As can be seen from the comment of Mr. Spencer Pierce, and on the dethklan website, members take offense at being labeled. Fair enough. You are right. Labeling someone makes them a faceless non-person for whom it is easy to deny empathy or compassion. I too am a person with a real life: family, friends, job. And yet you are quick to label me as “you guys.” Is that anymore fair? You can’t have it both ways. So point taken: no more labels.

The Urban Dictionary defines hate mongering thus: “A person who uses political beliefs or passions of any kind as a platform to express their hatred for another individual.” Mr. Pierce, I ask you to look at the dethklan website where you will observe people being denigrated for who they seem to be or are, regardless of their actions. What does that say to you?

I do not hate dethklan. I criticized them based on their actions which were inflicted on others without their consent. The challenge of freedom is that yours only extends as far as it does not impede the freedom of someone else. Griefing is an attack, whether the damage is real or just inconvenience, and attacks are often taken personally.

For the record, I am not the person who contacted Dream Host, and I have nothing to do with any threats to dethklan or its members outside of the Linden Labs TOS. I support the constitutionally guaranteed protection of free speech in the United States. Dethklan is free to say anything they want on their website and I am not forced to look at it. Dethklan members are free to rez all the multiplying particles and sound making devices they want, as long as they do so with those willing to participate. If dethklan members choose to “jack off on each other” then they are free to do so amongst themselves. If they choose to take it beyond that, then they take responsibility for the consequences of that choice.

There is a reason why the term includes the root word “grief.” Definition: “A griefer is a player who does things in a game or virtual environment to deliberately cause annoyance (“grief” in the sense of “giving someone grief”) for the griefer’s own enjoyment.” Is it right Spencer, for your enjoyment to trump mine?

That same First Amendment Right that allows dethklan the freedom of its website allows me to post my opinion here, as a columnist. My opinion is that individuals who are smart, regardless of how old they are, and who are “normal human beings that have social lives, friends, school, jobs…” should be applying themselves to creating something positive with that capacity. Griefing is neither positive, nor productive.