In August, Wendy McElroy wrote about a large number of bomb hoaxes directed at more than 60 family court offices in Great Britain, apparently by what McElroy calls “fathers’ rights extremists.”
McElroy notes that such threats and hoaxes are simply intolerable of any reformist movement,
Violence is the worst possible “strategy” for anyone who seeks social reform. It is not only immoral and illegal, it is also counter-productive to the cause being advocated. The first time an innocent human being is injured, a movement using violence loses all moral credibility; it also creates a justified backlash of anger from the public and repression from authorities.
Let me first state that I agree wholeheartedly with McElroy’s condemnation of even hoax threats of violence. These are wrong and those who engage them should find no sympathizer in any sort of men’s movement.
Unfortunately, Great Britain’s political climate is such that at the moment is rewards this sort of hooliganism. The person who committed these acts was likely aware, for example, of how extremists in the animal rights movement have used such tactics to great effect and results in Great Britain. No, such acts haven’t actually created a lot of warm fuzzy feelings for the animal rights movement, but the British government practically encourages these sorts of threats with its failure to seriously respond to animal rights and other extremists who have been treated as nuisances rather than serious threats to reasoned debate in a democratic society.
Which is one of the reasons this sort of strategy is unlikely to be replicated in the United States. Unlike in Great Britain, acts of animal and environmental terrorism in the United States have produced not only a moral backlash, but a legal one as well that in many cases straddles the line between permissible law enforcement and unconstitutional overreaching. But the American body politic will not stand for such acts and threats of violence and such actions would almost certainly produce a similar legal backlash directed at the various groups and activists in the men’s movement.
One area I disagree completely with McElroy, however, is that it is worthwhile to consider what drives nutcases like this to make such threats. McElroy writes, for example, that
Those who initiate force are responsible for their criminal actions and no one should negotiate with someone who is threatening them. That is the point at which negotiation and reason end. Having stated this, however, it is productive to ask why people become frantic or enraged enough to use violence.
I just don’t see the need for it. As McElroy herself points out indirectly, you can just cruise Usenet groups like Soc.Men and find plenty of the sort of disturbing comments from people on the fringe who are present in pretty much every social movement to one degree or another. It’s both amusing and disturbing to see people in the mens’ movement making threats against McElroy because she uses the word “feminist” to describe her political viewpoint. This exactly mirrors some of the amusing animal rights Usenet battles where those who want to gradually abolish all animal use are called sellouts by the people who want to do so immediately — neither group has much chance of convincing their true targets, so they spend most of their time concentrating each other.
McElroy’s explanation of the bomb threats is exactly what some of the more moderate animal rights activists try to offer — sure it’s wrong, but shouldn’t we take the time to understand why someone would become fanatical in stopping animal experiments? Or, alternatively, abortion? Or . . . pick a cause, any cause (including radical feminism — is it productive to ask why someone would become so enraged as to write the SCUMM Manifesto?)
I don’t particularly see a need to do so. And frankly, the way she gets treated by the men’s movement I’m surprised that McElroy is even willing to carry water for that group (which, in case they haven’t noticed, hasn’t exactly earn her a lot of mainstream accolades).
Source:
Going to extremes. Wendy McElroy, Fox News, August 26, 2003.