This is just awful. Mike at Rational Reasons has been threatened by some disgusting piece of web-flotsam with publishing his personal information and thus ending his anonymity on the web.
I hope he can find some other venue to resume comment, but he'll just run the same risks unfortunately.
Look. Plenty of people have perfectly good reasons to remain pseudonymous or even anonymous. I've maintained the pretense of anonymity here on this blog, but the fact is anyone who's interested can go to my posts at Gristmill, which I'm not exactly shy about promoting, and see that my name is John McGrath, and there's probably enough information scattered among my blog posts to get a good idea of where I am in the world. What does that get you?
Well, if you're a scumbag like "jeff", it gives you leverage. Not leverage to do anything worthwhile with your life, but leverage to silence an intelligent, active voice in the community we all participate in. Rather than contribute positively, "jeff" has decided to poison the well for the rest of us.
I would say to other anonymous bloggers out there, if it's at all possible, you should try and immunize yourself against these kinds of juvenile attacks - the usual method is to threaten to inform your employer, so at the very least (again, if possible) you should probably tell your boss about your blog.
I'll miss Mike's voice around here and elsewhere on the web, and I hope he's able to put this mess behind him.
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Hey, found you thru The Vanity Press.
The reason they threaten to tell your employer is because the courts have upheld the employer's right to order you to close down your blog
whether or not it has anything to do with your job, and whether or not you ever blog at work. The chances are, your boss is a republican, and if he sees your blog, and if he disagrees with it, he can fire you if you don't end it. So, I wouldn't be so eager to tell the boss about your blog, if you're a progressive.
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