> because he makes odious and repugnant remarks about all manner of subjects, he harasses women and holds disturbing views about bestiality and pedophilia.
No. I'm sorry, but no. I've read his so-called "odious and repugnant remarks" when I last heard this accusation. I read his microblog(? something like that), with tens of thousands of said remarks, starting I think in 2003.
There is nothing odious, much less repugnant. Nothing. It's not even that he worded any of these badly. He is precise, and his reasoning is sound. There were statements that I personally wouldn't endorse, but he is well within his rights to say them. Again: there is NOTHING substantially wrong in his writing. The problem is: it doesn't matter in the age of cancel culture... One tweet seems to have an almost divine ability to appear as a fact, even though it clearly isn't.
Yes, Stallman is politically on the very far left. He's a hippie. Like, he's old enough to actually be a hippie. His whole philosophy rests on the principle of not harming others. Unfortunately for him, he adds a few other controversial elements, like saying that as long as they don't hurt anyone, people are generally free to do whatever. This also means giving an "OK" for any kind of love as long as nobody is harmed, all parties agree to it, all parties are able to disagree, and so on. But well, the various conditions wouldn't fit into a tweet, so they get helpfully omitted to make space for the Real Problem(tm) - that he's a pedophile! You know what he said in reality, in this particular case? Just that the age of consent could be lower, given how human body develops. He later learned more about how children grow up, so he retracted his earlier statement, and changed it in accordance with the scientific knowledge he had learned.
Now, for people who consider the above "odious and repugnant", it was very different. First, how could he, in 2006 btw, publish a text saying that teenagers, actually, do have sex anyway, so maybe you should fix the law to reflect reality. How dare he! "He wants to rape children!". I don't even. Anyway, second, how can he say that an age difference between spouses doesn't matter? As long as nobody is harmed, etc, etc. It's obvious he prepares ground for creation of a harem of young lolis! Then, third, how dare he retract his statement! Saying that in the first place made him trash, so he should act like one and silently take a beating. And fourth, his changed statement STILL is immoral and against all that's good and holy! He just admitted that only older teenagers should be able to have sex legally - which happens to be quite a popular opinion among sexologists. Oh no! Now he wants harem of high-school cheerleaders!
Harassing women. That's actually a nice one. You see, Stallman used to randomly ask females if they want to have sex with him. It was ok to do in the 70s, and it was still more or less ok in the 80s, as long as you minded the context. He never reacted badly to a refusal. Look, he used to ask tens of women a year (I think, as a minimum), so if he minded the refusals, his heart would crumble! But, moving on, asking women out to have consensual sex with him became wrong at some point. He should have stopped, right? Unfortunately, he's very much anti-censorship. So, when this-or-that conference said he can't do it there, he asked women from the other side of a street. That wasn't the brightest idea, so he started giving out cards with the same question. Who, and why, would say that's 'harassment'? You can't even start to make him a "predator who uses his position to threaten women to have sex with him" because, let's face it, how many women even know about his position? He's got no money, an old laptop, and a parrot (I think). What kind of power did he have over the women? If there wasn't anything like that, then him and his partner in conversation are equal, so if one perceives something as harassment, they can act as they wish.
The last thing was his "defence of a rapist". I don't remember the names right now, but it was a big case some time ago. Anyway, he said that it's unfair to label as a rapist a person who asked and was granted consent, just because someone else, without the knowledge of the guy in question, coaxes/threatens the woman to secure that consent. He wrote that the girl in this case APPEARED entirely willing, so it shouldn't be called rape. Of course, the one who actually threatened the girl is a criminal here. But no, the news sites I read said that "Stallman says a victim of rape was willing!!!"
This is so absurd. The only reason he gets hit with shit like this is because he refuses to play the game. No Twitter, no Facebook, just mailing lists and simple static HTML pages. He's different. Yes, he has an ideological axe to grind, obviously - that's the whole reason he is different. But no, neither his ideology, nor his writings, nor his behavior - none of it is particularly controversial, and contrary to many of people accusing him, he admits his mistakes and corrects his words if he's convinced to do so. Convinced, you know, in a civilized dialogue, not by tweeting how he's a terrible person. I mean, if you want to talk to him, you need to have to get off of twitter - he won't read (or even know that it exists) your opinion stated there.
EDIT, forgot:
> This man, who seemingly hasn't the self-awareness to realize his behavior directly hurts the credibility of his cause,
Oh, but he's very much aware and he's doing it on purpose. People who's favorite pastime is condemning strangers on the Internet to social death, are not the ones he wants to convince (though he never refuses a chat) and have around. Reading what's been happening around Chris Avelone this year, I can't say I disagree with his stance on this much.
