Talk Elections

Why the socks?

Before I say anything in the way of an explanation, I have to be clear.  To explain bad behavior (I consider it sinful behavior) is not always helpful.  Explanations can sound an awful lot like excuses.  So, I don’t want to be mistaken. I’m offering an explanation to people who have been relentlessly gracious to me.  Not as a means of repairing my image, as that is pretty much what it now is.  Nor as a means of necessarily restoring relationships.  If anyone feels those attachments are broken, they’ve every right. I explain only because some of you have asked.  You want to know why.  Before I proceed, let me again mea culpa…
I am guilty of bearing false witness.  That’s not lying, per se.  It is far worse. It might be a lie to tell kindly Mrs. Jones you like her new hat, when really, it’s making you just a little nauseous.  It’s quite another thing to put yourself out there as one kind of person, while covertly seeking to injure or discredit others.  That is sin.  It is bald-faced hypocrisy. It stinks.  I own it as my own and no one else’s.  I apologize. 
 The hurt is delivered in manifold ways, not least being to cast aspersions on ideological opponents.  None deserved it.  Beyond that, friends are injured.  First, they rightly resent being talked about by these fictional characters.  Second, they justifiably feel betrayed by me, the originator of the farce.  Third, they are understandably mad as hell that any salient or quality contributions I have made as myself have been undercut, sullied and blackened. And if they agreed with those contributions, they are now left with having a sorely tainted ally on the record.
There is nothing else I can say, except that my actions were not “mistakes” or “shenanigans”.  They were sinful and coarsely hypocritical. 

******

As to explaining how it all came to be…
I have conversations with people – real people (though I surely deserve to be accused of being “mental”) – all the time, who are quite precisely like the characters you have been subjected to.  They are members of my family.  When I worked in a very public profession, they wrote me letters, called me on the telephone and buttonholed me at various events.  The views expressed by Coburn, the imbecile, and KTC, the rather more intelligent sock, are accurate portrayals of the arguments, conversations and communications I still receive on a regular basis, from some of these folks.  I went to church with these people for many decades. I went to college with no small number of them.  More than a few members of my family could easily pass for KTC and, at least one, for Coburn.

This is what happens:  At some point, people – good people, reasonable people – tell you that such individuals either do not exist…or they are exceedingly rare.  Others chime in, agreeing.  And you start to wonder how much wax has accumulated in your ears.  Perhaps you didn’t hear these extremists fairly. Perhaps they are not nearly as bad as you imagine. You go back for clarification.  No.  You DID hear them correctly.  They really DO believe…among other things…that slavery was a benevolent institution; that people who practice witchcraft or homosexuality should be executed; that people of color are intrinsically lazy and evil; and so on.

(The thread involving KTC and Haiti is particularly representative of a conversation with a brother in law not too long after the earthquake.)

You become so nauseated by it, you try to exorcise it by arguing with it.  The folks who actually say these things are not listening and will not even begin to hear another point of view.  (I speak of the real life KTC’s and Coburns…not anyone on the Forum.)  And it then becomes very important to persuade others (you folks) that... A). You DID and DO experience this.  B).  There is danger here.  C).   You, though you came from them, are no longer like them. 
And I guess that’s the ultimate truth here.  I actually WAS “ktc” at one point in my life.  And Coburn is who I almost became in order to please pastors, peers, at least one parent and some older siblings and their husbands. So when people told me it wasn’t real…or that there were just a harmless handful of cartoonish freaks out there like that, I wanted to correct the record.  They may not be a majority, but they are many.
You never start with some nefarious plan to manipulate people.  It’s just going to be one post.  And then two.  You stop for protracted periods of time, but them something happens that trips your trigger and off you go.  All along, you tell yourself…it’s just the internet.  This is harmless.  Lots of people do it. The problem with that is, you’ve made real friends in the process.  And those real friends have real feelings.  They end up feeling as though they have been stabbed in the back.  And why not?  They have been.  For that, most of all, I am deeply sorry. (The only thing I will say that might be construed as being in my defense is that I absolutely never expected to find friends here.  It took me totally by surprise.)

I think this all began, though the timing may not be precise, a short while after my Dad died.  I can’t say his passing was the initial trigger, because he was the sane parent. (You would think my Mom, being more of a nutter, would have been the one to trigger this sort of thing.)  But I suppose there was a lot of stuff there that I would have otherwise hashed out with Dad.  He had a stroke 15 years before he died and our relationship changed from one of enthusiastic and intellectual debate to simply watching ballgames together.  He couldn’t read or speak any longer, but he could understand baseball.  The last couple years, we lost even that. When I was a kid, he was the janitor at our church in Ohio.  I had forgotten about this until Dad died.  But I remember him being fired because the elders of the church learned that Dad smoked a pipe at home.  And that one of his heroes was Franklin Roosevelt.  They were livid and accused him of living a double life. Dad took it all in stride and, though he honestly never thought he did anything wrong, he would only say, “Well, they have a point.  Smoking is unhealthy.”  We stayed at that church  (we should have left then and there) and Mom and I continued to swallow the kool ade. We couldn’t think in shades of grey like Dad.  I think Dad stayed for us.

