a PM left by Earl at DU

[Earl]

I thought some of the members of this forum would be interested in reading the text of a PM that I wrote to another member of the forum at www.democraticunderground.org. My username at that website is bbdad.

concerning one of your archived posts
To: apocalypsehow
Date: Sep-27-10 07:06 PM
I'm a new member and came across the following archived post of yours when I did a site search on bullying.

As a former starting linebacker in high school, I sense the reeking envy through the pixels.

Edited on Tue Jan-26-10 08:23 PM by apocalypsehow
It's easy to paint all "jocks" as bullies, but I doubt there are any more "bullies" in the world of jockdom than there are in the school populations as a whole.

What I suspect most of this ranting on "jocks" is about is that partly thanks to their accomplishments on the field, they are better known, i.e., more "popular," and also very few people tend to "bully" them in turn thanks to their athletic ability. Don't even get me started on the more numerous trips to the back seat "jocks" tend to undertake. This stimulates even more envy which often smolders for a lifetime, I reckon. My 20 year HS reunion had some notable instances of it.

This is what drives much of the resentment of "jocks," I've noticed over the years.


If I had been a DU member and read your post before the topic was archived, I would have responded immediately. Well, here's my response now ...

I hardly know where to begin. First of all, as a disclaimer, let me say that several of my closest friends are former high-school football players, one of whom also played college ball. Please do a Google search on this website for the words "jock bullies." Some of the links, of course, will not be relevant, such as references to "shock jocks." If you take the time to check most of the other links, you will find that many other DU members either were bullied by jocks in school or witnessed such. This bullying was not name-calling. It was physical bullying that was often demeaning and humiliating. Several of my friends who are not DU members have told me of their own experiences. The bullying is not the only issue; there's also the fact that the school athletes were given preferential treatment and were not held accountable by the principals, coaches, and sometimes even teachers for mistreating other students. Just to give you an example. When he was a freshman or sophomore in high school, a friend of mine was minding his own business one day as he messed with textbooks in his locker. An upperclassman who was on the football team, someone who didn't even know my friend, walked up to him and deliberately slammed the locker door on my friend's right hand. The nurse who examined his hand said he was lucky that none of the bones in his hand were broken. He had to wear a cast on his hand, which happened to be his writing hand, for two weeks. He was able to identify the player, but the player was NEVER DISCIPLINED. In fact, there was a problem at the high school of athletes being allowed to bully other students without any fear of being disciplined by either the principal or any of the coaches, who just didn't care what they did. I would expect you to be aware of the fact that before the 1999 massacre at Columbine, athletes were given preferential treatment by the school authorities; and those who chose to bully nonathletes or sexually harrass girls were allowed to do so with impunity. I could go on and on and on about this issue, which is hardly ever mentioned by the sports media (which, after all, is nothing but a propaganda mill, certainly not a journalistic institution). You don't seem to have much sympathy for those who were bullied in school. But, again, that would be outside the range from your experience; so, why should you care? How dare you accuse victims of bullying of being guilty of envy. The operative word is "resentful." There IS a difference, buddy.

Another reason why some nonathletic guys might feel resentful towards "jocks" is because there is a culture associated with (but not inherently a part of) certain school sports (with football being a major offender) that denigrates nonathletic boys as being "sissies,"
wimps, or "fags." (Incidentally, ever hear of Raoul Wallenberg? According to his half-sister, he "detested competitive team sports." So, I guess he really wasn't extremely courageous and was just a sissy or a fag, eh? During the early 1960s before the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, college students participated in civil rights marches in the Deep South, which sometimes entailed risk. How many of these college men were football players, as opposed to sissy nonathletic guys?) This cruel stigmatization often begins when the boys are very young. But, again, this is outside the range of your experience; so, why should you care? Even today there are psychologists who claim that any nonathletic boy who has no interest in sports should be suspected of having homosexual tendencies. (I guess they never heard of Brian Sims or Esera Tuaolo.) This vile stereotype is worse than any negative stereotype that overprivileged school athletes are subjected to.

