed to it. But stuff far, far more explicit than Carl's story (and not as well written, I might add) gets published all the time.

I can't believe the outrage and prudishness at the floggerette peanut gallery is genuine. However, to forestall Simpson-claims that I approve of or support erotica or erotic romance, let me say I am opposed to both. The strongest criticism I would have of Carl's story is not the youth of the characters, but that they're unmarried. However, there is published stuff out there that's sooo much worse, and Carl's story is primarily about a love and it is well written.

(Disclosure: I have two short stories in which the female leads have a child out of wedlock; each story is the beginning of a series of short stories that deal with how to handle the consequences of premarital sex. However, in all my novels thus far, the protagonists practice abstinence until marriage.)

Of course, Connie claims she’s not responsible for the behavior of the commenters on her blog. But why should anyone be surprised by her brazen hypocrisy?

I'm not responsible for the behavior of anybody, anywhere, but myself. I am responsible for letting comments through or not. Brazen hypocrisy? Nope. I don't pretend, Simpson.

This is the person who Susan Hathaway says does her heavy hitting...

Ah, nope. Susan does not say that, has not said it. That's another Simpson lie. Susan's quote: 

Quit reading his garbage! Every click gives him site visits and more "clout". I have not read ANY of these Floggers' troughs in over a year and it has been a very blissful year. I leave the heavy hitting to Ms. Connie!

What that means, for people who have difficulty understanding, is that Susan knows I'm going to do the heavy hitting, anyway, so there's no need for her to participate. Thus, she leaves it to me. (She has other fish to fry and she's a very busy woman.)

...and as Flaggers and their supporters have rushed to comment on this issue, we understand the connection. I just thought you should know how this associate of the Virginia Flaggers operates.

No, you didn't think that. You thought you should lie about me ... and that's what you did. As usual, you hoped to smear me and, by association, the VaFlaggers.  A few people have suggested somebody is paying you to attack and smear the VaFlaggers. I blew that off at first, but the more I see of your gratuitous, malicious and illogical attacks, the more I wonder if they're onto something....

Again, a sad story … and an example of what an outspoken supporter of the Flaggers plans to do to commenters on this blog.

LOL! Silly rabbit. I have no plans to do anything to your commenters, except counter their lies and hypocrisy on my blog.

* * *

The comments following the post above -- the few that there as of this writing, anyway -- are equally mendacious and offensive.

Al Mackey sez, "Our little Inspector Javert from Pensacola needs to do a better job in her background investigations."

I haven't done any background investigations, Al. I Googled some names. Have you ever Googled somebody's name? I seem to remember you doing that on CRR.

Simpson replies, "After all, this is Connie Chastain, who lies freely about me. That’s the sort of person Susan Hathaway uses to do her “heavy hitting.” Tells you a lot about the lack of integrity when it comes to the Virginia Flaggers. It will be quite a task to restore their honor."

I don't lie about you, Simpson. I DOCUMENT YOUR lies. Susan doesn't use me for HER heavy hitting. (Why'd you bring this up again? Do you think your peanut gallery floggerettes are too dumb to get it the first twenty times?) As explained, she knows I would do it anyway, and she doesn't join me in it because it would be redundant. But it is MY heavy hitting, not hers, not anybody else's.  The integrity of the VaFlaggers leaves what passes for YOUR integrity in the desert dust.

But THIS is my absolute FAVORITE, from Jimmy Dick:

Connie is opening herself up to a lot of lawsuits. If she starts making false accusations about people in order to deliberately affect their jobs she will find herself in court and liable for monetary losses. I do not expect her to understand what she is doing, but she needs to wake up before she finds herself behind bars. People do go to jail for this type of stuff.

Jimmy. Answer me this:

1. What have I done that's against the law?
2. What false accusations have I made?
3. Where did you get your law degree?

I dunno.... Maybe this is on a par with "violating copyright" by cutting pictures out of magazines and catalogs....

Lemme give you some advice, Jimmy. Don't look to Simpson for accurate information about me. He lies. He's been doing it for years, and I've been documenting it for years. He lies by ordinary false statements. He lies by omission, innuendo, implication. He's very glib with his lies, but they are still lies.

* * *

As noted above, I've known about these two news reports for a  year or longer, and did not blab them on Backsass, Facebook or anywhere else, until now. And I wouldn't have done so now, but for the demented, hate-filled attacks on Carl by Simpson and his humanity-deficient and integrity-depleted commenters, all because Carl is a Confederate heritage supporter.

You will note, I used the same adjective -- "sad" -- when I learned about O'Hara's arrest that Simpson used when he learned of Confoy's. The difference is that I didn't use the information to attack somebody.

Since both of these men were vocal critics of Confederate heritage and the folks who defend it, I could have broadcast this information far and wide, on my blogs, my Facebook groups, email, the whole bit.

The reason I didn't is because I'm not eager to experience schadenfreude, the way Simpson is. All the floggers and their fellow travelers enjoy episodes of schadenfreude when they think heritage folks have suffered some kind of setback.  But Simpson? He jumps into it with both feet, aquiver with eagerness, and wallows in it, head to toe, dives and rolls in it, drinks deeply of it. This is particularly true where the Virginia Flaggers are concerned.

And now, let  us settle back and wait for the remaining episodes of the Carnival of Malice at Crossroads.

(Click images below to see full size.)