"Sticks and Stones"

 Remember as children, we often heard the expression, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?" As children, we never really believed it. 

As an adult, however, I grew to understand that words hurt only so long as you allow them to hold power over you. 

I was reminded of this as I volunteered a clean up a troll attack on the social media page this past week. While the barrage of trolling comments were new to this group, it ws nothing new to me. As a vocal advocate of abolishing the public sex offense registry and a person on the registry myself, I've endured numerous attacks over the years. I've dealt with many vigilantes, both individually and entire groups. I've had my share of 3am phone calls, death threats, people who create websites dedicated to me, and personal stalkers. I've had specific threats, and I've even had trolls publish maps and pictures of my residence. And most of thse vigilante douchebags know they will face little to no repercussions. 

If you are going to be a bold activist, you must develop thick skin. I spent a few minutes each day for a week deleting comments and banning the offenders. I take pleasure in it, too, because over the years, the worst thing you can do to an online troll is delete their messages, since trolls revel in responses. They believe if you respond to them in any way, they are "winning."  

It takes less time to ban someone that it takes for that person to spend hours spamming a social media page. Nasty emails get flagged for spam. Nasty messages get ignored and swept away. 

It gets easier to do in time because there are honestly few new comments. Here are a few examples (not verbatime but many comments sound more or less like this):

"Woodchipper go brrr" -- And lame, uneducated trolls go "Durrrr." 

"If you are against the registry you must be on it." -- Well, in my case, I am, so "No Shit Sherlock", but many activists are not, and a growing number of legal experts oppose the registry, and they don't have loved ones on the registry. I guess it must take a working brain to figure out that a government blacklist 

"Pedifile" -- The least you cabn do is spell the term right. Idiots spell this term like it is something you pull out at the mail salon to scrape callouses. 

"I hope you get raped" -- Sometimes said in conjunction with prison "Gen Pop" or "Bubba" comments. It seems a bit ironic that people promote rape to say erape is bad. Did I say ironic? I meant MORONIC. 

**posts picture of my registry flier** -- Not that it is ever enforced, but the registry does state misusing the registry to harass, threaten, intimidate, or attack those on the registry, so they are engaging in criminal activity, so it is the same as the "I  hope you get raped" comments. 

**speaks in memes, emojis, and the same lame, highly overused GIFs like blinking man or girl with goofy confused expression** -- They cannot form their own opinions and speak like a human. Not worth my time.  

"Accept your punishment" -- You are admitting the registry is punishment. That actually benefits us since the ultra-conservative SCOTUS feels otherwise. 

"You'll never see me coming" -- You're right, because you never show up. 

"Expect Us." -- Anonymous isn't even a thing anymore. At best, these losers will try a DDOS attack that'll get fixed within a few minutes since ISPs have improved detecting attempted DDOS attacks. 

People have been led to believe that if they say mean things to me, I'll quit opposing the registry. Well, it hasn't happened in the 16 years. Far more powerful people, like the Ron and Lauren Book Crime Family, tried and failed, and now they're about to get sued into oblivion. 

Trolls, don't waste my time. I've heard it all before. Insulting dead members of my family, or my manhood, or my sanity, or encouraging suicide, or calling me names, or attempting to annoy me into submission is simply fueling me to press on with my message of total abolishment of the sex offense registry. 

And when the current gang of internet gangsters finally tires of being deleted and move on to the next gripe of the day, I'll still be here, just like the internet, "doing my thing," just as I have done since 2004. So the trolls can kiss my ass.