A particularly cruel aspect of this was requiring all boys, even those who had no interest in sports, to take mandatory sports-centered P.E., which often was a hypocritical exercise of institutionalized bullying. No exercise programs were provided for nonathletic boys, since the emphasis was only upon sports -- often even without any instruction as to how a sport was played or how to learn skills that contribute to one's performance. Today I work out at a health club on a bodybuilding program. I get more exercise in a single workout session than I ever did in an entire YEAR of mandatory P.E. Tell me, buddy, did you make fun of the nonathletic guys who were humiliated in your P.E. classes as they were "told" that they were unmanly simply because they weren't good at sports? Again, the operative word is "resentful," NOT "envy."

You say that guys are jealous of jocks like you because you got laid all the time. What a joke! First of all, are you a father? Do you have any daughters, as I do? Do you have any problem with self-centered walking sperm banks who would want to use your daughter and then discard her like an empty beer can? Since the women in my family were intellectual persons who were concerned about how people should be treated right instead of being vain and shallow, I respected women (and girls) as human beings. I've heard about an NFL player who had fathered nine children out of wedlock with nine different women. What a role model! Tell me, is he one of your heroes? Do you think this is funny?

The sort of girls who went after the jocks at my high school were invariably shallow, vain, self-centered, often stupid, and cruel. I NEVER had any desire to have sex with any of them because they were repulsive human beings. I couldn't have been PAID to have sex with any of those girls. That would be like wanting to have sex with Eva Braun or Ilse Koch, who was the "Bitch of Buchenwald." I always thought that being married to one of these social climbers would be hell on earth, with divorce just around the corner. Again, the operative word is "resentful."

Will you please start listening to what others have experienced instead of thinking what a great guy you are simply because you played a sport.

Best regards,
bbdad

[Earl]

Apocalypsehow actually responded this afternoon, as follows:

Re: concerning one of your archived posts
From: apocalypsehow
Date: Sep-27-10 08:55 PM
What a creepy experience your PM has been - stalk much? There is a reason posts that fall down into the archives are not allowed to be kicked up into active debate months or years after they've run their course: to prevent a thread becoming an endless ongoing debate running into the millions of posts by whoever happens along in the archives.

That said, your smarmy little PM doesn't impress me in the slightest: just more special pleading & whining by someone who doesn't like school athletes for whatever reason - probably for some reason along the lines of what I pointed out in the post of mine you tracked down from the archives (again, that's some creepy behavior there - right on the fine line of stalking).

I stand 100% behind everything I wrote in that post, more now than ever.

I am not interested in debating this topic with you, or discussing either it or any other topic with you through PM's in any manner whatsoever. Please cease & desist contacting me in this manner, from this point forward. Thank you and good day.
- Apocalypsehow

What a jerk! I bet he didn't even do the site search that I suggested. After all, he'd have to be intellectually honest to do that. He probably was a bully himself. "Durr ... I played linebacker in high school. That means I'm better than you." Yeah, right. I wonder if he's fat, like many high-school football players end up being since they don't watch their diet after they stop playing. What's funny is that I may end up with a better looking physique in the long run. I repeat, what a jerk! How in the world could victims of bullying be guilty of being jealous of their tormentors. And what gets me is that this guy is a self-professed liberal. And I thought that liberals were kind, compassionate, tolerant, sympathetic people! I've seen lately that that's not always the case.

[Earl]

This is rich! It's gotten even better. I just checked apocalypsehow's profile and found the following comment that he submitted:

More likely than not you are here because I have bested you in some thread debate, and a sense of pitiful frustration at your own shockingly limited intellect in comparison to mine has angered you greatly. You are here hoping to find some "personal" info to attack me with, as is the wont of those on the losing end of internet debates - ridiculing my occupation, my hometown, my marital status, etc. Sucks to be you, huh?

Wow! What a jerk! I actually feel vindicated now. This guy has no humility whatsover. What a belligerent, arrogant jerk. The poor guy obviously has a warped mentality, plus an overinflated sense of his own importance. Anyone who makes a statement like that is just a jerk. Yes, indeed, a fine example of a compassionate liberal!

[Safety]

I strongly dislike it when it seems that people are so highly worshiped in society for their athletic ability, yet they contribute nothing to it. It's like being in love with someone for absolutely no reason at all.

