Vox Day declares victory over his exasperated critics

Vox Day

Noted reactionary crank Theodore “Vox Day” Beale has figured out why no-one seems interested in confronting him anymore:

One of the things that has been interesting to observe over time is the way that the heated attacks on me, both in public and via email, have all but disappeared even though my overall readership has never been larger. Why is this? My theory is this is because most of my critics, be they atheists, feminists, evolutionists, or free traders, have learned they simply cannot win in a direct confrontation. They can't openly criticize my ideas because they have learned, much to their surprise, that they cannot adequately defend their own.

Yes, the man who argues with a perfectly straight face that there’s no such thing as marital rape and that hurling acid in women’s faces to stop them getting all uppity is good for society, who can’t resist attacking science despite constantly betraying his utter cluelessness about it, who blithely declares that atheists are immoral and evil (because some other dudes did bad things in the past), and who is just generally a flaming lying asshole – to mention just a few highlights I’ve personally blogged about – actually thinks that the reason why his critics are supposedly going quiet is that they’ve given up trying to knock him down from Mount Awesome.

If I may present an alternate hypothesis: Vox Day is just as wrong and ridiculous as ever, but most of those who once took an interest in debunking his nonsense have grown weary of banging their heads against his brick wall and are now just ignoring him after having written him off as a waste of time long ago. And meanwhile, more and more MRAs, racists and assorted creepy dunderheads are rallying around his little outlet as one of the few remaining hotspots for their brand of bigoted bullshit. Really, it’s not that hard to figure out. (Or did Vox just use some variant of ad populum?)

Honestly, the only reason I pay him any mind of my own is for the occasional amusement his tripe brings me (call me a glutton for punishment) and, to a broader extent, because his crap is just the logical result of the same bad thinking that pervades the religious-Right, which makes it minimally worthwhile to fisk. But the fact that he actually believes the only reason why anyone would stop addressing his bullshit over the years is because they “cannot win in a direct confrontation” – especially because “they cannot adequately defend” their own beliefs – just goes to show how breathtakingly deluded the man really is.