So I was on the geocaching.com forums today responding to a harmless thread about the longest amount of time one has ever spent looking for a cache… then I noticed the signature line of the person I happened to be responding to…

I AM ASHAMED OF THOSE AMERICANS WHO WOULD RATHER SEE TERRORISM SUCCEED THAN A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT.

Wow I'd be ashamed of those Americans too… if I had ever heard of any.  So at the bottom of my post I started to form a minor comment on this which blossomed into a couple paragraphs.

But then I said to myself “You know, it's probably not appropriate to post this comment here, so I'll e-mail it to him instead.”, and I wrote at the end of my post a simple one-liner:

BTW, for the record, your signature is incredibly offensive. I have contacted you about it privately.

Then I sent him my more lengthy comment as an e-mail.  I don't have that e-mail anymore but basically the general gist was that his signature was inflammatory as it basically said “Hey if you don't vote Republican, you want terrorism to succeed.”  Which is utter hogwash, and particularly vile hogwash.  I don't know about you, but I would be pissed if someone accused me of wanting terrorism to succeed.

I was very polite and pointed out that he was unfairly tarring people who didn't share his exact political opinions with a fairly nasty epithet, and that was no way to win the hearts and minds of the 50% of the population that votes democrat.

I expected I would probably get a nasty e-mail back, but I hoped not.  To my pleasant surprise, he changed his signature to something slightly less inflammatory.

10 out of 10 terrorists agree anybody but Bush.

“No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.
– Ronald Reagan

Except for ending Slavery, Facism, Nazism, and Communizm, War has never solved anything!

Okay whatever, he obviously loves Bush and supports the Iraq war, but at least now he's not coming out and calling democrats supporters of terrorism.  That's at least something.  I commended him on changing his sig and figured that would be the end of it.

It wasn't.  Later in the day I received a very strange e-mail… not from this guy, but from someone else.  Here's what it said:

“I AM ASHAMED OF THOSE AMERICANS WHO WOULD RATHER SEE TERRORISM SUCCEED THAN A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT.”

“BTW, for the record, your signature is incredibly offensive. I have contacted you about it privately.”

As a reader of your posts for the last few months. You would find the above statement offensive. Why do you find this offensive? I guess would find it offensive if my sheep-like veil was exposed for the terrorist-sympathising wolf-faced liberal underneath too.

I contacted KF in the last few weeks and commended him on a great post. Perhaps he will forward you the rest of it, as he did to me.

Have a nice day. I prey your kids grow up more sane than you have.

The message came from someone calling himself “John Doe”–i.e. someone too chickenshit to reveal his identity.  The “KF” he refers to is the author of the signature line.  Note that he was not privy to what I found offensive about the signature, but he sure has some ideas doesn't he?

I found this message somewhat difficult to respond to because my gut instinct was to say “blow me, fucktard” and leave it at that.  It's not every day I get called a terrorist-sympathiser, or a wolf in sheep's clothing, or insane, or (by implication) a danger to my children.  Those are fairly hefty insults to throw at someone you don't even know.

What confuses me is what this person is talking about when he says “as a reader of your posts for the past few months”.  I've only posted about 50 or 60 times on geocaching.com, and in all that time I only took part in a political thread once.  It was a thread about carrying firearms while geocaching, where my stated opinion was pretty tame.  So what the heck could he possibly be on about?  Could that really have been it?

Anyway, I wrote this reply:

> As a reader of your posts for the last few months.

Quick check –> what hotly politicized issue have I commented on recently? Oh yes, I said I believed in the right to bear arms, but I was a little iffy on concealed weapons, and I felt if you were carrying you had a responsibility to tell those who go caching with you. Yes, clearly, I am Satan.

> You would find the above statement offensive. Why do you find this
> offensive? I guess would find it offensive if my sheep-like veil was
> exposed for the terrorist-sympathising wolf-faced liberal underneath too.

What?? LOL! You don't even KNOW me! If you showed even a shred of intelligence or insight in this communication I would be very inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, but no, you seem to think you know all about what sort of person I am from one little line on one post.

Guess what: you know NOTHING. And it is luridly obvious from your ridiculous message.

> I contacted KF in the last few weeks and commended him on a great post.
> Perhaps he will forward you the rest of it, as he did to me.

I'm glad you're a KF fan. I don't believe I had the pleasure of reading his “great post”. If his signature is any indicator, I don't hold out much hope for it. Thanks for providing a link so I could read it. [Note: no link was provided.]

My comment to KF was strictly about his signature line and had nothing to do with that other post. I find it highly amusing that you would seize upon the fact that I found it offensive to use as a means to write to me just to let me know that you think I am a wolf-faced terrorist-sympathizing liberal in a sheep-like veil.

What a presumptuous and absurdly ignorant little person you are. I am not a terrorist sympathizer — thanks for personalizing the insult that KF lobbed at all democrats by the way. And I don't wear a sheep-like veil to disguise a wolf's face. Way to be a divisive jerk. That will really help bridge the gap in this country.

Perhaps it hasn't occurred to you that about half of this country votes democrat. Anytime you want to grow up and accept the fact that democrats are decent patriotic Americans that simply hold different beliefs than you, be my guest. In the meantime, if copping out continues to suit you, whatever. It's always easier to hide behind a John-Doe-pseudonym and demonize 100 million Americans than it is to actually communicate. Communication is scary… it leads to new ideas.

My point in contacting KF was to explain to him why I thought his signature line was offensive–after all if he offends enough people he might get banned from the forums, and I thought that perhaps he might not have considered that. My intention was simply make him aware of just how offensive that signature was and why. If he wants to keep that divisive and hateful signature in spite of that, that's his business not mine. I, unlike you, was just trying to help.

> Have a nice day. I prey your kids grow up more sane than you have.

You disgust me. Your e-mail is so far off base it isn't even in the ballpark. Your e-mail deserved a far nastier response than this, but I have no intention in engaging in a childish name-calling match with you, I suspect you're probably better at it anyway.

Do not write to me again.

In fact this was like the fifth version of the e-mail.  It took me awhile to calm down after being the undeserving recipient of such ugly bile.

But here's the funny part.  Although this guy had masked his name to be “John Doe” he still had provided a valid hotmail account to respond to.  On a whim I decided to search google for his e-mail address.  This turned up a profile page on another message board which listed both his MSN address *and* his regular e-mail address.  His regular e-mail address was one of those classic first and middle initials plus last name type things.  Let's say it was rbmcmoron@spork.net.  Let's say his username on this board was “GeneralGau”.  Also included on this other message board was a graphical “avatar” that he used to sign his posts.

I had seen the avatar on geocaching.com before.

So I went back to geocaching.com and hunted around until I found a post with the same exact (and very unique avatar).  The owner was using a username like “RobAndLorie” there.  Could this be Robert B. McMoron?

I did a search of all of his posts and quickly scanned the pages.  In minutes I found a post where he said “My avatar is a holdover from my usual screen name GeneralGau” and went on to describe how he usually used that other name on message boards.  EDIT: Same guy.  So I checked his geocaching.com profile.

From these two profile pages, I learned his name, his birthdate, the town where he lives, and his AIM address.

I guess it just goes to prove, if you're going to send someone an anonymous nastygram, you really ought to take care not to leave identifying information behind.

As for me, I'll sit on the information and wait to see if he decides to harass me again.  If he does, maybe I'll IM him, or call him at home.  We'll see.