[Fat Man]

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Forget it Earl!

You're not going to ever reason with people like this jerk.

Just point out to him, if it weren't for the nerds and geeks in high school who studied hard in science and math and then went on to major in science at some university, and eventually got jobs in a science career, that we wouldn't have all the wonderful technological toys that we all love so much.

Tell this jerk, that if it weren't for the nerds and techno-geeks he would not be sitting on his ass getting on the Internet with his own computer, and he would not have a cellphone, that instead, he would have to communicate by sending up smoke signals.

Also, tell him that he would be living in a cave somewhere, and making a fire by banging two rocks together going UGGAH! UGGAH! UGGAH! and that he would be dead by the age of only 30.

That aught to shut him up!

[HugeFanOfBadReligion]

A person like this angers me. From the info that he posted on his profile that you showed, it seems like he gets in disputes like that a lot, so he seems like a troll. A serious troll who is likely sincere in his views, but nevertheless a troll, as he seems to like getting people angry over the Internet. I hate the argument "You're just jealous". It's the most childish argument, and I must have heard it hundreds of times. Recently, as mentioned in another thread, while having an argument with a football player, his logic was that I was just jealous of him. This was of course false. Your argument was definitely superior to his pathetic logic. From what he said, I'm 90% sure he was a bully in high school. He did not respond to when you asked him if he had bullied nonathletic boys, so either he was too ignorant to read your post, or he didn't want to acknowledge his pathetic actions involving bullying. He fails to sympathize with victims of bullying, which strongly indicates that he was a high school bully.

[Earl]

Safety, I agree with a comment that one of the other DU members (username SheilaT) made in a topic for which I wrote the OP: "In this country we've come from enjoying sports and respecting athletes to enshrining sports and worshipping athletes. There's no sense of proportion any more. You see it in the examples you mentioned about the bullying." I happen to admire individual athletes who are decent; and I've always respected athletic achievement, even the athletic prowess of individual guys whom I feared when I was in high school. I've never denigrated athleticism.

Fat Man, don't worry. I never had any intention of trying to reason with this guy. He's a far cry from Andy and the other more reasonable sports fans who have posted in this forum. What particularly angered me about this DU member is that he made his comments not even in a sports forum, but right in the middle of a thread about bullying. He really wasn't showing any concern about bullying at all.

HugeFan, notice that he didn't respond to a single point I made in the PM that I wrote to him. Of course, the "You're just jealous" argument is dumb. None of us were ever interested in sports, to begin with. I never had a desire, for example, to learn how to play a violin. So, why would I ever be jealous of a concert violinist? As I pointed out in the PM I wrote to you earlier today, my friend who played football at SUNY in Buffalo, New York, sustained injuries while playing in games that resulted in his having to undergo surgery on his backbone about 20 years later. Shortly before he actually underwent the surgery, the pain got to be so bad that he called one of his other friends on the phone and cried like a baby, so he told me later. When the last game that he played had ended, he yanked his football helmet off his head, threw it down on the ground, and broke out in tears. Because he no longer would play in a football game? No, because he had gotten sick and tired of playing football! Am I jealous of that? Come on, you've got to be kidding.

I'm happy to say that I can finish this post with a positive comment. I came across a nifty comment by another DU member (username PowerofWill). I've quoted his entire post, but have highlighted the comments he made that are relevant to my topic.

(No offense intended, Ray; but he is calling Republicans "repukes." Sorry.)

I can see it but i have always teased repukes.

I can be plumb mean about it too. I have in fact been called a real world troll by some ( almost all repukes).

I have a weird position though. I am/was the cool tough guy 2x state wrestling champ, extensive background in Golden Gloves, coupled with a few professional fights.

I was the tough cool guy, but i was also smart and hung with the "nerds" more than jocks because the "nerds" were way more interesting to talk to. This often lead to me taking up for my smarter friends, and becoming an anti-bully in a way. In other words i like to bully those who bully others. It's fun to watch a tough guy cringe, and want to do something but can't because he knows not only would he get owned mentally, but physically as well.

