Barbara Weed, Koen Swinkels and Liberating Minds
Liberating Minds is a forum founded and mostly populated by a small number of people who were banned from Freedomain Radio for various dysfunctional and destructive behaviours.
Liberating Minds is run by a fellow named Koen Swinkels, who goes by the screen name 'Conrad.' I don't know much about Mr. Swinkels, except that he has some articles on Lew Rockwell, and seems to have presented and studied at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and is a student at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I know his identity because Mr. Swinkels sent me hostile messages on another board using his real name, and then bragged about the attack on Liberating Minds. (see below)
Liberating Minds and its members are almost certainly the source for articles such as the recent one about Freedomain Radio in The Guardian, written by Kate Hilpern. Koen Swinkels has also bragged about being the source for Tu Thanh Ha, a Globe and Mail reporter who recently wrote about Freedomain Radio. Barbara Weed, the mother referred to in the article, has an account there as well. (see below)
Below are some quotes from Koen Swinkels and other banned members.
From a thread called “Go a-fucking-head”:
Mole: “FUCK ALL OF YOU!!! SO YOU WANT TO TALK SHIT. SUCK MY DICK YOU COCKMONGLERS AND ASSCLOWNS. I'LL RIP YOUR HEADS OFF AND SHIT DOWN YOUR THROATS!!!!111!!ONE Oh, and thanks for using my idea... asshole” (link)
Koen Swinkels: “hey Jew boy, if you hate this thread so much why don't you go someplace else where you will be welcome, you know, like Auschwitz...” (link)
Alex: “Let it all hang out Kun-Rod. Oh wait, I guess you have let it hang out. Just couldn't see it wifout my handy Jew-boy magnifying glass! Fucktard.” (link)
Koen Swinkels: "yeah well, who the fuck cares about LM anyway, you goddamn Jew" (link)Koen Swinkels apparently claims that this language was "all in good fun." Apparently he thinks this excuses what is being said - just as Michael Richards did after using vicious racial epithets during a recent comedy routine.
On the thread about the recent Guardian article, from banned member Dylboz:
“Good article. I want there to be more. I really, really hope that the media picks up on it, [Stef] is a terrible, manipulative malignant narcissist. Reading that just roiled my meanest emotions, I have nothing but loathing for this man, victimizing young people, taking advantage of their vulnerabilities, and turning them against their families and friends all to feed his ego, soothe his raging insecurity and TAKE THEIR MONEY!More From Dylboz: (addressing me from the site):
I wish she had pointed out that he has no other source of income than those ‘donations.’
Fucker. I can't stand him. He makes me mad, so much more because I fell for his schtick. Makes me feel stupid. And I don't like being made a fool. At least I figured him out, and I never did feel comfortable with the whole confessional vibe, the denouncing of your parents and dredging up the worst bits of your childhood, it all seemed so, I don't know, Owellian, like some combination of the 2 minutes hate and room 101.
His childish, pathetic, petty lie, and his dishonesty about why he was telling it, which was just to make Conrad look bad, then going back to his captive audience where he could frame reality and leave out all the relevant bits after he got totally embarrassed on Kinsella's Libertarian Google forum, it was so aweful, and stupid and sad that I immediately lost all respect for him, and suddenly I had him cornered and he was petulantly clinging to this stupid little lie, I wanted him to admit it, in fact, if he had, it would have totally redeemed him, but I now know he's utterly incapable of admitting error and he hates being criticized (because his self-esteenm is so low, his self image so fragile, he is so insecure that he is afraid of his own fucking baby!) so much that he would rather lie and lie and lie again, manipulate and twist and squirm and writhe, ban people from his message board and act like he's the noble long-suffering victim, but never admit the truth, and over something so fucking meaningless and petty and tiny and PATHETIC! OH. MY. GOD. Laughing at cartoon violence perpetrated by a baby on a dog? Crime of the century, evidence of a black soul and hopelessly recalcitrant, willful corruption. Really ? COME ON! GROW THE FUCK UP! And then to continue acting all high and mighty about it when he plays a video game that congratulates you on your headshots and killing sprees, complete with enormous blood spatters and squishy sound effects ("that's not in the game I play, I've never seen that, Oh, I've never watched the intro movie, I have no idea what you're talking about") what a PATHETIC immature weasely douche bag!” (link)
