Volleyboy Accuses JayinPhiladelphia of Threatening His Family (Update)

Mike L.

There is a tendency among political partisans to cast aspersions on the integrity of their political opponents. This tendency is as old as humanity.  It is also entirely inconsistent with the values of anything that we could consider to be either liberal or progressive or just decent from a human standpoint.

As the owner of this blog, I feel some responsibility for those who front-page here to the extent that their doing so may sometimes cause them personal grief or even threat. Without taking ourselves too seriously, it nonetheless remains the case that we are challenging prevailing orthodoxies on the progressive-left because all of us, or almost all of us, come out of the political left. We are, for the most part, progressive or liberal Jews who are concerned about the fact that the progressive movement is turning against the state of Israel and, thereby, turning against the well-being of the Jewish people.

This being the case, I take it seriously when someone like Volleyboy1 accuses JayinPhiladelphia, one of our front-pagers, with threatening him and his family.

In a recent comment, Volleyboy1 wrote this:

Hey Jay... Are you threatening me or my family? I just want to know right now. You seem to want to take personal information and publish that on the web in some sick outbreak of whatever psychosis you suffer from. You do realize that by doing so you would put others at risk including children.

You have a problem with me that is one thing but you will not threaten my family in any way, shape or form. Do I need to be clearer?

This is a very serious charge by Volleyboy1 against JayinPhiladelphia. It is serious enough that Volleyboy1 goes forward to say:

And Mike - you own this blog. Should something happen because this crazy a-hole is using your blog as "jump off point" then I hold you responsible.

Given the serious nature of Volleyboy1's charge against Jay, and given the fact that he tells me that he will hold me responsible for it... whatever that means, exactly... it is necessary to determine the truth of the charge.

The first question to ask is whether or not JayinPhiladelphia has threatened either Volleyboy1 or his family. A threat, of course, is "a statement of an intention to inflict pain, injury, damage, or other hostile action on someone in retribution for something done..."

Jay has done no such thing. Jay has not threatened Volleyboy1. Jay has not in anyway suggested that he intends to harm anyone, least of all Volleyboy's children and I defy Volleyboy1 to show us where Jay has done so on Israel Thrives.

He won't because he can't for the simple reason that it never happened.

One could argue, however, that Jay's "outing" of VB presents a potential danger to VB and his family and is, thus, threatening. Those of us who advocate for the Jewish state, as I do, as Jay does, and as VB does, always recognize that there is, at least, some measure of risk in doing so, given the hatred for Israel that exists in the world. Pro-Israel advocacy is very definitely not for the timid.

Therefore, if Jay gave away Volleyboy1's true name or his town of residency or posted a picture of the guy, this would constitute outing and thus could represent a potential danger for VB and his children. As someone who has chosen to out myself, I suspect that such a danger is small, but that is my choice only to make for me, not for anyone to make for someone else.

But the fact of the matter is that Jay, as Volleyboy1 himself implies, did not out him. Jay did not give away either VB's name or his town of residency, nor has he posted a picture of him. So, the fact of the matter is that Jay has neither threatened Volleyboy1, nor outed him.

The truth is, as Jay points out, the only one who has come anywhere near close to outing VB is Volleyboy1, himself.  On his Daily Kos profile Volleyboy1 shows us a picture of himself. He tells us which state in the United States that he lives in. He tells us what he does for a living and some of the hobbies he enjoys. He, in fact, tells us far, far more about himself than Jay did, yet it is Jay whose reputation gets dragged through the mud for "threatening" Volleyboy.

This, my friends, is entirely unjust and it raises the question of just why Volleyboy1 makes the accusations that he has. Why has Volleyboy1 gone to such lengths to hurt Jay's reputation with such an accusation and why has he threatened to hold me responsible for the consequences of this non-threat?

Those are good questions.

I have to say, though, that I have over the last few days struggled with the question of how to reply to VB's charge... or even if to bother. I mean, there I was, standing waist deep in the Sacramento River, fishing for striped bass in Rio Vista, when Laurie (who was lounging in an orange and black Giants lawn chair and noodling around on her cell) says to me, "Gee, you should see what is going on in your blog!"

{This, by the way, is me and my pelican friend that very day! That is a pelican, is it not? One bold bird for sure, I tell ya. I fed him some anchovies, just to be nice... or so that he would not attack!  Laurie snapped the shot.}

Anyway, upon returning home and looking at the site, I assumed that any rational and intelligent human being could look at VB's accusation of Jay, and his personal threat to me, and find both to be entirely irrational. But I cannot count on that, which is why I am bothering to lay out the case.

The fact is that Volleyboy1 uses defamation as a political club and this is just one example of it. The problem here, however, is not merely Volleyboy1. The real problem is blind partisanship and the tendency to look upon fellow Jews who support Israel, but with whom we politically disagree, as enemies to be demeaned and dehumanized and marginalized.

That's the problem and that is precisely what we have in this case.

Volleyboy1 is seeking to drag Jay's good name through the mud because Jay is one of my frontpagers and VB sees this blog as an ideological opponent and therefore an enemy. The reason for this is because I am opposed to the Obama administration's treatment of the Jewish state and VB is an Obama advocate.

That's the bottom line.

Volleyboy1 is kicking Jay in the teeth because Jay has chosen to post here despite the fact that VB has defamed Israel Thrives as a racist "hate site." Thus what Volleyboy1 deals in is not so much analysis as it is defamation. For example, we have a whole long list of things that are verboten for discussion on the progressive-left which makes the movement irrelevant, or worse, when it comes to the Arab-Israel conflict, yet instead of honestly addressing these concerns Volleyboy1 chooses to defame and dehumanize and delegitimize those who he decides are his political opponents.

Instead of pointing the trembling finger of accusation at Jay, or at me for that matter, Volleyboy1 could answer the question of just why it is, for example, that "progressive Zionists" refuse to place the Arab-Israel conflict into anything that even resembles an historical context through discussing the long history of Arab-Muslim imperialism in the Middle East along with the consequent dhimmitude of our ancestors there?

This, however, he will not do because one is shamed as a "racist" on the progressive-left for speaking honestly about Arab-Muslim majoritarian injustice toward the Jewish minority in the Middle East. So, instead, Volleyboy1 uses the charge of "racism" as a club. Instead of analyzing, he strikes at people's integrity in order to undermine them among others.  He seeks to ruin reputations.

There is nothing liberal or progressive about such a tactic. Quite the contrary.

It is purely defamation of character and nothing more.

Update:

Here is something that I would like to know.

How is it that Jay's friends in the Volleyboy camp ("the group") refuse to acknowledge in public that Volleyboy1 has defamed Jay?

You know as well as I that Jay has not threatened Volleyboy's children, yet I do not see you standing up to a bully who is dragging your friend's reputation through the mud.

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

{Cowards.}