Here’s little dilemma that, perhaps, a few of the wiser heads who cruise these blogs can offer their opinions on:

I live in a small city in rural New England. I run the kitchen of a well regarded small restaurant one town over and live here with my wife and child.

Like most places, we have a few “local” blogs where regional issues are kicked about by a host of regular commenters. The cast includes some local professionals, a couple of blue collar types like myself, profs and students from the two local colleges and even a few elected officials.

One of the most prolific commenters is a long time city councilor who is also a history professor at the local state college where he is the advisor for the Conservative Student Union. (He openly agrees with David Horowitz’s claims.) Every week he goes in front of the cameras for a local access cable TV show and spews typical right leaning pontifications for an hour. (But he claims he is not conservative. No, really.) And he has a well earned reputation for being a rude, vile and obnoxious jerk.

To my dismay, I have become one of his favorite targets on the web.

In the comment sections of these local blogs he has attacked me and others using some of the most profane, despicable and insane insults imaginable. They range from the incredibly homophobic to overt sexism. One of the most bothersome things is that he regularly suggests that I give my restaurant customers food poisoning. (He does this for no good reason. He is just trying to bait me.) He also has made some wildly racist comments which few people had the courage to call him out on.

Recently I wrote the mayor, the one and only person this councilor is afraid of, and asked him to discreetly intervene with this guy who is his friend and neighbor. I included a “greatest hits” of some of the more contemptible comments. It seemed to have worked for a week or two, but recently, the personal attacks have been coming back, although not quite as vile.

While I could simply ignore the jerk, my nature has always been to punch back when a bully gets uppity. Hence, my only other option is to escalate this into a formal complaint which will invariably attract some media attention and give the city a self perceived black-eye and that is not my intention.

Unfortunately, as with most small towns, this will not be seen as neighborly. Even though the councilor’s remarks are absolutely indefensible, I will experience some backlash and many locals will rally around him because of what will be seen as an attack on the old guard of the city itself. I will be called an “instigator”. Small town dynamics and politics are a world apart from those of metropolitan areas.

Ultimately, though, I suspect that abject public humiliation via a formal complaint may be the only way to temper this guy’s rabid nature.

What do you think?