Anyway…this may be way too convoluted and time-consuming for anyone to want to bother with.  And I don’t blame you.  But I think it flows out of that.  I admit…I really did and still do want to hurt those people.  Not just for what they did to Dad and what they helped turn my mother and sisters into – but for what they, until I got married, pretty much turned me into. I’ve always tended toward empathy and so, by extension, whether the victim is my Dad, Matthew Shepherd or a bag lady someone refers to as a “welfare queen”, it cuts deeply.  I shouldn’t let it. Look what I became instead.

The upshot of all this is…yeah, sure.  I am a 44 year old man with a wife and a little one.  It is pathetic.  But no, I don’t keep shrunken heads in my basement or download midget porn.  I don’t hear voices and I’m not the second coming of Sybil.  I certainly AM a first class dick for playing this rotten game.  I take full responsibility.  It will never happen again.  (For one thing, I am asking for a permanent ban.  I don’t think I could bear to show my face again anyway – and rightly so.)  I won’t say I meant no harm.  Because I did and I don’t want to whitewash or soft-pedal this.  I can only say that whoever my harshest critic is saying in my absence, I agree with his judgment.
Now the rest of you…get on with the show and treat each other better than I treated you!  I wish you all the best of luck.

I expected something like this. I've known you on the forum long enough to be able to guess what you're thinking, and having read several posts in the past about your family, I understand the problems you experience in that particular environment.

I don't particularly feel betrayed. I always knew Coburn was a sock, and I never took anything he said seriously (see my countless "don't feed the troll" comments), so I'm not personally offended by any of this.

The greater problem in general is keeping socks under control because they can and do disrupt the forum, and many people don't believe they're talking to artificial people. For these people, it's really unfair because they invest time to argue with and try to convince people that don't even exist, and I can also understand that they feel duped after experiencing something like this.


That said....no evil has been committed here that can't and shouldn't be forgiven. As said, aside from the general principle of creating socks, I actually found Coburn and co. relatively amusing.

You've been a very valuable member of the forum for a very long time, and I have always valued your contributions and comments. You're one of the posters whose posts I always take the time to read fully. I see no reason to allow this fiasco to change any of that.

I sincerely hope you remain on the forum and continue to contribute (under your own name :)). It would be a real shame to lose you over this.

I agree, although at the end of last week I wasn't feeling so generous (as Joe Republic can attenst to).  After a couple nights of sleeping on it, I whole heartedly agree with Franzl.

Dude, I thought Coburn in 2012 was actually a real person. I know that sounds crazy to people but I know quite a few people here who made Coburn (even if he were fake) sound tame.
I know that some of you can't envision someone that extreme, someone that hateful, but I sure can, hell I'm surrounded by them.

With that said, all JSojourner did was portray a couple of socks, and even if he is a chronic liar who gets a high out of manipulating people and is using this apology to play with our emotions to get us to beg him to come back, well let me just say that this is a f***ing internet forum, not real life. If you actually felt hurt because of something someone did over the internet, you're pathetic.

I still think probation...at least....is in order.

He's advocating that he be banned.....i hardly think he'd disagree with that.

Yeah, I read that and I don't agree.  He shouldn't be banned.  He does need to be punished though.  I'm not one that thinks "aww he feels bad, that's punishment enough" works.  Sets a bad example IMHO.

I'll chime in here from the perspective that I like JSJ, or at least the character of JSJ, and had a great deal of respect for him before the truth was discovered on this matter.  I still like JSJ but have some concerns about him and the situation that are probably shared by posters who if they voiced them would be dismissed because of their douchebaggery.  


As I said, I liked JSJ before I knew of his other dealings, I still do.  But I can't trust him at the moment, and perhaps never will be able to again.  In my mind, trust is the currency--a fiat one of sorts--of the forum.  I come here and post because I trust I'm talking to real people, not socks, not clones, not actors who show one position on the boards (save some sort of clearly defined game section), not some cleverly programmed bot that's almost sentient.  Its no fun otherwise.  The challenge and intellectual stimulation of coming to this forum is that I can attempt to convince others of my positions value, and be convinced of theirs.  Call someone out on their bull and be called out on mine.  By real people.