Yes as Dem's we need more spine. We don't have to go the pure asshole route the repukes did However we need to learn to strike at the right time, and the right way.

If i had to compare it to a martial art i would say we needed to learn Akido Totally defensive, non-lethal, yet any attack has the energy redirected to make the opponent look like a fool.

All right! That's the kind of athlete I truly respect and really admire. I bet The Imperialist would really like this guy, too. I should have thought to copy and paste this post into my PM to the DU member who-shall-not-be-named to provide an example for him to learn from (except, of course, I don't think he'll ever learn anything).

[Fat Man]

Good evening Earl!

This PowerofWill dude sound kind of cool!!!

Yeah! So this guy likes to stick up for the nerds and geeks and bully the bullies!

Good for him!

I guess you could say, he's an anti-bully-bully, sort of like our military anti-missile-missiles!

Not only can this guy physically bully the bullies, but he can even bully them intellectually as well.

Now, I have always had a rather sneaky admiration for intellectual bullies, especially when it comes to dishing it out to moronic Macho Jocko bully-boys!

And as for the moron over at DU, who says that we are jealous of athletes . . . . .

NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL WHAT-SO-EVER!!!

How in the flying fucking Hell can I possibly be jealous of some idiot who eventually becomes an over-the-hill brain-damaged broken down smoldering wreck ready to be put out to pasture when he's only in his 40s?

JEALOUS OF THAT???

Don't make me laugh!

BUUUUUAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Sorry, but I couldn't hold it in, I just had to laugh out loud, a great big hardy fat belly laugh!

PS

Hey! Well, whadda ya know!

This was my post # 2020!!!

[The Imperialist]

Sometimes, hyporcrites do not understand that they are being hypocrites. (He seems to forget that the jocks are what makes up the population of bullies, and the only reason that they are not bullied is that they are the ones who have the monopoly on bullying.)

[i_like_1981]

Wow, this Apocalypsehow guy seems a real stuck-up arsehole. He's so secure in the fact that he's always right and that he defeats people in debates all the time, but is too insecure to even mention any of his arguments once he claims to have "won" them? The reason people want to pursue these arguments is because he acts so stuck-up about them and declares his own victories and makes himself "untouchable". He then tries to put people off pursuing the arguments by accusing them of stalking him and making them sound like freaks? This guy really needs to get over himself. You say "inflated ego" much? You've obviously touched a nerve, Earl, if he's accusing you of stalking and demands that you "cease and desist" corresponding with him. He doesn't want to face the truth about how spiteful and vicious some of his "fellow athletes" can be. Perhaps you should ignore this guy, and realise that by shutting himself away from any opposing viewpoints and deflecting opportunities for discussion with unfounded accusations of stalking, he's just making himself look like a total egotistic goon who thinks that the world should revolve around what he wants. I think he was probably a bully in high school as well, based on his unwillingness to take this subject further.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

The Imperialist, apocalypsehow is blinded to reality by his arrogance. Notice the contrast between him and PowerofWill. He's also hypocritical on more than one issue. Liberals in the United States claim to support women's rights; yet apocalypsehow, who claims to be a liberal, shows a misogynistic contempt in his view of women as sex objects, instead of human beings. If he truly respected women, he would be appalled by men who sexually use them. I grew up in a family in which the women were intellectual and had a conscientious concern about how people should be treated right. (As a white Oklahoman and future Texan, my mother rejected Jim Crow long before there was even a civil rights movement. When she was in high school, my Gentile sister supported a Jewish friend of hers who had been bullied by anti-Semitic classmates by wearing a star of David around her neck in protest at school. I could go on and on.) They earned my respect; and I therefore viewed girls and women as full human beings who were not the same as men but were not inferior, either. When I was a young man, I'd be disgusted whenever I heard some guy bragging about his sexual conquests; and needless to say, I'm still disgusted by such talk. In my estimation such men are not honorable.

i_like_1981, as usual, you've hit the nail on the head. I hardly know where to begin. Stalking him? Oh, give me a break! If I kept leaving PMs in his inbox, then I'd be guilty of stalking him; but I wrote to him only once.