“Fuck off, you douche-bag. You are driving so many good people who could be an asset to the freedom movement and libertarianism into a ditch, a great big psuedo-psychological amateur philosophy game of Swedish cracker. You look more and more like some kind of CIA operative sent to neutralize anarcho-capitalists to me all the time. I'm not inclined to that kind of conspiratorial thinking, but if the shoe fits...” (link)
"...I hate that man. I really, really do. He is the sick son-of-a-bitch..." (sic) (link)From an abusive parent called defoodDad, regarding the Guardian article:
defoodDad: “I'm sure dick face has read it by now too, Choke on it Stef.” (link)NonEntity (another banned member):
“...it does support my contention that Stef is a scumbag, is dishonest and hypocrictical.” (sic) (link)
“...Stef is a lying, dishonest, manipulative scum bag.” (link)Koen Swinkels, From the thread “Stef's Wikipedia page deleted”:
“fuck you in your nose NonE” (link)Koen Swinkels, regarding a video where I laugh:
Koen Swinkels: “I hate the laughter so much too (Stef would of course say that we hate it because we can't stand to see true happiness and joy (oh no, I'm mind reading)). I want to beat it [the laughter, not Stef] to death, saw its limbs off, then beat it to death again, pour gasoline over it, set it on fire, and then vomit all over it -- you catch my drift?”(link)... to which another member replies:
Dylboz (banned member): “Yeah, if it were on fire, I wouldn't even piss on it to put it out. Burn, motherfucker, burn!" (link)More from Koen Swinkels:
“dude, I would almost give my pinky toe to have a conversation with him. I can now see through all the manipulation techniques that he uses and would be so capable and willing to expose him, to show him for what he is: a gigantic douchebag.” (link)
“Fuck you Stef. You lie and you manipulate and the FDR'ers are relieved after this interview, after you lied to and manipulated everybody listening to it. Fuck you Stef...” (link)Koen Swinkels at work:
"it'd be much appreciated if you did post it though. am at work now and can't access FDR. I am quite interested in his response since Travis' post seemed spot on." (link)Koen Swinkels exposing his identity (In October 2007):
"the past few days or week even I think I have de-FDR'ed quite a bit. Especially since David and I brought down STef on the Libertarian Forum I sort of have peace and calmness in my mind about the whole thing, like it has reached its natural ending for me. That was all good." (link)Koen Swinkels admitting his obsession:
“...the thing is, Stef is a very sophisticated liar, so he will be very precise in his lies so that he can always wiggle his way out of things... ...the thing is, we've been 'debating' Stef and following him debating others for over a year now (I know, it's bad) and if there is anything I have learned is that you have to be supercareful in such debates in order to really expose Stef's hypocrisy and dishonesty. He always creates ways out for himself, but if you understand how his mind works (i know, I know) then you can expose him ...in short, don't worry, my (and others') disgust with Stefan is as great as yours...” (link)Feeding The Globe And Mail Reporter Tu Thanh Ha:
"..Obviously, the references that I gave the G&M journalist were all to the full podcasts..." (link)
ZebraFoal:
“I've never believed that Stef is that fucked up. I think he's narcissitic (sic) and a "successful pyschopath," but I think he uses and embellishes messed-upedness for his very calculating, mercenary, power-avid, self-flattering ends.”From another banned member:
“I do not believe that Stef came from a horribly abusive family. I think he's an opportunist, embellishing on more or less regular stuff to further his narcissistic goals. As I said elsewhere today, I also believe he is a "successful psychopath."