This is not the first time a trick like this has been pulled (albeit in different variations) on this board and while I doubt anyone's suffered some sort of emotional damage--I can't say I have--BUT it undermines my trust--whatever trust one could have on ze interwebs--in the forum.  This incident should be a reminder that while I am sincere and hope you take me as such, and that I presume everyone else to be sincere, its all essentially an illusion.  But an illusion fails when it is no longer believable.

I still really like JSJ if he, not withstanding his sockpuppetry, is the person he has been on the boards and claims to be.  Faults and all.  We're all imperfect.  In the grand scheme of life, what has he done?  Its not like he's stolen money from anyone or slept with anyone's wife.  Do any of us have wives here?  Girlfriends besides your right or left palms? I don't think its necessary that he is banned, at least at this juncture, or that he walk away.  I'd rather see him stay and rebuild what social capital he has lost.

That said, some posters have gripes with JSJ that I can't help but think have been someone legitimized through this whole affair.  I also can't help but think that given the nature of the forum, both ideologically and tempermentally, that had the source of Coburn and KTC been anyone not sharing JSJ's political views or personality or within a certain variation of it, that we as a forum would be looking at this situation much differently.  

Just food for thought.  JSJ's still a nice guy, in my view, and I hope we can move on from this and be a little bit wiser.

Very well said bullmoose.

Where are KeeptheChange and Coburnin2012's apologies?

What I want to know. Why the hell create that second sock. Specially at that point of time, with everybody sensitized to socks posting here.
That was just asking for detection, wasnt it?

^^^^^

Great post, well said.


Especially without retiring Coburn first. If Coburn wasn't an active poster he wouldn't have been caught.

Yeah. Looks almost like consciously done.

JS is a good man. He was and will remain my friend - always.

The above closely summarizes my views.

Might I suggest that you go see a counselor or at least someone who can talk with you about all that? Just sounds like you have some issues that need to be worked through because they won't go away on their own.

:(
What stinks in this situation is that the number of good Indiana posters, which was very few to begin with, just decreased again.

I could just write your posts for you. Quick comment on the issue/Something about "texaslefty"/non-sequitur.

Good advice. From your apology post, JS, it sounds like the socks were a minor symptom of some noteworthy deeper issues.

While I've been engaged in a debate with 'KeeptheChange', on Haiti, I don't feel 'betrayed', neither angry or something.

Amusingly, I justified myself toward Hashemite why I was responding to a guy like 'KeeptheChange' on Haiti, because I think that such thoughts are very well spread in a lot of people, and not only in 'morons', 'morons' just care less about political correctness, and the 'approach' of JsJ was apparently to show people such people exist, lol, all in all we were posting with the same considerations in mind on that debate. And, I must say I'm still glad to having said what have said to someone like 'KeeptheChange' on the kind of thoughts he displayed on Haiti.

Personally, when I discovered this affair, today, I mainly felt, well, .k, too bad, not a lot more, just fed up about socks generally speaking - when you make a sock, entitle it: Sock [insert nickname], then no abuse and it would make a game for people to guess who it is.

Though, using bad tricks never help a cause I think, actually, now, outside of having abused people you like, those you tried to discredit will have materials to discredit you, and as i said for 'KeeptheChange', 'you' is never only one people (nah, no contextual double senses intended here), you represent the ideas you defend and when you discredit yourself, you discredit your ideas, which is one more negative aspect of such practices.

So, while personally I don't feel especially hurt, I of course condemn it, not sure which sanction I would apply personally, you apologized, you explained, a big part of the job has been done then.

Now, and I wanted to say all of this before answering to Mechaman's quote, I'm sorry but Internet happens in real life, it involves real people that have relationships and build something, on a forum, a chat, facebook or whatever stuff you can imagine. That's something that happens between humans and I don't see how there should be some double standards here. Outside of the fact that 'e-relationships' are something taking more and more place in the human society. That's because people give so few importance to what they do on the net that it becomes a so trashy thing, on which people are encouraged to trash, because they have been trashed or just because everyone does it, and here goes this glorious society, in which, btw, the 'e-relationships' are taking more and more place, at every level of life. Outside of the moral issue of trashing it, if it continues it will surely lead to the fact that it loose a part of its liberty in the future. All of this to say, no, that's not 'just the net', and that's not 'pathetic' to give some importance to what's going on by this stuff...

Anyways, in the present case, no resentment personally, but rather good that something like this ends.

...:)

I thought this post was going to be 'And Here Comes The Sun'

I'm disappointed now.

Don't go JS :(

You are being way too hard on yourself.


Seconded

Damn. Wasn't the purpose.

Well, in short, bad tricks can't be legitimate even to defend a good cause, because outside of abusing some people that you like, you don't only discredit yourself, but the ideas you defend too.

I've also met people exactly like Coburn.. in fact I've met too many that are *exactly* like him.  I think it's because they have the herd mentality and they're just incredibly insecure and reactionary.  Someone that acts like Coburn most likely has mental problems that could be diagnosed by any qualified doctor.

