Son-of-a-late-KMT-diplomat Bevin Chu steps onto the wrong side of the blog-street

In comments to a post ironically titled "Champions of Taiwan Independence don't believe in Democracy" -- wherein Chu actually writes for all to see that he "despise[s] democracy" -- someone copied an actual comment of mine from another blog, and posted it on Chu's blog without my knowledge, signing my name to it. Chu then used the completely recontextualized comment to claim that I was "trying to change the subject" on a post which I hadn't yet read.

Not only is this a pathetic straw man -- it's just so incredibly pan-blue in so many respects! Let's take a look at what seems to be an accidental pulling back of the curtain to reveal the modus operandi of the pan-blues.

Taking "moderation" to the extreme
Since Chu moderated comments on his blog, it stands to reason that he either approved the comment in question or had previously approved the person who actually submitted it. In response to this misuse of my identity, I submitted a real comment that went like this:

You have comment moderation? Well, how about moderating?

Those are my words above, but I posted them on a different blog. It seems you noticed that they have nothing to do with this post, but you drew your own "end of story" conclusions out of something whose context made no sense.

Go read the post to which I was responding if you want to know what it was about.

I don't know how that comment got here. Responding to this kind of BS is the only reason for me to post anything on this blog or read it at all. I only knew it was here because somebody followed the link to my blog in the previous comment labeled with my name.

Change the subject? Why should I? You can talk about it 'til you're blue in the face for all I care. Just be sure to take anything you read in the China Post with a pound of salt.

Pathetic.

Tim Maddog

Two days later, my real comment to Chu still hadn't appeared, but another "anonymous" comment (not mine) had been approved by him, thus providing himself with another chance to feign superiority while continuing to ignore my rather straightforward note above.

Being the fair-minded kind of guy that I am, I submitted one more comment earlier today that went like this:

Bevin, did you get my point yet?

It's been approximately 48 hours since I informed you that the first comment signed with my name was not submitted by me. You have subsequently allowed other comments and attempted to twist them in your favor, but my attempt to speak the truth and to clarify things has been ignored.

Is this the sort of thing you learned from your "KMT diplomat" father? You certainly make this the most natural conclusion for me to draw.

Bottom line: If you're on the "Post a Comment" page, you should see an identifying image that's [sic] doesn't accompany the first comment. That means I didn't submit it. ¿Comprende? Capite? 懂不懂?

Submitted by the real Tim Maddog

[Typo in original: The "that's" should simply be "that."]

Chu could have done a couple of things at this point. He could've said, "Okay, I made a mistake," and then corrected it. Or he could've gotten angry and tried to baffle me with more bullshit.

Instead, he pathetically deletes all the comments from that post, and closes comments on his blog as announced by this post:

As of today The China Desk will cease posting reader comments.

Other than ceasing to post reader comments however, The China Desk will remain the same as it has been for the past decade.

[...]

The reason for this return to the previous norm is time.

Responding to Taiwan independence trollers [sic] on a one to one basis is simply not worth the author's limited time. Life is too short and too precious to squander in such a manner.

If "the author" (here referring to himself in the third person, as Chu himself has mocked Chen Shui-bian for doing) had actually spent any time "[r]esponding" to my comments, I might consider giving him the benefit of the doubt, but that is not the way it happened.

Next, if somebody misuses your identity and you reply to the misdeed, that doesn't make you a "troller" -- it makes you a victim. This merely reveals just how pathetic Chu is and that he doesn't have a leg to stand on in this argument. The only proper way out would have been a correction and an apology. Again, that didn't happen.

It's perfectly within Chu's rights to close the comments section of his own blog. But I also have the right to speak out about what happened. Since he doesn't even publish an e-mail address on his blog (strange for someone who promotes "market anarchism") I no longer have any way to send this to him directly, so I will instead post what I have to say here in "open-letter" fashion:

Not-so-dear Bevin,

In a comments section that was supposedly "moderated," you initially allowed a comment which you then painted as an attempt to "change the subject." Nobody forced you to post that comment. In fact, I already told you I didn't submit it to you at all; therefore, it appears that it was you who tried to change the subject, all the while blaming someone else. What a pathetic straw man!

Then, when I point out to you what should have been obvious to anyone who has an ounce of integrity, you ignore my real comments completely and call me a "troll."

You say at the beginning of your post that you "despise democracy." Then you paint the DPP as doing the same. By your own twisted logic, you should love the DPP. Unless, of course, the greatest reason for your hatred of democracy is that it allowed the people of Taiwan to chip away at your position of privilege and gain a small share of the wealth and power you and your pan-blue comrades were previously hogging all to yourselves.

Say, what? You still have a voice that can be heard?! So what do you use this voice to do? You make shit up and back it up with faulty logic!

Polls and editorials by pro-unification propaganda machines such as BS-TV and China Post don't even come close to representing democracy. These things aren't the same as democratic elections (where people are allowed to vote if they've reached a certain age, are non-felons, and meet other requirements such as citizenship), so don't treat them as such via this pathetic false analogy you use to "back up" your support for the recall of a president they have hated from the outset.

"Who's kidding whom?" Well, that would be you and your faithful readers.

You and your fellow pan-blue democracy-abusers contradict yourselves at every turn. While your logic leaves much to be desired, your virtual "hot air" sure is plentiful. Your writings contain reeking mounds of truthiness, but because they reveal so little actual truth, they're just pathetic.

So closing your comments won't change things a bit, because it's apparent that you don't give a flying fuck about what anyone else says.

Sincerely,
The real Tim Maddog

What Chu said more specifically in his reply to the comment falsely submitted in my name was that "[Tim Maddog]'s trying to change the subject because he and his fellow Taiwan independence fellow travelers can't refute what I said." With the removal and blockage of some rather innocuous comments, he has made it abundantly clear that it's because he wouldn't let us then, and he won't let us now.

Bottom line: Since he refuses to be reasoned with, it's time to put Bevin Chu on your shitlist, too.

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Some things considered: Taiwan, democracy, Bevin Chu, Kuomintang, KMT, China Post, TVBS