My apology for the “GamerGhazi Has Some Good Points” article (upon reflection, they are full of it, you guys rightfully called me out)

I wrote this article originally after a mission to GamerGhazi to get their side of things, and I initially thought they had some good points for PR reasons we should consider:

Upon reflection, they are (with a few exceptions that are much outnumbered by the crazies) batshit insane cultural fascists, so I’m writing this to take apart my earlier post and explain why I changed my mind.

Original article in italics, my revised opinions in bold.

• The racist, sexist meme shit (like the ‘Happy Merchant” Sarkeesian photoshop) is uncalled for: Okay, fine, if you have a certain sense of humor, calling Arthur Chu “Bombchu”, Randi Harper “Randwhale”, mocking Leigh Alexander as a drunk, and so on is “funny”, but in Ghazi’s defense, it makes us look like racist, sexist scum who resort to petty insults and immature namecalling. Me, I went in there with every intention of being respectful, and despite some understandable hostility, I was treated far nicer than I expected because I bent every effort to be respectful and not be a jackass. Besides, whether you’re on Reddit, Twitter, a Disqus comment thread, and so on, there are enough douchebags and pricks on the internet, let’s try not to make it worse, shall we?
• On second thought, while I don’t personally advocate doing this sort of thing, more power to those who do. After seeing the recent madness with PC lunatics trying to silence speech they don’t like in the most openly fascist ways possible, fuck their opinions. If they get butthurt, I don’t care anymore. I may not engage in the above, but if anyone else wants to, to hell with anyone trying to silence you, because it’s obvious being nice to these maniacs won’t work, they just use that as a wedge to further silence dissent.
• We think they lionize some corrupt journalists. They feel the same way about us, and after discussing it with them, I can see they have a point I really can’t argue with: Breitbart and other publications that say nice things about GamerGaters ARE NOT PERFECT. For one, Breitbart has written some scummy garbage themselves, let’s not forget that one article where they named and shamed a regular twitter user with barely twenty followers and threw journalistic crap at her. That was pretty deplorable. Okay, so they still say nice things about us, I like that, but let not let that blind us to the fact they are human, they screw up, and just because they say nice things about us doesn’t mean they are above being called out for being pricks when they write tabloid scandal rag BS.
• Okay, Breitbart isn’t perfect, but they’ve given us a much fairer shake then I ever expected, and aside from a few articles I found off-putting, they’ve proven pretty honest, and since the SJW rags are chock full of cultural authoritarianism, outright lies, and corrupt shills sucking up to each other without disclosure, I don’t really care how much they bitch about Breitbart, Techraptor, The Ralph Retort, Niche Gamer, Lewd Gamer, and so on. They are corrupt rags I want to see burn for all the lies they’ve promoted and the erosion of free speech they support, so I was full of shit on this one.
• Ghazi has a bit of knee jerk reaction to us Gators, and after hearing them out, I can see why: They are used to us arrogantly presuming we’re right, not allowing a scintilla of doubt or admit we could possibly be wrong, at least how they see it. In their defense, after seeing some of the Twitter battles between them and us, some of us don’t come off much better than they do, so even if you think you’re right, showing humility and admitting you might be wrong is, if nothing else, showing grace and humanity. And besides, we genuinely MIGHT BE WRONG, let’s not forget that.
• Alright, I was pretty naive here. Shit, even we’ll admit we might be wrong on some things, but they won’t admit at all that any of their anointed saints might be the slightest bit wrong and think being cultural authoritarians is a good thing. In words of the Saints Row cast: FUCK. THAT.
• We both have our sacred cows and sacrosanct beliefs, fine, but in my discussions with them, even they had the decency to admit even they aren’t a monolithic entity that all think and act the same way. Yes, guys, it’s true, I got a variety of different responses, and no, not all of them were rejecting everything I had to say out of hand, though they were were pretty blunt about where they thought I was dead wrong, which is fair enough, we tend to be the same way on some subjects ourselves, but at the end of the day, neither of us are a hive mind, and if they were willing to debate me sternly yet with more civility than I expected, I think it’s only fair we return the favor.
• Upon reflection, while this was true, the hive mind among their numbers tends to silence most of their more reasonable members. Hell, they get too reasonable, they eat those members for being heretics. I published the article I’m now calling myself out on, and I’ve yet to be declared a total outcast for having an opinion sympathetic to the other side, but they cast out anyone who admits we GGers might have legit points with gleeful abandon, so I just hope all their reasonable members get the hell out before they forced out and join the side of the angels, because there is only one side that casts out reasonable people capable of reexamining their own opinions based on evidence and reflection, and it isn’t anyone supporting GamerGate.
• Most of all, we need to remember, despite our ideological differences, members of r/GamerGhazi and those that oppose GamerGate in general are HUMAN BEINGS. They get upset, they have doubts, they bleed and feel pain like we do, and they are just as mortal as ourselves. Us Gators can be rather insensitive to that at times, especially from some of the crap I’ve seen on Twitter, and if we want them to, at the very least, not think so ill of us, compassion and basic human decency never hurt. From what I’ve gathered, they don’t expect that as much from us, let’s try to defy their expectations and respect them as human beings even if they disagree with our beliefs. If the religious and atheists can see past their differences and show each other basic decency, let’s give our opposition a little more respect than they usually expect every now and then.
• While I still advocate this position in formal situations so as to present GamerGate arguments much more reasonably than the usual histrionic, victim complex bullshit the other side tends to be fond of, I don’t blame anyone for resenting a group that largely thinks were worse than Hitler for dissent, and while they are humans, they have a lot of members that forget we are a lot more than we do them.

In summation I was pretty damned wrong, I admit it, and if the other side is so bent on suppressing respectful dissent and free speech even when we try to be reasonable and civil, I don’t blame anyone for ceasing to try since it’s obvious most of them don’t care or merely try to use that to screw us over.