Tag: intellectual property laws
Ostracize The Coward Behind The "Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett" Facebook Page
The Facebook page "Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett," which was launched sometime back on May 25 of this year, was made public and available to all members of FB in an effort to libel me and impugn and assassinate my character, not to mention violate my intellectual property for the purpose of destroying me and my reputation that I worked hard and endlessly to build and preserve for over 16 years. I knew there are some people who have it in for me, who want to see me destroyed, and believe that my endless, unrelenting honesty is somehow a calamitous threat to the libertarian movement that has come apart at the seams since the Brad Spangler and Christopher Cantwell fallouts – messes that are on them and not me.
The name of the community page is like this:
Of course it doesn't end there. This is what the page is about:
I, of course, never professed to be a saint, much less the nicest and least sarcastic asshole on the planet, let alone the entire universe or even "multiverses." (Do "multiverses" really count? Let me know about that for once, ok? LOL!) Anyway, where was I? Ahhh yes, this page was created by a clandestine individual to inform "those who wish to disassociate themselves" from Yours Truly. Oh, and here's the cosmic gag that keeps the laughs coming: supposedly I'm a "drama queen 'libertarian' hanger-on who publicly outs rape victims.'" That last part really did it for me, and yet this invisible dude – or dudette – thinks he's doing what passes for a "libertarian" movement a big favor by outing me as the evil super-duper villain of all time — yup, in the same league of the Joker, Harley Quinn, Two-Face a.k.a. Harvey Dent, Lex Luthor, Grodd….well, you get the DC Comics point anyhow. This stuff is so comical that this dude should be Bill Maher of Real Time's own staff writer. He'd make a really good career in Hollywood.
"Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett"'s Laughably Ridiculous Points
Here's more ugly libels that are lawsuit-worthy:
I'd like to respond to each and every single point that this coward has written about me, so let's start with the most recent one that began approximately a day ago.
Yes, it's true that I reported his page to Facebook on the grounds that the images and statements he quotes from me were employed *WITHOUT* my express permission. There's no evidence that he misquoted me, but he has used my statements against me in such a way that I consider to be an attack on my person, my character, and well-respected reputation that precedes me. Yes, "Ostracize" (which is what I will call you from now on), I am respected by my family, my personal friends whom I've known for over 30 years, and many fellow anarchists and libertarians with whom I remain good friends (like Wendy McElroy and Sheldon Richman, for instance) and with whom I have built, erected, established, and preserved good rapports for many, many years — long before you knew what a libertarian ever was.
I used the "intellectual property" tactic as a ruse to draw you out. And guess what? You took the bait. I wanted your attention as much as you wanted my attention, however undivided it was, and now you have it. I never said I wasn't fair game in the movement. Not once in my life did I ever say or imply or infer that I am shielded from the effects of public scrutiny. I'm not. However, would you like to know something? The rules apply to you too. You are fair game as well. You are not shielded from those same effects. I don't know what your end game is, or what you want with me, or why you are doing this, but I've been around the block many, many times. You're no different from Eric Dondero of the Libertarian Republicans blog.
I should also note that not all libertarians agree with each other regarding IP laws that govern intellectual property. Stephan Kinsella, an IP attorney who employs the "libertarian" moniker all the time and yet is a member of a bar association of statist attorneys and uses the State to his advantage, claims he's against intellectual property. So does Ian Freeman (formerly, Ian Bernard) of Free Talk Live. However, not all libertarians concur with each other on intellectual property laws. L. Neil Smith (co-founder of the Libertarian Enterprise for which I have written and where I've published articles) and Sharon Presley support intellectual property laws because of their support for artists. (Sharon and Neil do not support corporations having full control of other people's intellectual property though as I understand it.)
I do know one thing: you are a coward. That's what you have been, that's what you still are right now, and that's what you'll always be. A coward. A coward is someone who hides in the shadows, afraid of revealing his or her true identity and true form. He or she is afraid of unveiling what his or her ulterior motives are, which seem to be carried out in the form of a smear campaign against me. And that, sir, is you!
Yes, I've been writing and publishing articles long before you were a gleam in the movement's eyes. Yet I'm not the only one who's been doing that. Scores of libertarians and anarchists, past and present, have been doing that for years. Yes, I do run and host a radio show known as Liberty Cap Talk Live I could create a page about you that is a response to what you've fashioned against me, and perhaps I should, but I won't. I'm sure someone would call it or suggest "Ostracize the Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett Page" or something like that, but then that would be even more comical and more of a cosmic gag than you or anyone in the movement have foreseen.