JS has been a fine poster, and I stand by him, and hope that he will continue to grace us with his presence.

I think what he did was wrong simply because it betrays the trust of people.  When I found out about it... it made me wonder if Jsojourner was actually a genuine poster or if that was just another "sock" of sorts... but I think he explained himself clearly and Jsojourner just has that genuine feel... so I can't be mad forever.

I felt like my fingers had been burnt at the weekend; I was dissapointed rather than annoyed because I wondered why could JS create such horrible personas when it was the entire opposite of who he was. He has done us a favour by trying to explain that process.

It takes a lot (and I'm not being loose with words) to admit you're failings like that so I respect it. As I said to jmfcst none of what has happens changes what Jsjourner believed and how he defended it.

I can't do anything other than accept he is sincerely sorry.

I think if JS remains, it should be with monitoring by the mods.

 

Wow, after reading this now I really know you are one really disturbed, f-ed up individual.

Most of the forum populace is so stupid that they'll forgive and forget and let things get back the way they were before.  Some of them may be so stupid as to trust you again.

I won't, period.  Of course, it's not like I did in the first place, so merely consider it a resumption of status quo.  Just with validation.

Agreed.

lol, why do you care so much? Most the forum is willing to forgive him because they don't really care enough to hold a grudge against someone they don't really know anyway. He isn't an integral part of anyone's life here (or at least he shouldn't be). Your attitude here, ironically, is one that fosters the creation of more internetz drama! Of course, I'm not saying I have any problem with that... just felt that I should point that out.

Get some help, man. You have a lot of internalized issues that lead to posting nearly 1,500 times under two fake accounts for over a year, and that's outside of your primary account, under which you posted -- on average -- over nine times per day.

I am deeply sympathetic to the issues that got you to that point, but you need to look outside of an internet forum for sympathy, understanding and respect. Seek professional counseling ... you need it.

Best wishes.

lol - for thinking that I hold a grudge and that I actually care.  

Read the post again.  I'll even help you.

I came to the conclusion he was a disturbed, f-ed individual two years ago.  Henceforth, this discovery (and the last two posts of today, which btw is the best evidence yet) is nothing new and merely validates my point of view.  There is no grudge and I don't really care - this is fact to me bore through observation and reading, nothing else.

Maybe you're right about me fostering more "internetz drama!" in terms of pointing out that almost all people (well, not the socks or trolls) are this forum are gullible suckers and are allowing themselves to be drawn in again because it makes them feel good.   So be it - I do like to ruffle feathers every so often.

Let's look at it this way - How many times have I actually responded to JS on this forum or otherwise in the past couple of years?  How many times will I post to JS on this forum after this whole thing?  Do I keep JS threads around - looking for ways to prove that I'm right?  Will I really care if the forum lets him back in with open arms?

This topic is probably about it for me on the JS subject - but this particular post struck me as classic manipulator behavior, so I felt like responding.

And I was thinking that it was Torie that you were sending to Genesis. ;)

I forgive you - you were one of my favorite posters before, and you still are. You always made a lot of good points, even if I disagreed with some of them.

The only reason I didn't like Coburn (Well, I knew he was a sock) and more specifically, KTC, was that they made people who share similar beliefs on the forum (not I) look like nutters. That was pretty much why I was mad at first.

Glad to see you are back.

That's a fairly lengthy post for someone who doesn't care.

Sam Spade only cares about 1 thing:  Sam Spade.  And if he has to turn the attention of the forum onto him by going on at length about how he *doesn't* care... then that's what he'll do.  At the end of the day, Sam Spade's universe is very small.  He's the only one in it.

Sam Spade's analysis is spot-on.

It's times like this when the internet is revealed to be the big ball of stupid that it really is.

Not really. I've written posts like that in like a minute without caring a great deal. His point was that he didn't care about JSojourner, not that he didn't care about being right. :P

I fail to see why he or anyone else should care about that either.

...and I fail to see why anyone should care about your visual short-comings. :P

Tell them about JSojourner.

This is why:

()

I have that feeling EVERY day.

Maybe I shouldn't be bumping this thread 5 days after it's gone stale...but I don't see what the big deal is.  I still think JSojourner's prank was funny.  I'm actually upset that he made an apology thread. 

I'm not sure if it was exactly a prank. The accounts were maintained for a long time.

This is my first time reading this. Dude has major issues.

Yeah, but I still miss him. :(

It's all your fault, Badger! :P

I miss him too.........

Yeah I agree. If he had come out and said "What's the big deal? I have a lot of time on my hands, you guys need to get over yourselves and stop with the melodramatic feigned outrage and pity party", then I'd have totally respected him.