Will Internet critic soon 'sleep with the fishes'?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 02 Dec 2001 10:45:44 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED NOV. 21, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Will Internet critic soon 'sleep with the fishes'?

Gwen Castaldi used to broadcast for the news department of Las Vegas television Channel 3.

OK, that's to news reporting as being a body double is to acting. Nonetheless, at least in theory she got where she is today -- chief public relations flack for Clark County government -- because she's supposed to know something about the proper relationship between representative government and an informed public, a relationship long facilitated by what the First Amendment guarantees us will always remain a "free press."

No one is required to get a state license to become a reporter or a publisher. All are welcome to report the news or present their commentaries as they see fit, if only by running off a few dozen photocopies. In the end, only the free market decides whose "news product" will win ongoing support.

Ms. Castaldi and her suddenly fearful boss, Clark County Manager Thom Reilly, have now changed their story about why they threatened legal action to shut down a former employee's web site -- one critical of county government and high-ranking local officials -- as often as Jon Lovitz changed his alibi in one of his famous Saturday Night Live "Tommy Flanagan" routines ("because I was ... out on a date with my lover, Morgan Fairchild. Yeah, that's the ticket. ...")

Former county repairman Gene Smith's site (www.snitchonclarkcounty.com) libeled county officials, Reilly says.

Which ones? How? And why aren't they suing on their own behalf if they've been libeled -- after all, the county itself can't be libeled.

Oh, did they say libeled? No, no, no. The problem was that "There appears to be copyrighted material being used by the site," Castaldi wrote in her Nov. 1 letter to Arizona Internet provider Jomax Technologies, threatening "litigation" if the firm didn't comply with her demand that they "cut off the website." (What next -- a threat to sue the delivery drivers unless they burn tomorrow's Review-Journal press run before it can be delivered?)

And had the material in question been copyrighted by the county? Well, no, it turns out Ms. Castaldi was referring to some reproductions of Jim Day cartoons from the Review-Journal. And no, the Review-Journal (which has not seen fit to take any action regarding the cartoons, to date) has not retained Ms. Castaldi as legal counsel.

Oh, did they say copyrighted material? No, no, no. "The greater concern was the use of the county logo," Mr. Reilly now says.

But Mr. Smith says the county logo never previously appeared on his web site, and Mr. Reilly promptly admits he's never even looked at the thing -- which primarily focuses on the personal lives of Mr. Reilly, former County Administrator Bill Barrett, and that modern-day Clark County Casanova, Commission Chairman Dario Herrera.

Oh, the county logo appears there now, all right -- on the reproduced letterhead of Ms. Castaldi's Nov. 1 letter to Jomax Technologies, Exhibit A in the county's campaign to shut down Mr. Smith's constitutionally guaranteed right of free comment -- the only exhibit he's had a chance to put up since he was forced to move to a new site provider, after the Jomax people down in Cave Creek cut him off in response to Ms. Castaldi's subtle-as-a-nosebleed threats.

The county certainly does not intend to suppress speech critical of either its elected officials or high-ranking functionaries, simpers Mr. Reilly.

Even if that's precisely what it's doing.

Perhaps Ms. Castaldi is angling for a bigger job -- going to work for the Bush White House, perhaps, which now expresses a thinly veiled interest (secret meetings, anyone?) in censoring (pardon me, "guiding and directing") Hollywood plots which don't quite toe the proper line of patriotic enthusiasm when it comes to the War on Drugs, or the War on Terrorism, or the War Against Assisted Suicide, or whatever War we happen to be involved in next month.

She could start by practicing Tom Hagen's (Robert Duval's) speech to movie producer John Marley near the beginning of "The Godfather": "You have a leading man who's about to graduate from marijuana to heroin. And there are some union problems developing at your studio. My employer could make those problems go away. He's a man who remembers his friends. And all he asks is this one small favor ..."

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom

Will Internet critic soon 'sleep with the fishes'?