I reserve the right to protect my intellectual property that includes my likeness, image, and name, as well as my reputation. I have more people on my side than you have on yours. I've seen only 8 likes on your page, which is a really Goddess-awful non-existent number. Why is it a bad number? It's simply because out of so many libertarians who have better uses of their time than to engage in politically-correct cheap shots, ludicrous rantings about someone (a colleague, a protege, or an ally) whom they know nothing about personally outside of Facebook, and personal, whacked-out barbs and insults that they would likely with each other over irrelevant issues that are the least of their concerns, the State remains our enemy, and we don't have time for this inane bullshit that takes up valuable time and precious resources that could be best served nationally, state-wise, and locally to fight the real threats to our liberties.
You refer to the Brad Spangler trainwreck in which you note that I involved myself in that ruckus.
Let me post what Brad Spangler wrote on his Facebook wall on January 22 of this year:
Of course, I will repeat a portion of what Brad said with some extra content attached to this page:
And, of course, this is what Brad also posted including some comments that were appended to his FB post as well:
Let it be on record that I'm not the only person who involved himself in this matter. I estimate that over 85 percent of the movement involved itself into the Spangler affair, and like most brain-dead humans, they forget too easily what has been posted with their names attached to that development. Many people, including Corey Moore, gleefully latched onto the event, making themselves armchair opportunists the second the news surrounding Brad's Facebook confession came out. As the pics unveil, and I never candy-coat anything just to use it as window dressing for any pathetically particular interest or reasoning, quite a number of people responded, and they kept responding to the matter because it was blowing up on the Internet. The second Spangler confessed that he was a pedophile, that he molested his daughter (who was 10 at the time), his life in the movement for him was over.
The cops couldn't do a damn thing about the matter because of the statute of limitations in his case ran out, although it could go on for 20-30 years *EVEN* after the victim, who was under 18 in 2004. That means the limitations ran out last year, which menas that, even if his daughter were to still file criminal charges against him, they wouldn't stick because the law would insulate and does insulate Brad from the prosecutorial consequences imposed upon and meted out to him by the State of Missouri.
Again, yes I did involve myself in that matter, and yes I did out the victim. I took a shit-slugging heat from people who believed that I violated her privacy. The victim, assuming she hasn't turned 21 yet but I think she already has since this incident, was 20 years old when I "outed" her. It was Kelsey Eichhorn-Fetterhoff who told me Brad's daughter's first name, and it was J. Neil Schulman who pointed out to me that I had a moral and legal obligation to report the facts. It's called the First Amendment for a reason.
You accuse me of "justifying outing a rape victim" (and so call it what you will!), but you're a hypocrite. You're justifying outing me as a person in the form of a Facebook page as a way for you to score political points, thinking that's somehow gonna help you rise through the ranks of the movement, and you love the First Amendment when it works to your advantage and benefit from it. But the second it makes you look bad and makes you look like a super-villain, you caterwaul over that cardinal principle when the world doesn't go your way? When the results don't look in your favor? Get over yourself, please!
It doesn't help that Zoe (OMG, I mentioned her name on my blog; fire and brimstone will rain down from the sky now that I've done it again!) is a Facebook friend of her father, and it also doesn't help that she's a legal adult who could've contacted me anytime she wanted if she didn't want me to expose her identity for the world to know and see. She also could've said that, had I not done any of those things, she would've filed a lawsuit against me or filed criminal charges with her local prosecutor's office, demanding that I take down my Facebook posts for the protection of her privacy. She doesn't need sycophants like those who have attacked me for "outing her" in the libertarian and anarchist movements; she could've done these things herself. But she didn't. And it's not because I forced her to re-live the molestation acts committed against her by her own flesh-and-blood father; it's because she dropped the ball on that one.
She did respond to the entire ruckus with the following:
And so she should. I take issue with her "rape culture" and "patriarchal ideas to be examined and dismantled" that she floated, but beyond that, she's right on the button on a few things. What makes it complicated is the fact that:
She's a Marxist/left-wing statist like her father, but that's her father's fucked-up fault;
She says, "I want to bring attention to how we view rape culture." There is *NO* "rape culture" of any kind in the United States. There *IS* real rape culture brewing in the Middle East, particularly in countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, Libya, and many Middle Eastern regions where ISIS is present, and we should condemn that. (Why she doesn't condemn that in the Middle East is beyond me, but it buttresses my point that limousine left-liberal feminists like Zoe have concocted this imaginary world in which "rape culture" is universal, ubiquitous, and ever-present in the United States, and that all men are somehow evil and disgusting because of the atrocious actions of her own father.)and
Finally, she acts like she wants to be infantilized, because of the horrors she experienced when she was a child, and she appears to be experiencing great difficulties as an adult because of her pedophile father who didn't just "damage" her; he destroyed her all the around.
The fact that other libertarians and anarchists contributed to her infantilization as a child by keeping her trapped in the childification maze that has been constructed for her is just mind-boggling and disgusting. Anyone with a pulse worth their salt would just wash their hands of the madness and make a quiet exit, never to discuss the matter ever again, not even anyone.
