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The White Rose Journal - IN EXILE

My Father Is My Enemy

Some people have an evil twin.
Some are less fortunate.

By: Stephen Robert Devoy

As many on the Internet are aware, I have been the target of an online harassment program. It has taken a very long time for me to figure out what has been going on. Intentionally, the harassers led me down many paths, posing as different parties attempting to distract me from the obvious. They succeeded not because I am unintelligent but because I had faith in various individuals that I should not have had faith in. The last thing I could ever have come to believe is that central members of the harassment program were family members. I still have a difficult time accepting this, but it is the truth. Many of the absurdities I've observed online and that others have observed are the direct result of this betrayal. My primary computer was located on the same home based LAN as other family members. This LAN is connected to the Internet via a single DSL connection. That DSL connection has one IP address that all of the computers in our house share. All of the computers in my house are tied to a specific computer which acts as the center of the network. It is that central node that has played the central role in spoofing my identity online. This has led various online publications to the false conclusion that I and KOBE SBM are one and the same. This mistake was made by Boston IndyMedia, LA IndyMedia and NYC IndyMedia.

Additionally, this same family member obtained access to my AOL accounts. I am not sure how this individual obtained such access, but I do have proof that he has gained such access, reads my emails and has posted as me from my AOL account. The nature of the spoofed posts in my name is such that they have attracted the attention of the Government. In sum, a family member has led the Government to the false belief that I am some kind of important threat, causing the Government to waste resources monitoring my online activities and even physically following me (e.g. in Harvard Square, posting a cop in front of my house, and other such activities).

As a consequence of this, I have had to shut down my Internet accounts and flee my home. My wife, daughter and I no longer reside in Massachusetts. We cannot let my family know where we are because we fear them.

Much of the libel and defamation this individual has posted against me are gross exaggerations and distortions of events that occurred when I was a child. Like all children, I did embarrassing things. I also suffered from false classifications at the hands of public school bureaucrats. My IQ was incorrectly measured and later discovered to be much, much higher. An accident as a small child left in doubt my ability to have children (I fell from a tree injuring the area just below the testicles. The damage was repaired.). Despite this accident I never had any reproductive problems. My first marriage did not include children specifically because my first wife is infertile. This led the harasser to conclude that I could not have children and falsely infer that my daughter is not my own. This false inference led him to believe that I was married under false pretenses and thus led to antipathy on his part against my wife. The absurd thing about this is that my daughter looks more like me than she looks like my wife.

Much of the disinformation put forward by the harassment program could only have come from a malicious member of my family who intentionally distorted real events in my life. The false characterization of my mental state as "paranoid" and "delusional" are mere projections of his own beliefs about himself upon me. While it is true that I suffer from depression, there is nothing paranoid or delusional about my depression. The question, however, is where does all this malice come from? The fact is, this malice has existed since I was a small child and has played a role in harming me throughout my life.

The following story is a story about two poles within one family. The story I will tell here is not the story of the harassment. What I am attempting to do is to create a context for understanding the later story - the story of the harassment. I will write about the harassment in another essay. The story below is the story of a father and his son. I am that son.

I cannot get inside my father's head. I do not know for sure what goes on there. What I recount and how I describe his mindset is merely my opinion based on a lifetime of observations. In the story below, any statement about my father's state of mind or motivations should be implicitly preceded by the statement "It is my belief that my father....". This is a description of my beliefs. The truth itself will never be known as there is no objective mechanism for evaluating his beliefs and motivations.

My father has always been obsessed with the notion that he is more intelligent than anyone. He has never been able to conceive of the possibility that one of his children is actually more intelligent than he is. I believe that my father is not the most intelligent person in my family. If I were to rank the members of my family in order of intelligence, I would be first and he would be second. No doubt he disputes this, but this dispute, I believe, is based on a delusional view that he has of himself. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am not just more intelligent than my father, but that I am much more intelligent than my father. I also believe that my daughter is more intelligent than I am. I am happy about this. I hope her children are yet more intelligent than she is.
I also believe that my father is not basically good. My mother is an angel and what she lacks in brilliance she more than makes up for in goodness. She is a very good person, but she is easily manipulated. My father, on the other hand, is not a very good person. He is envious, materialistic and, in my opinion, cowardly. He is also possessed with false pride, meanness, intolerance and authoritarianism. My father is very much an engineer. He is practical. He is exacting. However, he cannot comprehend the real world. The real world is a messy place where inexactitude, uncertainty and non-clarity rule. In such a world he is incapable of mapping the true reality into the smaller number of discrete concepts that his mind supports. He is a three dimensional thinker in a multi-dimensional universe.

My father claims not to be racist. I cannot get inside his mind so I do not really know whether or not he is racist. However, I do know that he is a "cultural" bigot. He believes in the superiority of Anglo-American culture. He dislikes the large inflow of immigrants. He believes that this is a "Christian" country and that the "Christian" majority has the right to shove its beliefs and "morality" down the throats of minorities.

My father believes that homosexuals are flawed people. He does not believe that homosexuality is innate. He seems to believe that homosexuals are just over-sexed people who find it easier to get laid among their own sex. He views homosexuality as a danger to our way of life and spends a lot of time worried about the rise of gay rights. He oppose gay marriage and supports discrimination against gays.
My father has a hard time dealing with the fact that most people actually do masturbate. He thinks nudity is evil. Deep inside I believe that his sexual morality is a direct descendent of the Anglo notion of "close your eyes and think of England."

