Every once in a while I get an email or a comment or some other communication that has the effect of side tracking me from whatever it is I am engaged in at the moment. Today was such a day, when I got the following comment in the admin to from William Quincy Bell posted to the “About” page.
I visited this web site “A Voice For Men”. I read “About” to understand who Paul Elam is and where he’s coming from. I watched his video “The Myth of Women’s Oppression”. I read the article on jury duty in a rape trial. I learned what the term mangina means. This man has put in a lot of time and effort to describe his views, to support them and to disseminate them. Paul is an intelligent man and a good writer.
However, it is obvious to me that Paul is a troubled man and he is having a difficult time in this modern age. In the same way some people blame the Jews for the ills of the world, Paul seems to be blaming women for the ills of men.
I don’t need to debate Paul. I won’t try to convince him otherwise. I will only conclude with this picture which is worth more than a thousand words:
Told me, didn’t he?
Actually, you might wonder why I would bother with Mr. Belle, given the nature of some of the comments brought to this site. Things like wishing my mother to be raped while I am forced to watch, being told I am going to hell and enough other invectives more hostile by far than Mr. Belle’s rather mild but condescending analysis.
To me, this post was worth some attention because unlike the furious onslaught from some who take objection to my work, Mr. Belle takes a reasoned, rational and well articulated approach to proving just how obtuse he really is, which only makes him appear credible to the equally or more obtuse than himself.
It is people like Mr. Belle that give really destructive thinking a face the masses love.
First, let me point to an item in his conclusion that is generally revealing of this type of commenter.
I don’t need to debate Paul. I won’t try to convince him otherwise.
Translation: I have no intention of defending or supporting my points, or even to allow them to be subjected to rebuttal by the target of my allegations. I am simply going to do a drive by critique and go back into the shadows.
It makes one wonder just what sort of person does this kind of thing. I don’t recall, in twenty plus years of activism, ever standing up in front of the world and saying, “Here’s what I think, but don’t make me say why.”
Indeed, I regard any such act as intellectual cowardice.
Normally I am just given to ignoring such activity as a past time for trolls, but there was something about the quality of Mr. Belle’s writing that did get my attention. He can, it seems, at least when he chooses to, articulate his ideas quite well. So I went to take a look at his blog.
Ah, what a little peek can do for your understanding.
In a moment of near elation I found the following penned by Sir William:
As I’ve said elsewhere, my wife aptly compared ideology with fundamentalism whereby a person follows a line of reasoning without regard to the facts. In other words, we pick our solution then we try to change the problem to fit the solution.
Hallelujah, I thought! We have a thinker here, or at least his wife! But then reading through some more of Belle’s material it became clear that while he wrote the line, he has no fundamental understanding of what it means. The remainder of what I found there is sound bite leftism and feminism, replete with obligatory “women were chattel,” type, unimaginative clichés; the same ones you have heard repeatedly fall from the lips of every Dworkinesque ideologue for the past fifty years. Pure polemics with no regard for the facts.
Perhaps you should go back to the missus, William, for some clarification on what she meant.
Maybe this explains why William is talking in pictures instead of asserting and defending real ideas. If that is the case, here is my rebuttal to his comment:
There now, Mr. Belle, there is four pictures. At least four thousand words worth. Does that mean I win?
Oh, I forgot, you are not debating. You are, well, just doing whatever it is you do.
But it does bring an idea to mind. And a challenge for you. You are quite clearly articulate and well reasoned when you choose to be. If you like, we can put up the picture book and put this to a test. I offer this forum as an arena for debate, and will give you a great deal of latitude in how that transpires.
You can choose to actually put the premise of your original comment out there and we can debate it out. If you don’t think that is very supportable (which it isn’t) then you an choose any article on this site written by me, or any video from my YouTube Channel, and take your best shot at destroying my ideas, not with pictures, but with words and ideas. Failing that, you could instead choose one of your own pro-feminist pieces and we can debate that. However, if you can’t defend your original comment, or find a single article or video of mine that you are willing to take on, or even take any of your own work and put it under the test of scrutiny and debate, then I suggest you find something other to do than blog, and for pity sake, stop visiting other peoples sites leaving undefended and unsupported critique.
I will grant you contributor status so what we can keep it contained within an article posting area rather than the comment sections, and I assure you complete and unedited access to present your ideas.
It’s your move, Mr. Belle, but I sense we are just gearing up for the crickets to start singing.
