| Dear Anonymous Blogger,
If you think you have an inherent right to your anonymity, you are embarrassing yourself. Not only yourself you are embarrassing history. Every courageous human being who has ever stood up and expressed an opinion in the history of time, should all collectively get together and run you out of town. The drama that is being displayed over this non-incident is nothing short of embarrassing to every human being who has ever had the courage to speak out under their own identity. |
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A few cases in point:
The leader of the civil rights movement was not known simply as Martin.
The leader of the yippies was not known as just Abbie.
And aren’t we all glad that The first & biggest name signed at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence is not JHcock1776?
The guy who stood up and said “How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” did not have the luxury of using the pseudonym JFK1943
The journalist who had his career dashed against the rocks by Karl Rove didn’t have the option to just open a new CBS account under the screenname ratherNotBKnown.
No Anonymous Blogger, you grabbed at the limelight like Star Jones grabbing a hotdog at a RedSox game. (Notice that Star Jones just got the brunt of an insult, she doesn’t get to hide behind starchild65), and now that your identity has been revealed you want to take your ball and run home? Are you friggin serious?
So, Martin Luther King Jr., Abbie Hoffman, John Kerry, Mr. Hancock, Dan Rather, please join me in six part harmony in saying what needs to be said to this drama queen: 1..2..3..4.. “Boo-Fucking-Hoo!”
If Anonymous Blogger got “outed”, then it’s Anonymous Blogger’s fault for not being careful enough and Anonymous Blogger’s fault alone. There is no one else to blame, not even WIKI or the National Review. Any old school hacker will tell you, “information wants to be free”. If it ever finds daylight, free it will be.
If you have opinions in this world and wish to express them you have to be prepared to back them up with YOU. It’s such a simple tenet I can’t believe it’s even being debated.
If expressing your views is too risky to your professional career then you have a choice. Quit your job or STFU.
Anonymity is not a right except for undercover cops and CIA Agents and the like. Lawyers, thankfully are not granted this protection.
If an intrepid reporter had discovered that Mark Felt was Deep Throat, they would have been well within their rights to report it, and report it they would have.
Obviously our Mr. Felt was simply much more clever than you Anonymous Blogger (and with much more at stake and many more people working to uncover it), but had he not been, he would have been named long ago and rightfully so. That’s just the way it works. You know what they say about kitchens and their propensity for getting a bit warm..
In short, Anonymous Blogger I have two suggestions/options for you if you don’t want being the internet’s biggest asshole to become synonymous with your real name.
- Stop blogging.
- Stop being an asshole.
Sincerely,
Brian Keith Browder
Chicago, IL
[Update] I am nothing if not a follower of rules. I amended this article and eliminated all references to the person this letter is addressed to. If you want to read the actual letter you can go HERE and read it in it’s glorious unedited form. If someone crossposts the original at Dkos for me, I will change this back to it’s original version.
Update [2006-6-9 11:32:9 by Brian Nowhere]::It has been brought to my attention that site rules dictate cross-posting this at dKos. As I am banned over there, this is not possible so I am respectfully requesting assistance in doing this from anyone with posting privileges over there.
In the interest of cut-n-paste simplicity, I have uploaded the formating code for this article in text format to this location.
Thank you in advance for any assistance that can be given.
