Posting Private Info

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Fellow DUers, I have a request to make. I understand the desire will be strong to buck against my request, but in the end, I think that there will be a lot more peace and serenity to do so.

Some people stink. Some people suck. Some people are outright dangerous and evil. But, regardless of all that, people are still people.

I'll start by telling a short story about a recent comment I made to a friend, when a Repug had gotten off scott-free from an action he had taken, and not gotten called on it, in contrast to a Dem who had made a similar action, and was forced to pay the consequences for it. I asked why did WE have to be the ones who paid for a mistake, when in fact, the Repug was able to get away with it. My friend's reply? "We;re supposed to be better than that."

There was a nanosecond of prideful joy on hearing that, no matter how painful the sting was. I knew, in fact, that we, as liberals, have to be above the general field of humankind because we have consciences, we have standards, and we have an abiding desire to make life easier for all concerned.


So today, when I was looking at a few posts here, and there was a strong churning in my stomach when I saw private information published o one of the pepper-spraying cops at the Occupy group. Yes, the man is a sleazeball, yes, the man should be taken down, but it should not be predicated on having people print the man's home address and other such details of his life.

We are supposed to be better than that. We're supposed to be beyond that kind of immaturity. At heart, we might not really feel that way, but if we decide to wallow in the mud with the rest of humanity, we lose the higher ground, and we become just like them.

We can see this kind of thing being done by those on the other side. Constantly. We can see its affect when people like George Tiller are assassinated. We can see people getting attacked, even killed, when private information is made public. Do we have the right to expose others to the kind of treatment we wouldn't want happen to ourselves? No matter WHO that person is, exposing them in such a manner goes against everything we're supposed to stand for.

Posting information about someone's job, OTOH, isn't the same. If someone has been shown to have an attitude that clashes with his or her job, post their WORK information. If their behavior implies that they suck at their job, go right ahead and post their manager's or their boss's business number. Give out their business address. That's okay. That's reporting their screw-ups to their higher-ups.

But to expose their home address, or their home telephone number, might be exposing their children, their wives, even their parents to some danger down the road. And I know for me, I could never live with myself if I knew I had been instrumental in having an innocent harmed because I felt someone else had fucked up.

These people, right or wrong, should not have to worry about their family members being hurt. Yes, showing their bosses that the person doesn't deserve to keep their jobs is one thing. Making them fear for their lives, and the lives of those around them is another. Unless your name is Fred Phelps and you drag your entire family around with you to protest, you don't bring your family into any situation that carries a potentially dangerous risk.

We are supposed to be better than those on the other side. But we can't be better if we are just as eager to punish them in their private lives as those on the other side. If we keep it up, we won't have anyone to protest if WE'RE the ones who are getting threats to our families from someone publishing our home addresses or phone numbers.