Purveyors of Hate
Real life observations from the front lines of the information wars
The two young people who help us in so many ways with the daily horse chores have this weekend off.
Jill and I still travel so much, and when we are off the farm these two often have to pick up all the responsibilities for a week or more, so we try to give them time off when possible.
The last two days have been particularly hard on Jill, as some people who we have previously treated as allies have written, published, and done podcasts together in which they have repeatedly lied and intentionally defamed me.
As a consequence, she has been a bit down, and I have been handling the horse chores.
Some of you know who these people are, others do not, and I have no interest in bringing further attention to their slander and defamation.
Working with the horses (stallions, mares, foals), and just walking about the farm watching the Robins hunting bugs in the grass and old leaves, and the black vultures swooping and wheeling above in a blue windy sky gives me a deep sense of peace and connectedness.
Somehow exchanging breaths with a young stallion, looking into his eyes, scratching him on the shoulder or under his jaw puts things in perspective for me.
And so caring for the horses over the last two days has helped me to deal with the shock, grief, and (frankly) depression that comes with these types of verbal and written attacks – particularly when propagated by people whom I once trusted and believed were colleagues with shared objectives.
This essay is part of my attempt to come to terms with the verbal and written violence which others feel necessary to spread about me, Jill, and so many others- friends and foes. I hope you find it useful to you, our Substack customers.
There are apparently angry people who just have a need to hate someone, and almost anyone will do. I am not one of those, although there are plenty of people in my life that I could focus and obsess over if I chose to do so.
And when I was younger, I did have a lot of anger and hate. Being driven into a nervous breakdown and subsequent post traumatic stress disorder by lying, greed and nefarious behavior will do that to people.
But over time, as I have aged, mellowed, and learned from life, wife and horses, I have come to understand that if one seeks revenge, you should first dig two graves (one for yourself). Anger and hate are like battery acid to your soul.
Anger and hate have many psychological sources. In some cases, a distorted sense of competitiveness, jealousy and envy are triggers for obsessive hate. For others, a sense of lack of fairness – why should someone else be getting attention when they are not? And in other cases, stoking hate and outrage are business models.
Defamation and malicious defamation are wrong.
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place, or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime.
The legal definition of defamation and related acts as well as the ways they are dealt with can vary greatly between countries and jurisdictions (what exactly they must consist of, whether they constitute crimes or not, to what extent proving the alleged facts is a valid defense).
Following the Second World War and with the rise of contemporary international human rights law, the right to a legal remedy for defamation is rooted in Article 17 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states that:
- No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation.
- Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
This implies a right to legal protection against defamation; however, this right co-exists with the right to freedom of opinion and expression under Article 19 of the ICCPR as well as Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[17]
Article 19 of the ICCPR expressly provides that the right to freedom of opinion and expression may be limited so far as it is necessary “for respect of the rights or reputations of others”.[17]
Consequently, international human rights law provides that while individual’s should have the right to a legal remedy for defamation, this right must be balanced with the equally protected right to freedom of opinion and expression.
In general, ensuring that domestic defamation law adequately balances individuals’ right to protect their reputation with freedom of expression and of the press entails:[18]
- Providing for truth (i.e., demonstrating that the content of the defamatory statement is true) to be a valid defense,
- Recognizing reasonable publication on matters of public concern as a valid defense, and
- Ensuring that defamation may only be addressed by the legal system as a tort.
In most of Europe, article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights permits restrictions on freedom of speech when necessary to protect the reputation or rights of others.[19]
Aside from it being a familiar concept to those studying or knowing law, defamation, or “slander”, is also known as a “smear campaign” in psychology.[23]
Those who suffer from narcissism, sociopathy, and psychopathy use it as a weapon to discredit their victims, typically when they feel you are about to expose them, or are dangerous, but oftentimes it can happen with no known motive beyond psychological projection.[24][25]
This is taken from a long document with extensive quotes. Read the rest here substack.com
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