As a citizen of the United States (and especially as a resident of football-crazy Texas), I'll tell you what I've noticed for many years about some of the fans. If someone merely points out that an individual player's actions off the gridiron are less than exemplary (bullying, sexual harassment, etc), they will say, "You're just jealous." (And please notice that I did not say make a negative generalization about football players. I said merely objecting to an individual's conduct.) This is the line apocalypsehow used in the post of his that I copied and pasted in my PM that I wrote to him. Of course, the purpose of this line is to silence people. The intent of these football fans is to preserve jock privilege.

Incidentally, as I told The Imperialist, notice the contrast between apocalypsehow and PowerofWill. I should have thought to copy and paste PowerofWill's post in the text of my PM to apocalypsehow. I would have been tempted to write "I sure admire this guy. Wish I could say the same about you."

And some of the fans really don't care how their heroes treat others. I recently read a comment from a fan at Andy's website that it didn't matter to him whether or not Ben Roethlisberger committed rape because, after all, he was a professional football player and should therefore be allowed to do whatever he wants to do. I'm convinced this fan was not being sarcastic. I should add that this fan was not one of the gridironpalace members who posted in the thread about our website.

Don't worry, i_like_1981. I have no intention of writing any more PMs to this guy. He probably wouldn't read them, anyway. He definitely is an egotistical goon who thinks he's better than everyone else. Let me tell you, my father was extremely successful in his chosen field. He actually became famous in certain quarters. If anyone had a right to be arrogant, my father did, because he grew up in a dysfunctional family and at one point seriously considered dropping out of high school; but he persevered and came a long way. Yet my father was a humble man who respected the dignity of all people, including those whose occupations were low-paying. I see this admirable quality completely lacking in apocalypsehow. After growing up with the man who was my father, I have absolutely no use for arrogant people, whether they're jocks or not.

I've grown tired of posting at both http://www.able2know.org and http://www.democraticunderground.org. While there are decent members in the forums of both of those websites, I have no intention of ever posting there again. Besides, I've been spending too much time posting at other websites. I need to devote my full online attention to this one. I hope I don't change my mind.

[i_like_1981]

i_like_1981, as usual, you've hit the nail on the head. I hardly know where to begin. Stalking him? Oh, give me a break! If I kept leaving PMs in his inbox, then I'd be guilty of stalking him; but I wrote to him only once...

I've grown tired of posting at both http://www.able2know.org and http://www.democraticunderground.org. While there are decent members in the forums of both of those websites, I have no intention of ever posting there again. Besides, I've been spending too much time posting at other websites. I need to devote my full online attention to this one. I hope I don't change my mind.

Yep, the stalking argument is the definite sign of a moral coward who just can't face the music. He just doesn't know how to defend the reckless, nasty behaviour of his fellow sports players and just wants to flee from any confrontations while he still can. You'd be justified to keep sending him PMs, because he's not answering your questions which you're trying to present to him in a civil way. By calling you a "stalker", he's trying to put you in an uncomfortable position and make you decline sending him any more messages while he scarpers off to go and run some other people down. The guy just doesn't understand the true insinuations of that word. People who are intent on getting a debate are not "stalkers", and if they're perceiving the inquisitive person's actions as "stalking" them, then they should realise that it might stop if they answered the damn questions they were given and acknowledged the points the other person was trying to make. It's not like you're being unreasonable or invasive. You just want a bit more debate. This guy sounds a tool, in my opinion, so maybe it would be best if you left him. He's blind to the fact that viewpoints different to his exist. And one day, that will turn against him.

I did actually create a profile on the Democratic Underground website to post on your thread with, but never used it and expect I won't. With sites like that and able2know, you can expect a more intelligent crowd of members, but some of them are going to be real arseholes as well who run down opposing viewpoints. Being smart does not necessarily make somebody decent.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

You'd be justified to keep sending him PMs, because he's not answering your questions which you're trying to present to him in a civil way.

Well, I was a little confrontational; but he had already established himself as a jerk, in my opinion. He's actually proven himself to be even worse than kuvasz and cycloptichorn at able2know, both of whom were civil to me when I apologized to them (by post and by PM, respectively) for losing my temper.

