Yesterday, on his Fox News Network program, Glenn Beck talked about how people are turning into monsters. He thinks that the level of discourse on "blogs", driven by the anonymity that many such sites offer, is part of the problem. He called on those of us who operate on the Internet under pseudonyms to stop doing it. He wants us to write under our real names. I realized then that I had never dealt with the issue here.
When I first became connected to the Internet, I had two daughters still young enough to live at home, each of whom walked a few blocks to grade school, and later a few more blocks to middle school. The thought that some barking moonbat leftist might be sufficiently angered by my position on an issue to lash out against either of them, or to The Bride of Monster, chilled me to the bone.
So I decided that the best way to protect all three of them was to use the pseudonym "Monster", or some form of it. I soon found that username was taken on many sites, but "The Monster" generally was not. On Twitter, even that was taken, and I used a Latin expression that helps explain one reason I embrace this name: "Sum, ergo monstro.". (The English word "Monster" ultimately derives from the Latin verb "monstro", which means "show, point out, nominate, or appoint".)
My current employer is large enough to be politically correct. Since anyone who disagrees with Leftists is branded "racist", I fear that if someone knew my real name, they might try to get me fired for "hate speech". I'm sure I'm not the Lone Ranger here; not many of us in the Dextrosphere are tenured professors like Glenn Reynolds, who can't be fired for straying off the leftist plantation. I don't see why we should hand our enemies such a gift on a silver platter.
The wisdom of this policy has been demonstrated in the behavior of the infamous Deb Frisch, who was enjoined from having any contact with Protein Wisdom's Jeff Goldstein after she repeatedly made über-creepy sexual comments about his then-infant son. By the strangest coincidence, right before Beck called for us all to use real names, she resumed her activities against Goldstein's family, making a profanity-laced call to his elderly mother.
Incredibly, the Maryland authorities (where Jeff's mom lives) won't take any action based on a single phone call, despite the existing restraining order, and the train of abuses that led to it. It looks like the only thing Jeff can do is hire a private attorney to pursue a civil action. He hasn't slept more than a couple of hours the last three days, and needs our help. If you can spare a few shekels, pop over there and hit the tip jar.
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