592. Peace (XI)

A periodic trend among politicians and media personalities is to denounce anon Internet users. The denunciation is usually couched in these terms: “These cowards need to come out and fight in the open. Come out under your own name and stick to it, buddy.” This is utterly risible, as if these politicians and journalists would actually go up to you, slap you with their white pigskin glove, and say: “Sir, have you no honour? Your behaviour is damnable—abominable. Meet me on the lawn outside Congress, épée in hand, at 12 noon and I shall have satisfaction!”.

Would they do so? Of course not, these men are hypocrites. They appeal to honour and frank speech and yet they do not practice either; if you proposed a duel to them they would sneer and say: “Get real. Who is this joker?”. They are, in fact, bulletproof down to their underpants with bodyguards front and back—not to mention their lawyers. Far from meeting you on the field with honour, they would run to their lawyers or to the authorities to see if they could get you arrested; or, more likely, they would run to their journalist friends to have “Cumgroyper44” monstered in the media as a racist or a misogynist, even if he did it for the lols, so that he would lose his job and the neighbours would come up to him and say: “So, you’re one of them, are you? We don’t want your type here.” Above all, they would find out you lack a degree from a top tier university and say: “He’s just nothing, we don’t need to take him seriously.” These are superficial people, remember—they have no interest in real coin.

You are not obliged to be honourable to people who do not practice honour—although they would very much like you to do so. This is the problem with conservatives; they seem to be masochists who want to be fair and honourable while their opponent plays dirty—if you continue to be honourable to someone who is dishonourable you do down honour, you clot. When I see Boris Johnson or Mike Huckabee offer to resolve the Ukraine war through a judo match with Vladimir Putin—through single combat—then I will take these protests about “honour” seriously.

However, what I see at the moment is a load of hypocrites who run to committees for protection and squeak like old women that they have “documented everything”—they are very good at documentation, since their main practice is covering their arses so as not to be technically caught out doing anything wrong.

Are anons “good”? People often refer to the Founding Fathers—The Federalist Papers—as an example where anonymous action was good; and yet the Founding Fathers were traitors and criminals—no honour among thieves and swindlers. It is perfectly true that muggers pull tights down over their faces—thugs become anon. It all comes down to whether or not you will enter the forest. The forest: it contains bandits and outlaws; it contains witches who tempt children with gingerbread houses; it contains wolves; it contains jolly axemen who chop up wolves; it contains Robin Hood, and it contains holy men.

In the forest everyone is anon, in the forest there are outlaws—men like Robin Hood (real name “Robin of Locksley”)—who keep the true law, the forest law, while the public officials distort it; and there are real bandits who just want to rob you and leave you for dead—and there are witches and wolves. There are also holy men—the Hindu at the end of his life retreats to the forest, and the druids are forest dwellers too. The forest is a frightening place, no doubt; it requires courage to enter the forest, yet these clever politicians—these sheriffs of Nottingham—have no courage; so they want to chop the forest down, nominally to extirpate the bandits but really because the forest law is the true law.