You, "Ostracize" (or whoever you are), don't give a damn about Zoe, what happened to her as a child, what her sanity and life have been, and so on. You only give the appearance of giving a damn just to boot your Facebook visits, and that's all about it. The same reality applies to the others who decided to take matters into their own hands and purge me from the old libertarian movement, because they wanted to destroy it, and the Brad Spangler/Zoe Sprangler incident served as an opportunity as well as an excuse to get rid of radicals who have shaped and defined what was once a very powerful movement with people who had nothing but love and compassion for it.
I think I made my point with regards to this matter clearly and expressively.
On October 4 of this year, "Ostracize" posted the following on his or her page:
And here are the screenshots:
That's what "Ostracize" complains about! What am I talking about? I'm talking about the fact that "Ostracize" complains about the fact that I keep changing my mind about whether Liberty Cap Talk Live remains on the air or not. Yes, I have done that many times, and I don't deny it. People can say whatever they want about that. I say: so what? So what if I keep changing my mind on whether to keep the show on the air or not? So what? My responses on Facebook are based on my mood swings, which could be on some psychiatric level, be a basis for bipolar disorder, I guess. But I don't believe I have bipolar disorder. It's just me changing my mind based on me cooling down after the depression kicks in, and I figure that's all about it.
Was I really going to cancel LCTL? No. I was being theatrical about it. But then I'm an old actor, and the old actor has to play his part for the masses to see.
Am I a "drama queen"? Yes, I admit I am. So what? The libertarian movement is saturated with them. "Drama whoring" is the new sanity, and people who really cry me and everyone else a new river by simply objecting to the drama in the movement are "drama whores" as well. Even you, "Ostracize," because you like this stuff for the kicks, the theatricality, the showboating, and the window dressing that come with all of this mess.
Well, don't you?
The thing is, "Ostracize," that I along with my fellow libertarians and anarchists (who are on my side for the most part) find your Facebook page to be both a nuisance and counterproductive to the goals, aspirations, dreams, and desires of other libertarians and anarchists who don't kowtow to you and your minions as if they signed up for the U.S. Army.
It is what it is though. As I have told my good friend Avens O'Brien:
Look, I made a decision at the time. I'm not going to apologize for a decision I made, but at the same time, I wouldn't do it again.
As for the drama you see from me that you so complain about, yeah, so? What's your point? Aren't you engaging in that drama too? You know you are. You just don't want to admit it.
The truth is this, people: ostracize the "Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett" Facebook Page. I ask people to disassociate themselves from this nutjob-of-a-prick who's hell-bent on destroying my life, let alone every principle and conviction I have and for which I stand. I ask that you do this because you don't need to have a dog in this fight, and neither do I. You owe this piece of shit nothing. I don't owe him anything. More than that, I owe no one anything except for what my convictions are, my brazen honesty, and the truth as I see it. Nothing more and nothing less. Would you expect any less of me? Furthermore, would you do any less if the shoe were on the other foot?
I hope that everyone thinks very hard about that. I do. I really do.
Turn off the lights when you're done with yourself, "Ostracize." There's no need for the huge electric bill.
[Note: Immediate Update:] Before I started work on this blog piece, I filed a harassment report via the page to Facebook. Since my intellectual property violation report didn't get through and didn't work, I decided not to give up on the Page, on the grounds that it targeted me, and that the coward behind the page who wouldn't identify himself needed to be reported for violating Facebook's community standards.
What did I do? I report the "Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett" page to Facebook, and then Facebook reviewed it. Facebook posted the following, alerting me of its decision:
And I thought Facebook would side with "Ostracize" all the way around. Wow. Don't I feel vindicated now?
Author Todd Andrew BarnettPosted on December 4, 2015 January 22, 2016 Categories Avens O'Brien, Bill Maher, Brad Spangler, DC Comics, drama queens, Facebook's Removal of Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett, Free Talk Live, Ian Freeman, intellectual property laws, J. Neil Schulman, L. Neil Smith, Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett Facebook Page, Real Time, Real Time with Bill Maher, Reporting Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett Facebook Page to Facebook, Sharon Presley, super-villain, the State, Zoe SpanglerTags Avens O'Brien, Bill Maher, Brad Spangler, DC Comics, drama queens, Facebook's Removal of Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett, Free Talk Live, Ian Freeman, intellectual property laws, J. Neil Schulman, L. Neil Smith, Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett, Real Time, Real Time with Bill Maher, Reporting Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett Facebook Page to Facebook, Sharon Presley, super-villain, the State, Zoe Spangler1 Comment on Ostracize The Coward Behind The "Ostracize Todd Andrew Barnett" Facebook Page