Article Contributed on: 4/17/2009 2:48:16 PM
I just thought everyone on your-hub deserved to know a certain public figure that I disagree with felt so threatened by me he felt it necessary to email your-hub to complain. Some 1100 words of how horrible I am for having the audacity to express an opinion regarding their opinion. Like it or not, when you host a blog called the Longmont Advocate after hosting another blog called Wrongmont and in your other spare time organize a get out the vote drive where you are publicly promoting something, anything, you have become a public figure. A public figure, just like the ones the Longmont Advocate skewers.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to that degree I applaud the editor of that blog. However, when you stick your neck out and offer your unbridled opinions, when you advocate, when you become a public critic in this way, you too have opened yourself up for criticism. I have been accused of being too personal in my attacks. I have criticized opinions, then little more than defend myself. Anyone is free to read my posts and some of their reactions etc. to see just who was personal in their attacks.
I will not be cowed into surrendering my rights or shutting up. I have been threatened on this blog much more directly and subtly by others and never felt the need to run to the moderator. The squeaky wheel gets the grease though. In a curious turn of phrase I was also told that alluding to someone's public blog amounts to the same thing as naming someone. If the blog is so well known that it's creator is also known that only compounds the evidence that this individual is a public figure.
I have no interest in "denigrating" anyone's family. I merely pointed out that the Longmont Examiner and the Longmont Advocate are wife and husband respectively. No big deal on the surface, however, they do use each other as source material and I believe it would be prudent to divulge that information. That's a public criticism of 2 public blogs. Anyone is free to disagree with me. For this observation and opinion I was accused of being chauvinistic, sexist and it was viewed as a personal attack.
If I can't criticize Longmont Advocate or the public actions of it's editor then who else is immune? LIFT? Lifebridge? City councilmen? The local paper? I have merely questioned the opinions offered on a public blog. Going out of my way yo leave the editor's name out of it, so the casual reader would not be aware of who this person was unless they bothered to check. If anything I may have increased traffic to his blog. My last post was regarding a specific public incident. How was my original post, chastising Councilmen
McCoy regarding this same individual any different than the apology I offered for previously supporting this individual?
A local critic who refuses to be criticized. I offered my opinion regarding opinions, remaining vague as to their source to avoid this kind of confrontation. My last post I used a name, now I'm on someone's "list." If someone can show me where I got personal to the extent that I deserved this message;
"And I don't back down from people who screw with or denigrate my family members or friends?"
I'll offer an apology but I won't back down from offering my opinion regarding other public opinions on a public blog forum. If your-hub would prefer I go elsewhere to express these opinions that is within their rights as well. But it would be a shame to stifle expressing opinions regarding local advocates and somewhat ironic.