By calling you a "stalker", he's trying to put you in an uncomfortable position and make you decline sending him any more messages while he scarpers off to go and run some other people down. The guy just doesn't understand the true insinuations of that word. People who are intent on getting a debate are not "stalkers", and if they're perceiving the inquisitive person's actions as "stalking" them, then they should realise that it might stop if they answered the damn questions they were given and acknowledged the points the other person was trying to make. It's not like you're being unreasonable or invasive. You just want a bit more debate. This guy sounds a tool, in my opinion, so maybe it would be best if you left him.

I am leaving him alone. I'm tired of him. He's a scoundrel. It's not that his "stalking" charge has intimidated me. I just don't want to have any more exchanges with him because he's extremely unpleasant for a jerk. I'm sure that some people who have unpleasant online personalities are different in real life. But I'm sure if I ever met this guy, I'd find him to be quite detestable; and, frankly, I wouldn't care to be in his presence for very long. He sounds evil.

He's blind to the fact that viewpoints different to his exist. And one day, that will turn against him.

I did a site search on his username to check other posts he's submitted. I've noticed a pattern. Whenever he disagrees with someone, he gets personal and mocks the other person. He's quite mean-spirited. You can stand up for something you believe in or maintain a particular position without turning it into some sort of personal contest in which your ego is at stake and that you must humiliate your opponent, if you possibly can do that. This is the sort of person with whom you hate to agree is right about any issue. Ugh!

I did actually create a profile on the Democratic Underground website to post on your thread with, but never used it and expect I won't. With sites like that and able2know, you can expect a more intelligent crowd of members, but some of them are going to be real arseholes as well who run down opposing viewpoints. Being smart does not necessarily make somebody decent.

Unfortunately, that's quite true. Intelligent people can be jerks, too.

Incidentally, if you ever want to post at another website and you'd like some company, just let me know; and I'll register at that website, too.

[i_like_1981]

While we're on the subject of forums we've abandoned, do you remember a few months back when I was bitching about that Ashes to Ashes forum that didn't seem to like me that much even though I'm a big fan of the show and the decade it's set in? Well, I decided to go back on there, seeing as how on British TV we've recently had a show called "This is England '86" which revolved around the gritty, harsh realities of Britain's worse side in that decade. The 80's setting reminded me of Ashes to Ashes, which ended earlier this year, and I was pretty sure that some of the people on that forum would have something to say about another significant TV series set in the 80's. So I went back on there and... shall try and post every now and again.

I did overreact a bit to my treatment on the forum. In fact, that's a bit of an understatement, as I submitted 2x 1,000+ word posts on the subject in my thread here on this forum. But I was a bit depressed and sad that weekend and more contempt from people, even relatively light stuff on an internet forum, didn't do much to help it. Nonetheless, life goes on.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[Earl]

Just an update. Fat Man, HugeFan, and i_like_1981 are going to think I've lost my mind when they read this post. I had a change of heart. I've come to believe that I should not have spoken to apocalypsehow in the tone that I chose to use in writing my PM to him. So, this afternoon I set about to write him an apology. (Don't faint, guys. ) I wasn't able to leave a PM in his inbox because he had done whatever the procedure is to prevent receiving PMs from an unwanted member. So, I found a topic where he had submitted a post less than 24 hours previously and posted the following message: "I know this is off topic, but I must apologize to apocalypsehow for a PM that I wrote to him. I was confrontational and rude."

He may not even check that topic again, but at least I've done what I could. If he ever does read my apology, I expect that he probably won't respond to it. Judging from his comments and the way he interacts with some of the other DU members, he probably isn't the nicest guy around; but that's beside the point. I still feel uneasy about this and similar episodes. In real life I'm quite friendly, and I make a point to avoid being rude. There is something about posting on the Internet that shortens my temper, and I'm especially likely to lose it when I disagree with someone over an issue that I really care about from a personal point of view. In real life I'm not timid about expressing my views, but I'm less likely to fly off the handle and show a lack of tact. And this is the sixth time that I've ended up apologizing to someone on the Internet, either by post or by PM. Good grief!