Just apply the "skin-crawl test"--and you will see!
note: (felt by researchers interviewing psychopaths) It is thought to be an ancient vestigial reaction to being in the presence of a predator --the feeling of your skin crawling--
Whenever I listened to Stef's voice, I had it. When he addressed me on the Board, my skin positively got up and crawled away.” (link)
"...fairly dissapointed with Stef's blunt, one-answer treatment of divergent theories, plus his gang of sycophants, who would promptly lick his bunghole without even reading the discussion at hand. And Stef does not have that disgust many of us have in having our asses kissed, best expressed in that phrase, "nobody likes an ass kisser". *one thing that strikes me about the FDR "methodology", is how convenient it is to just chalk it up to a "fucked-up psyche" or having been "brutalized as a child" every damn time someone disagrees with you. It is like marxism and the "bourgeois logic". For a while I was swayed by that siren, but snapped out of it after hearing podcast after podcast where he would end with, "that is because they were brutalized as a child", it was like goddamn mad-libs... (link)
Sonia Mansour Robaey: (banned member), posting on Mr. Swinkel's forum:
Just two remarks. The first being that the Molyneux cult bans everybody who disagrees with them therefore keeping their followers under tight thought control while being discussed at other forums. I doubt that the Molyneux followers visit other forums. So we have to be careful here to discuss molyneux in order to expose the cult but not to give it a non deserved publicity. I found it very disturbing for example that Molyneux's thinking was discussed on the Mises forum, we are giving him too much credibility here. The second is that I think we have to go from discussion into action. One possibility I see is to sue the cult for hate speech targeting a special group in society and leading to psychological damage and suffering. I leave you with that. I don't have time to be enough on the forum but I will check your reactions and advice whenever I have little time.(link)
Thanks to all of you on this forum who reproduced the exchange between me and the FDR cult members and their 'leader'. I cannot access the forum anymore. But I will be visiting this one. FDR cultists were boasting about having some publicity from the Guardian article, let's use this publicity to let people know the truth about Molyneux and his cult.(link)From her blog:
My brief exchange with members of the FDR cult, detailed with additional post banning comments Last sunday, I read an article in the Guardian about an internet forum that goes by the name of FDR coaching young adults, who have issues with their own emancipation, into cutting ties with their families. I had a brief discussion with members of this cultist forum before being banned by their 'maître à penser'.(link)One of her posts on the Freedomain Radio site:
...What Mr. Molyneux does is to feel opportunity at every vulnerability, opportunity to profit from the vulnerabilities of the people who are seeking a way to their emancipation in a dificult personal ontext (sometimes pathological). This is called predation. To my knowledge, Mr Molyneux does not hold a degree in Philosophy. Philosophy is not just words, Philosophy is rigourous thinking combined with an ethical methodology, Mr. Molyneux has neither, he doesn't even have doubt. Philosophy could not exist without doubt.(link)Barbara Weed, commenting about Freedomain Radio on the Liberating Minds site:
...-- I identified myself and my son because we're the subjects of an article in the Guardian which is yet to be published...(link)
...When challenged by parents or others, Stefan Molyneux makes false accusations against them to frighten them away, or he bans them from his site, or he makes their posts invisible to others ("gaslight effect" or censorship?)...(link)
...FDR is a cult. Sadly, your story is very familiar. Like yours, my other children confirmed that their childhoods were happy. Try to hang on to that knowledge. There was no actual reason for the defoo. Like many others, your child has been manipulated by Stef....(link)Danny Shahar, claiming intellectual dishonesty of Stef (note, Danny was not banned for outright abuse):
...Stefan has not approached this issue with the intellectual honesty and rigor becoming of someone making the kinds of claims that he does about himself. It was my pointing that out that precipitated his asking me to stop posting on his forum....(link)Rob (another member banned for abuse) complained bitterly about FDR in the recent Globe and Mail article - after apologizing for the abuse that got him banned, in March 2008, on the FDR forum:
Sorry for my behaviour a few months ago. I was angry, manic and a bit confused. Again sorry, especially to stef who did not deserve any of my name-calling or slanderous remarks...
There are two main reasons that I have now decided to stop ignoring these attacks.
The first is that the mainstream media seems to view this site with some credibility, which I can only assume is because they do not know its vile contents. I also truly hoped that Koen Swinkels in particular could have found a way to overcome his irrational hatreds and do something more productive with his life. I am aware that revealing his rages in this manner may be devastating for him, and I am truly sorry that this has become the only option that remains.
Secondly, as you can see from the chart below, over the past year, a very small number of people are returning again and again to FDR (and the visits are only currently increasing), and so it is clear that ignoring this problem is only making it worse, and enabling the abusive behavior.
