The Other McCain

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Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights

Posted on | August 19, 2013 | 31 Comments

Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about his plan to ‘destroy’ an FBI agent

“I know what’s legal, because I know what’s been done to me and if it’s legal when it’s done to me it’s going to be legal when it’s done to f–king FBI Agent Robert Smith, who is a criminal, who is involved in a criminal conspiracy. . . . Uh, anyway, so that’s why Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over I don’t say I’m gonna go kill him, but I am gonna ruin his life and look into his fuckin’ kids, because Aaron Barr did the same thing, and he didn’t get raided for it. How do ya like them apples?”
— Barrett Brown, Sept. 12, 2012

Did you ever find yourself in an Internet flame-war with some bozo and kinda wish bad things would happen to him? Honestly, I try to avoid thinking like that. But in your wildest revenge fantasy, you could never imagine this: They hook up with an international criminal conspiracy, get raided by the FBI and then, with federal prosecutors breathing down their neck, they flip out on YouTube and — in a raving fit of paranoid insanity — threaten to “destroy” an FBI agent, and get themselves locked up facing the possibility of 105 years in federal prison.

All of which is to say, I never could have wished this on Barrett Brown, because I simply never could have imagined it.

Nor could I have imagined that a coalition of his deluded admirers would turn Barrett Brown into a First Amendment martyr, but tonight they’re having a joint benefit for Barrett and his “Anonymous” comrade Jeremy Hammond as “political prisoners of the information age.”

And if you believe that, you’re a gullible chump, the kind of sucker who doesn’t deserve an even break.

“Anyway, while I was in the backyard, and I remember I heard the Mexican FBI agent bringing the other one back in he said, oh yeah, the bad guy’s back here. It was then that I realized that I’m a bad guy. You know, I had no idea beforehand. You know, and even now I still have trouble really sort of internalizing that. But if the FBI says it, it must be true, and from now on I am the bad guy. And I’m gonna prove that in the coming months, using the court system, using the media, using my group Project PM, which has always been, uh, secretly to some extent created for the purpose of wiping out this f–king government and certain media institutions and through other means at my disposal, some of which are known, some of which are known to a few and some of which are still secret. But I don’t like keeping secrets. I was a journalist for a long time, it’s not my nature.”
— Barrett Brown, Sept. 12, 2012

The “Anonymous” hackers spent more than two years engaged in terroristic intimidation — “Do what we say, or we’ll hack you! We’ll dox you! We’ll do a DDOS against you! We’ll SWAT you! Because lulz!” — and thought they could never get caught. Barrett Brown got the idea he could ride that wave to fame and glory, and when it didn’t turn out the way he planned, he decided that this was unfair, an injustice.

That’s the bottom line: Barrett Brown failed and, unable to accept responsibility for his failure, he blamed his failure on his enemies. Look at his final video meltdown if you dare:

  1. Meltdown Video 1 — 15:03 (transcript)
  2. Meltdown Video 2 — 15:03 (transcript)
  3. Meltdown Video 3 — 13:30 (transcript)

Go watch all of it, read all of it, and good luck making sense of any of it, because it’s nothing but pure paranoid gibberish. He recorded 45 minutes of video to explain this vast conspiracy against him — the “criminal conspiracy” with which he says this FBI agent was involved — and I’d like to see someone attempt to describe it in a linear or logical fashion, because it is evident that Barrett Brown was so deeply confused he couldn’t even make sense of his own theory.

Yet this scrambled mishmash of a conspiracy theory — allegedly involving Aaron Barr, Jennifer Emick, Alan Everett and Tom Ryan, among others — is the justification for Barrett Brown threatening to destroy an FBI agent, ending with this violent sign-off:

Every little news circus I create from here on out directs the media and the public to the criminal conspiracy that was never investigated last year involving Team Themis and the Justice Department, Eric Holder’s little f–king Justice Department, already f–king under a cloud, you know, not relative to the Bush administration but still almost as bad, ah, you know, and uh that helps, so I have no choice left but to defend my family, myself, my girlfriend, uh, my reputation, my work, my activism, my ideas, and the revelations that my friends are going to prison so that we can have a chance to get out for other people, so that they would matter. And frankly, you know, it was pretty obvious I was gonna be dead before I was forty or so, so I wouldn’t mind going out with two FBI sidearms and a f–king Egyptian pharoah. Adios.

This guy is a victim of injustice? This guy is a First Amendment hero? No, this guy is ridiculous douchebag, and if I never could have imagined him doing something quite this ridiculous, I think a nice long stay in federal custody for Barrett Brown might be a helpful warning to any other fame-whoring douchebag who thinks he can roll like that and never encounter any serious consequences.

Did you know, by the way, that in 2009 Barrett Brown was working on a book called Hot, Fat, and Clouded: The Amazing and Amusing Failures Of America’s Chattering Class, about such eminent figures as Thomas Friedman, William Bennett and Charles Krauthammer, and then — after my 2009 flame-war with Charles Johnson — Barrett decided to add a 45-page chapter on me. His editors took a look at the manuscript and said, “Robert Stacy Who?” So that got axed, and the book flopped anyway, and I think Barrett somehow blamed me for that.

All of which is necessary to explain why I’m featured rather prominently in the first part of the “Ballad of Barrett Brown”:

You have the right to be a douchebag, but being a douchebag does not confer upon you any special privileges.

Some douchebags just have to learn that lesson the hard way, I guess.