Most psychologists believe that masturbation is healthy. Personally, I believe that anyone afraid to touch oneself is psychological unwell. New England is not exactly on the cutting edge of human sexuality. I suppose his views are not considered absurd in the puritanical states, but I am just as much a product of Southern California as I am of New England and I think New Englanders have much to learn from Californians - get over your hang-ups and enjoy your life. God doesn't give a shit what you do with yourself. If there is a God, I'm sure She's much more concerned with what you do to others.

My father is absurdly proud of his last name. Strangely, there have only been two Devoys of note: John Devoy and myself, Stephen DeVoy. The only two Devoys that have ever accomplished anything of any significance are both rebels. John Devoy was an Irish rebel fighting against English rule in Ireland and I am an American rebel fighting against fascism in the United States. Lest you get confused about why one version of the name is spelled "Devoy" (with a small "v") and the other version of the name is spelled "DeVoy" (with a capital "V"), I was told a story that I tend to believe is true. The capital "V" does not belong in the name. The real name is "Devoy" and not "DeVoy." The capital "V" was added by cowardly ancestors ashamed of John Devoy, the Irish rebel. For this reason, from this day forth, I am no longer using a capital "V" in my name. I am proud of John Devoy and I am restoring my name to its true form "Devoy." I consider the capital "V" a sign of treachery. Therefore, I am no longer "Stephen DeVoy." I am "Stephen Devoy", a proud rebel and fan of "John Devoy." Like they believe of John Devoy, my family seems to believe that my beliefs make me a terrorist. I am not a terrorist and I do not believe that John Devoy was a terrorist either.

I have explained above some of my father's positions on various issues. Let me explain mine. I am anti-racist. In fact, I believe that the intermixing of "races" (fact is, I don't believe in races at all) is good for humanity. My first wife was Vietnamese and my current wife is Salvadoran. I believe in open immigration. This should be of no surprise since I do not believe in government at all.

As for homosexuals, I believe that homosexuals are born homosexuals and that heterosexuals are born heterosexuals. This diversity in human sexuality, I believe, has an important role in the survival of the human species. I will not go into the reasons for this belief here, but will save it for another essay. ( The short version is that divergent behavior ensures the survival of some portion of the population when the environment experiences a sudden shift making various forms of behavior self destructive. Greater diversity implies a higher likelihood that a species will survive across time.)

Since I believe that there should be no government, I believe that people should be free to form whatever mutually consensual relationships they choose, including marriage between two or more members of the same sex (or even different sexes). It would not be an exaggeration to say that I am extremely liberal with regard to sex. I also believe that nudity is natural and that humans should spend more time in the nude. Due to our society's rules, I do not live according to this belief, but if I could, I would.

As for names, I really do not believe that names matter. Somewhere in Ireland, centuries ago, someone started using a surname that eventually evolved into the name "DeVoy." Due to patriarchy, this name was passed down from father to son. Every "DeVoy" is actually more someone other than a "DeVoy" than the original dimwit that took on the surname in the first place. That "someone other" is the aggregation of the many woman that fed into the thread bearing the "DeVoy" name. Thus, being a "DeVoy" is a meaningless matter of convention and anyone proud of being a "DeVoy" (or an "O'Brien" or a "Goldberg" and so on) is a dolt. Individuals should be proud of their own accomplishments and not some tag given to them by convention. It is the ultimate sign of a loser that he or she finds his or her primary source of pride in something that has nothing to do with his or her individual accomplishments.

My father and I differ on religion as well. I am an atheist. I do not believe that there is a "higher power." This is not to say that I do not believe that there is some collective intelligence in the universe. There may be a greater intelligence that is the aggregation of all intelligences across time, but I have no solid reason to believe that this is true.

Whatever the case, I reject any supernatural explanation to the universe and what happens in it. My father, on the other hand, believes that there is a God as described in the New Testament. With regard to religion, the only thing we agree on is that the New Testament reflects a superior philosophy to the original Bible predating Jesus. My father admires Jesus as the son of God and I admire Jesus as a rebel. Additionally, I believe that Islam is an improvement over the old Bible as well. I do not believe my father and I agree on this. In fact, I know as for a fact that my father considers Islam a threat to our way of life. I am neutral on that question. Personally, I think the world is better off having many different belief systems in competition with each other than it would be with fewer. Thus, for me, Islam is just one more belief system which, as it interacts with other belief systems, provides an environment for progress. That progress is not in Islam itself but in Islam's competition with other belief systems.

Since I am an individualist, I do not care a wit what my father believes and I find absolutely no reason to be proud or ashamed of anything he does. What he believes and does, provided it does not consist in interfering with my beliefs and actions, is his business and not mine. My father, however, like most individuals incapable of adding anything of value to the world's idea pool, derives his self worth from his association with things outside of himself. Therefore, when he is ashamed of my beliefs or actions he feels slighted and attempts to interfere with them. If he were honest and courageous, he would do it openly. If he is a coward and is dishonest, I would expect him to do so secretly. I tend to believe he has been engaged in the latter.

The fact is that my father is ashamed of my beliefs and actions. I think he's a complete idiot to take this position. This is a mistake he has made throughout my life. When other people have liked me, he has been ashamed of me. When other people have admired my ideas and creativity, he has been ashamed of the same. He seems to suffer from the realization that someone who has rejected his values could be greater than he is. As I have risen, he has done everything he can to bring me down, not just in my career but in my writings and my political activities as well. He has invaded my privacy while pretending to respect privacy. He demands of me things he does not demand of himself. There is a word for this: hypocrisy.

My father has, in my opinion, destroyed my life.

Where do I go from here? I think the answer is clear. It is time to cut my ties with him forever. I will no longer hold back in what I write out of the fear that I may offend him. At least I am not an anonymous coward. I don't think he can say the same.

Can anyone out there help me?