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The Ad Hominem Assault BEING ENTIRELY UNABLE to refute my arguments about the law both in CtC and elsewhere, the government (and its fellow travelers) have descended to cheap (and inflammatory) "ad hominem" attacks on me personally by way of a gross mischaracterization of certain events which took place many years ago.
The attacks on me are intended to substitute for responding to what I reveal about the law, or producing evidence against those revelations-- because those who wish you to remain in ignorant bondage HAVE no response to those revelations, and no evidence which contradicts them. Hence, their only hope is to try to smear me personally, in hopes that you will turn away without having learned the truth. These attacks are meant to raise doubts about my character, of course, and if I asked anyone to take what I say about the law on faith, I suppose that unfabricated data about my character might be a proper subject for consideration. However, since I DON'T ask anyone to "just trust me" about the law or anything else, but instead simply point out what the law actually says, and teach people how to look it up and read it for themselves, my character is, in fact, irrelevant, and would be even if I were a complete scoundrel. Those making these ad hominem attacks haven't any respect for such logic, of course-- indeed, their only concern for such logic is in hoping that it won't occur to you. (Ironically, it is the folks making these dodge-the-real-issue attacks against me, thereby revealing their own bad character, who DO actually ask you to "just take their word" for what the law says ...) All that said, though, the smears against me ARE based on gross, deliberate mischaracterizations, and demand a response, however distasteful and otherwise inappropriate it is to dignify them by going to the trouble. Thus, the following words of clarification regarding what the government and its shills represent as a "bombing" or "firebombing" by me: ON "TAX DAY" IN 1990, a simple smoke-maker was placed in a collection bin at the post office in Royal Oak, Michigan, in full view of dozens of people who were on hand to protest the income tax, dozens more dropping their returns in the bin, and several postal workers. The device consisted of a padded mailing envelope, containing a couple of teaspoons of loose black powder, a smoke agent and a fuse. It was addressed to "The Tax Thieves" from "Freedom-Loving Americans", and contained a tea bag-- a symbolic expression sufficient unto itself, I trust... and the same sort of tea bag now used in hundreds of protests occurring around the nation today. The object was both to protest the outrage of the tax, and to help let the many others who felt the same way around the country know that they were not alone. I had a hand in the planning of this event, and in assembling the smoke-maker, as well. In the end, though, I concluded that the plan should be aborted. My "colleagues" disregarded my objections and proceeded anyway. Nonetheless, in part because the person who DID plant the thing lied about his own involvement during a grand jury inquiry in such a fashion as to point the investigation at me, I ended up accused of doing so (in the most elaborate, multi-offense fashion possible), and my wife was accused of furnishing some materials used in the device. Furthermore, the entire affair was dramatically overblown, doubtless because the protest was extraordinarily effective (it made the papers halfway around the world-- I have a copy of a newspaper from Guam in which the incident is breathlessly reported). The government seems to have found it necessary from the beginning to try to subvert the reality into something that could be portrayed as heinous, so as to distract from the event's actual message. Thus, although what really happened was just a smoke device of so innocuous a character that the paper container in which it was deployed remained fully intact even after it went off (and, by virtue of the messages on it and in it, was obviously intended and expected to survive deployment), the affair was characterized by the government as a "fire-bombing". A sacrifice was demanded, and the government insisted on prosecuting both of us with great drama. On the day before jury selection was to begin, being faced with a judge who did not uphold a single one of our pre-trial motions, and in fact, made clear that he was hostile to us, rather than objective, I agreed to plead "guilty" to a charge of "conspiracy to possess a destructive device". In exchange, all charges against my wife were dropped, ensuring that she would be free to care for our infant daughter. This was how I came to be under the authority of a judge in the early nineties, as I relate in the foreword of CtC. (I was given a three-year sentence. Afterwards, urged to do so by my court-appointed attorney with the assurance that it would simply result in a more just sentence, I explained the real nature of the affair to the prosecutors-- that it was merely a protest, and that not only had I not planted the device, but I had ultimately objected to its being planted. I offered to substantiate this with a polygraph. The prosecutors-- disingenuously-- proclaimed the outcomes of two separate polygraphs to be "inconclusive". Eventually, my wife and I managed to record a conversation with the fellow who actually had planted the smoke-maker which substantiated everything I had said about the affair. In the end, this led to a reduction in my sentence to 12 months in a half-way house.) Not the best time in my life, certainly; but not what the government absurdly fabricates in its efforts to attack me, either. BY THE WAY, although the government has occasionally alluded darkly to a postal worker named Thomas Berlucchi being injured by the smoke-maker, this is not true-- or, at least, you can judge for yourself from the following facts: On the last day possible to do so under the statute of limitations (meaning, two years later), Berlucchi was persuaded to file suit against my wife, Doreen, and me, and the others accused of involvement in the incident. He claimed that his eyes were "hurt by the flash" when the thing went off-- a vague and unsubstantiable injury complained of by no one else present at the time. Doreen and I challenged this opportunistic allegation, and Berlucchi happily abandoned the matter and disappeared for $500 from what had been Doreen's homeowner's insurance company at the time of the incident (and before we married). The company agreed to defend against the suit, recognizing it was meritless, and after deposing Berlucchi and confirming that assessment decided to broom him off with this token "settlement" rather than go to the trouble of a trial. See the agreement here. As I said, you be the judge as to whether this fellow had really suffered an injury. Personally, my eyes are worth a lot more than $500... (P.S. Berlucchi has since been charged by the feds with bribery in his capacity as a Postal Service facilities engineer later in his career. See the news report here.) |
