Bruce, Go Stand in Front of a Speeding Train and Kill Yourself Says a Hillsdale, Michigan Man

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Over the weekend, Adam Stockford, the mayor of Hillsdale Michigan, posted to his personal Facebook account and his official campaign account the post I had written about him last month. Titled MAGA Mayor Adam Stockford Says Hillsdale, Michigan is a “Traditional Values” Community, I wrote about Stockford’s use of the phrase “traditional values.” As expected, Stockford re-posting my article led to his acolytes coming after me personally. I detailed their “love” yesterday in a post titled Did You Know I am a Traitor, Communist, Marxist, a Danger to America, and an Awful Writer Too? One Hillsdale man named Ronald Cook has made it his personal mission to attack me, both publicly and privately. Cook spent twenty years in the military, achieving the rank of sergeant. After retiring, he spent the next twenty years working as a corrections officer. As you will see in a moment, Cook is a bully, making me wonder how much his forty years in authoritarian jobs helped to shape him into the hateful man he is today.

What follows is a Facebook Messenger “discussion I had with Cook over the past three days. As you will see, Cook’s hostility toward me escalated quickly, so much so that I reported him to Facebook. Some of you have been after me to take threats of violence more seriously, so I heeded your advice and acted accordingly. I have not yet heard back from Facebook.

This first comment is what Cook said on Stockford’s personal Facebook page.

Cook says that I should do the world a favor by standing in front of a speeding train and killing myself. He also says that I am a child molester. I don’t understand people like Cook. I didn’t insult him or say anything inflammatory, yet Cook went after me like a terrorist in Afghanistan or an inmate who dared to talk back to him. Cook is certainly not the first, nor will he be the last to threaten me with violence. What concerns me is that Cook only lives 30-45 minutes from my home. He definitely has anger issues and violent tendencies, so I don’t want to provoke him further.

Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Comments

8 responses to “Bruce, Go Stand in Front of a Speeding Train and Kill Yourself Says a Hillsdale, Michigan Man”

September 28, 2022

Karuna Gal

Bruce, you are really brave to talk with these hostile people. 😨 I am always impressed when you do.

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September 28, 2022

Troy

He lives 35 minutes from your house, but I wouldn’t worry. Like metaphysical balloons, such blowhards are filled with nothing but hot air. That said, you should always keep your door locked.
I think you’re on to something about why can’t an atheist be a reverend? Wikipedia etymology : “The term is an anglicization of the Latin reverendus, the style originally used in Latin documents in medieval Europe. It is the gerundive or future passive participle of the verb revereri (“to respect; to revere”), meaning “[one who is] to be revered/must be respected”. The Reverend is therefore equivalent to The Honorable or The Venerable”

Nothing in that description is at odds with what I know (and love) about Bruce, though it IS at odds with many men (and women) of the cloth.

I’m always struck by these “‘Murica, ‘murica FUCK Yeah!” guys who don’t realize that those who would tear down the church-state wall are THE most unAmerican people there are. Liberty is the essence of the American experiment, and the right to follow your own conscience on such matters is fundamental and in the Constitution itself.

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September 28, 2022

AlphaJet

I can just feel all that christian love…not! As a railroad employee who has been in a locomotive cab when a pedestrian/trespasser is struck it is a very traumatic experience for the crew. Some never return from the leave of absence it so affects them. In my case it was ruled a suicide – the individual stepped into the gauge less than a hundred feet from the locomotive’s pilot and stared us in the eyes as we sped forward at 50 miles per hour. Sorry to go on a rant, but as usual the “compassionate, caring, moral majority” proves it is none of those things. And to echo the others, you have more patience than I would have with them.

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September 28, 2022

ObstacleChick

I wonder about people who are in authoritarian professions – do these folks already possess a large streak of authoritarianism and thus gravitate toward the profession, or does the profession shape them into authoritarians? I suspect they already possess the tendencies which attract them to the job, and they hone their skills through profession-sanctioned practice.

Be safe! This guy is probably a keyboard coward, but who can be sure…..

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September 28, 2022

Yulya Sevelova

This Ronald Cook person seems to take the contents of your blog personally, and for some odd reason, he calls you ” un- American,” even as he acts like the stereotypical ” Ugly American.”. Also sounds like a belligerent alsoholic type. If the wall between church and state is ever done away with legally,it sets up this country for Sharia Laws, or any other noxious creed !! I’d call those who are trying to bring this scenario about the true traitors here. Let’s say there is the trend towards a global religion, like it’s been prophesied- our wall of separation protects us all from that possibility, right ? How would these Fundie Fascist types ever be able to deal with such a thing ? By the way, Communism IS a religion, only it has the leader of the nation as the dirty. Ask anyone forced to live under that system. Destroying the wall makes the above possible. The Christofascists never consider the facts. If you really examine how the Puritans and Pilgrims lived daily life, they had no real freedoms, and wanted to make sure no one else was free,either ! They also considered themselves English subjects of the Crown still, though they fled Britain. They weren’t so much Christians,as they were Medieval Europeans. How else to explain the genocide,theft of land, and slavery ! Hard to fathom, but there are many Americans who hold to that view. Military and law enforcement segue too nicely with Fascism,way too often. Like the LAPD. Typical ! And the Sheriff’s Department. Scandals galore out here. Traditional values from the U.S. should be good,safe vales. Instead, it’s been hijacked by tyrants. Pay attention to them. Don’t laugh them off too much. Defend the rights you STILL have.

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September 28, 2022

clubschadenfreude

this christian twit is quite an idiot. Poor dear.

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September 28, 2022

BJW

When husband and I first moved to NW Ohio, we noticed that people are generally provincial. Now, that isn’t necessarily an insult. (BTW, Bruce, you and Polly don’t seem to be so. But you’ve lived in a lot of places.) Many of the people have lived within 50 miles of where they were born their entire lives. They are used to people being the way they are: conservative, Christian, and white. Now, obviously there are liberals and nones (with a smattering of other religions). But as decent as many of these people are, it is too easy for them to fear those who are different. And they seem to have a lot of fear.

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September 28, 2022

MJ Lisbeth

Bruce, I’d regard this Ronald Cook in the same way I’d regard a hurricane blowing its way up the East Coast: something that probably won’t affect me (I’m in NY), but to be wary of just the same.

Anyway, my time as an Army Reservist, though long ago, has given me some insight as to why so many in authoritarian positions are attracted to Evangelical Christianity, or other fundamentalist religions. Such folks aren’t accustomed to having their authority questioned, let alone their power challenged. That is exactly the sort of deity all fundamentalists worship: He’s God, and what he says, goes, because he said so. And they believe their holy text–which they don’t read or get in snippets from their preachers, pastors, priests, rabbis, imams or whomever–is, because it’s the word of that deity (never mind that it’s through the filters of scribes, translators and such), absolute and not to be questioned.

To that observation I add this caveat: Authoritarians are attracted to fundamentalism. Likewise, fundamentalists are attracted to authoritarianism, though someone who goes from fundamentalism to authoritarianism is unlikely to become a military service member (not an enlisted one, anyway), police officer to take any other job in which they’d have to get their hands dirty.

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