 

Category: Barrett Brown

Comments

31 Responses to “Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights”

  1. MrEvilMatt
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:40 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/PJkVswbaa9

  2. Lockestep1776
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:40 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/FbCRxbtQk8

  3. CHideout
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:40 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/1Fc9b4rAxH

  4. Citzcom
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:40 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/4k7eDUhIlP

  5. jwbrown1969
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:40 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/mEliuHgUYy

  6. richard mcenroe
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:49 pm

    Wow. He threatened an FBI agent’s KIDS and he’s surprised the shithammer is coming down? That ain’t criminally deranged, that’s felony stoopid.

  7. rsmccain
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:50 pm

    9 p.m. ET podcast w @ali, we’ll talk news for Kaitlyn Hunt http://t.co/lnin6cYlLc and maybe Barrett Brown, too. http://t.co/kHViHXqU2c

  8. rsmccain
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:50 pm

    RT @commonpatriot: via @rsmccain: Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights http://t.co/nNvQldl3gP #tcot

  9. ViralRead
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:50 pm

    RT @rsmccain: 9 p.m. ET podcast w @ali, we’ll talk news for Kaitlyn Hunt http://t.co/lnin6cYlLc and maybe Barrett Brown, too. http://t.co/k…

  10. DaTechGuyblog
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:50 pm

    RT @rsmccain: 9 p.m. ET podcast w @ali, we’ll talk news for Kaitlyn Hunt http://t.co/lnin6cYlLc and maybe Barrett Brown, too. http://t.co/k…

  11. rsmccain
    August 19th, 2013 @ 8:56 pm

    “I never could have wished this on Barrett Brown, because I simply never could have imagined it.” http://t.co/kHViHXqU2c | @instapundit

  12. lolvincitomnia3
    August 19th, 2013 @ 9:02 pm

    RT @rsmccain: “I never could have wished this on Barrett Brown, because I simply never could have imagined it.” http://t.co/kHViHXqU2c | @i…

  13. rmnixondeceased
    August 19th, 2013 @ 9:35 pm

    The only “right” douchebags have is the right to be mocked thoroughly and to be slapped with a large fish.

  14. RMNixonDeceased
    August 19th, 2013 @ 9:36 pm

    “The only “right” douchebags have is the right to be mocked thoroughly and to be slapped with a…” — rmnixondeceased http://t.co/gPpONlkUm6

  15. JeffS
    August 19th, 2013 @ 9:37 pm

    well, at least they included The Fedora™. There’s that.

    But that “ballad”? I’d rather line up 50 cats and listen to them as someone stomps on their tails in random order.

  16. rmnixondeceased
    August 19th, 2013 @ 10:13 pm

    I’m sure “Justice Through Music Project”, Brett Kimberlin’s 501 (c) (3) non-profit foaming at the bit to distribute that … totally non-partisan, of course …

  17. RMNixonDeceased
    August 19th, 2013 @ 10:16 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights http://t.co/cGhdI59AkD Heh. They just need a good slapping with a large fish.

  18. thatMrGguy
    August 19th, 2013 @ 10:23 pm

    Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights http://t.co/mM5aHuRrMw

  19. ZombiePatrolTX
    August 19th, 2013 @ 10:34 pm

    RT @RMNixonDeceased: Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights http://t.co/cGhdI59AkD Heh. They just need a good slapp…

  20. subverzo
    August 19th, 2013 @ 11:18 pm

    RT @Citzcom: Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/…

  21. ElviraXMontana
    August 19th, 2013 @ 11:23 pm

    RT @rsmccain: “I never could have wished this on Barrett Brown, because I simply never could have imagined it.” http://t.co/kHViHXqU2c | @i…

  22. fillagainb
    August 19th, 2013 @ 11:24 pm

    RT @Citzcom: Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/…

  23. Steve Skubinna
    August 19th, 2013 @ 11:26 pm

    Okay, two more words: Dee. Lusional.

    Oh crap, I sure hope that doesn’t bring Assmunch McButtstick out of cowardly anonymous lurkerdom to mock me again.

  24. Steve Skubinna
    August 19th, 2013 @ 11:28 pm

    Yabbut they’re a fascist FBI agent’s fascist kids so they deserve it.

    Granted, not as bad as Bush, but hey, a lone truth telling crusader’s gotta follow his conscience. And if his conscience looks like an orange hippo in a floral muumuu and sings in a squeaky falsetto, hey, truth is truth man.

    Hey, are there any more Doritos, dude?

  25. er0tikka
    August 20th, 2013 @ 12:44 am

    RT @Citzcom: Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights: Sept. 12: Barrett Brown rants on YouTube about… http://t.co/…

  26. MrPaulRevere
    August 20th, 2013 @ 2:34 am

    One of the more interesting side notes to this story was Browns epic meltdown and eventual ban from LGF after ‘Killgore Trout’ called him an agent/stooge of the Russian government.

  27. Dianna Deeley
    August 20th, 2013 @ 1:17 pm

    “The Ballad of Barrett Brown”? This is a spoof, right?

    No, I won’t watch it – unless someone tells me it’s safe for my sanity.

  28. Dianna Deeley
    August 20th, 2013 @ 1:18 pm

    I was long gone. Did KT call him an agent of the Russian government, or of the thieves? In any case, it sound hysterical. Sorry I missed it.

  29. rsmccain
    August 20th, 2013 @ 8:01 pm

    ICYMI: Barrett Brown Inspires a Bizarre Campaign for Douchebag Rights http://t.co/kHViHXqU2c

  30. narciso
    August 20th, 2013 @ 8:20 pm

    Rolling Stone, not surprisingly has stuck up for him.

  31. SDN
    August 20th, 2013 @ 11:12 pm

    Everything Barrett Brown has ever done has been based on being a douchebag. He spent 4 months trolling the Protein Wisdom comments section so he could put out a magazine article on the hateful wingerz by cherry picking the responses to his crap.