[Amezarak]

You don't get to have people punished simply because you feel unsafe. That's absurd. What if your post makes me feel unsafe? Peoples feelings are subjective, people are different, some people have a hair-trigger and others don't care, some people read a lot into words and other people take them at face value.

The only reason this individual should have been punished by FreeBSD folks for this alleged harassment is if it was against FreeBSD rules, it occurred in FreeBSD channels or forums, and there was a consensus among other people that it actually constituted harassment.

Otherwise, you just have a weapon you can wield to silence all civil discourse (because everyone has a job or a hobby somewhere they don't want to lose) you don't like by claiming you feel unsafe or harassed.

And after reading the sources mentioned in this thread, your and Randi's description of events is, to put it very mildly, one-sided. You may win some support from the people who don't dig down, but you're alienating allies with these tactics. I was a proud supporter and ally for about ten years, but over the past year or so I've grown more and more disillusioned. More and more it seems like there's nothing worth fighting for. I would certainly not want to appear to support the hatefulness and bullying Randi has engaged in publicly over this and other issues.

FreeBSD is, frankly, better off without the politics and drama.

[lillian-lemmer]

My impression of you: Being dehumanized, threatened with death, rape, is a totally subjective experience and vaguely defined, so we shouldn't stop those things. I offered my conditional support to you people, but now I'm revoking it because I want people to be able to dehumanize and threaten you and ultimately do not care what happens to anyone else. BTW, being picked on and trolling cis men poses the exact scenario as threatening women, minorities, with death, rape, etc.

FreeBSD is, frankly, better off making these people feel threatened and dehumanized.

[engi_nerd]

...Why would you want anyone to feel threatened and dehumanized?

You do realize that many of your critics will point to statements like this and use them against you. So why make them?

[Amezarak]

> ultimately do not care what happens to anyone else.

It is ironic that you would make this argument. Identity politics as they have now become represent a kind of second coming of Nietzschean nihilism, where our sacred civic religion of human rights has self-overcome and transformed into the supremacy of the unbridled ego: all things must be seen through the interpretative framework of the subjective ego, and all things must be fully supportive of the ego or regarded as an enemy that must be totally and utterly destroyed. No logical argument is acceptable because any argument per se represents not rhetoric but a personal attack on the ego itself that must be responded to with overwhelming force. The ego must always answer "why am I unhappy" with "because of someone else - not because of me! Never because of me!" Inevitably every ally, supporter, and friend over time becomes an enemy, because even the closest and best of friends cannot (and should not) be continuously supportive of every thought, word, and action. That is, the natural consequence of this type of thinking is that it is impermissible, verboten, for anyone to speak for, let alone stand against, the ego.

The fact of the matter is you do not care the slightest whit for my feelings. That is why it is acceptable in your mind for you and Randi to slur, bully, and insult people, and render them into sociopathic strawmen (or neo-nazis) but not for anyone to respond in kind. You will be fighting a war that never, never ends, because part of your fundamental identity is that of an oppressed victim. No matter how the people in your external environment change, you will never feel differently, you will never not feel oppressed.

> FreeBSD is, frankly, better off making these people feel threatened and dehumanized.

This is an example of you scurrying to turn my post into a personal attack against you, because you cannot see outside of that interpretive lens.

What I said was this: FreeBSD should be in the business of enforcing their rules on their developers, which should apply only to FreeBSD venues and not outside of them. The rules should not be a hammer for people to wield against each other, but something reasonable people agree on. Just because you feel threatened and dehumanized, which could be caused by literally anything, depending on the person, and both of which are weasel words to start with, is no reason for anyone to take action. None whatsoever. If a majority of reasonable people see that an abuser is using specific language that credibly, physically threatens you, then there would certainly be grounds for real action by FreeBSD such as immediate excommunication from everything to do with FreeBSD, and actively assisting with the law enforcement side of the case.

More concretely, Randi herself violated (and violates) the FreeBSD Code of Conduct regularly. If CoCs are to mean anything at all, they should apply to everyone equally. FreeBSD did treat her in a very weaselly way with the trademark deal, but the real story is most likely that FreeBSD did not want to be associated with Randi and they believed that draping the request in legal trademark terms was more likely to be successful than telling her either privately or publicly they did not want to be associated with her behavior.

> BTW, being picked on and trolling cis men poses the exact scenario as threatening women, minorities, with death, rape, etc.

Nobody said this. This is just another attempt to turn this discussion into an us vs them battle. It is strange to me that you appear to hold in such high consideration people's feelings, but you seem utterly unable to understand my thoughts and feelings.

You can be yourself and fight for your rights without making the world a worse and more hateful place. That's not what is happening here. If someone calling you a "tranny" is dehumanizing (which is absurd on any objective level, since there are people such a the woman who lives across the street who prefers to be referred to as a tranny when the subject of transgendered people comes up), that does not make it OK for Randi to tell people to "go set yourself on fire", it makes her just as awful.