{"id":2806,"date":"2010-12-10T18:51:06","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T23:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=2806"},"modified":"2014-03-19T14:20:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T18:20:14","slug":"examples-and-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=2806","title":{"rendered":"Examples and consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SF author and civil-rights activist Joel Rosenberg has been unjustly arrested. Good coverage at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.popehat.com\/2010\/12\/09\/the-empire-strikes-back\/\">PopeHat<\/a>; essentially this is harassment following a Nov 5th assault on Joel by a cop while he was pursuing a FOIA request related to his first arrest, on bogus charges that prosecutors subsequently dropped.<\/p>\n<p>I have very mixed feelings about this one, because  I suspect I may, in a manner of speaking, have helped get Joel in trouble.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know Joel Rosenberg very well.  I&#8217;ve met him face to face maybe twice, long ago at SF conventions.  We had a few on-line dealings back in Genie\/CompuServe days, pre-Internet.  Neither of us had found our power yet; I was just another technogeek and Joel was a decent mid-list SF and fantasy author.  Wasn&#8217;t till years after our limited contact that he discovered what he came to consider his calling as a firearms instructor and Second Amendment activist.<\/p>\n<p>Joel, determined to assert his rights under the law and the U.S. Constitution, did exactly what I would do; he went to City Hall and talked with them about it.  In fact, I don&#8217;t have to use the subjunctive;  I did <a href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=297\">exactly that<\/a> barely a day after the Heller ruling in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Because my police chief is a small-town conservative who&#8217;s actually read the Constitution and cares what&#8217;s in it, I got back a handshake and a smile rather than a criminal assault and a ration of shit. But it could have gone the other way, too, and very well might have in my nearest big city.  The cops in Philadelphia have some funny (read: ignorant and wrong) ideas about firearms rights.  Even in Malvern I went in aware of the outside possibility that I might be assaulted, arrested and harassed. But I went in anyway because I understood it to be my duty as an American, a patriot, and a man.<\/p>\n<p>Joel understands this duty.  He is an American, a patriot, and a mensch (he&#8217;s Jewish, so I get to use that fine Yiddish word that connotes decency, uprightness, moral fortitude, and a sense of responsibility).  He caught the blowback that I didn&#8217;t.  Not long after he was assaulted I sent him a brief supportive email.<\/p>\n<p>The reply I got back was quite a surprise.  He said my support meant &#8220;more to me than you know&#8221;.  The rest wasn&#8217;t very clear (he had to have been under a fair bit of stress about then) but suggested that I might have at some point after I knew him become one of his heroes or role models or something not completely unlike that considering he&#8217;s three years older than me.<\/p>\n<p>So, maybe I helped Joel get in this trouble.  It makes me happy to think that I might have assisted him in finding the determination to challenge injustice; it&#8217;s the kind of good example I&#8217;ve worked very hard at trying to set.  But by the same token I now feel like I might be partly responsible for the injuries to liberty and dignity that he is now undergoing, and that ain&#8217;t so good.<\/p>\n<p>On another level, I know that&#8217;s silly.  Joel Rosenberg is a <em>man<\/em>. He makes and owns his choices, and I have no doubt he took his risks with eyes open, same as I did.  We should honor him for that; I know I will.<\/p>\n<p><s>Matters have not deteriorated yet to the point where anyone is talking legal defense fund, so far as I know.  If they do, I plan to give generously.  So should you.<\/s><\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: I have <a href=\"http:\/\/news.ellegon.com\/\">donated<\/a> $100 to Joel&#8217;s defense fund.  Please consider doing likewise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SF author and civil-rights activist Joel Rosenberg has been unjustly arrested. Good coverage at PopeHat; essentially this is harassment following a Nov 5th assault on Joel by a cop while he was pursuing a FOIA request related to his first arrest, on bogus charges that prosecutors subsequently dropped. I have very mixed feelings about this&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=2806\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Examples and consequences<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firearms","category-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2806"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5575,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions\/5575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}