Saturday, October 13, 2007

Homeopathic Thuggery Redux

Many have chosen to repost The Gentle Art of Homeopathic Killing in full, but more should. I have already emailed the SoH about this and the furor their threats have caused. I would love to see more people post it, so that I can send them a long list of articles about their moronic actions. I think it is very important that people realize that when they threaten lawsuits, to silence their critics, it will backlash on them. That the very act of trying to silence their critics thusly, will send that very message to far more people. I want to see this article posted on every blog that has an interest in freedom of speech and expression. There were no lies told in this article. Everything written is verifiable. Indeed, this is exactly why the SoH wanted to quash this. The truth makes them look bad.

Please help me send a strong message to the SoH and our community in macrocosm, that these kind of tactics will only backfire. That attempts to stifle criticism, will only draw more attention to that criticism. This tactic was attempted against sciblogger, PZ Meyers and the same attorney in that case, even threatened my brother and legal scholar, Peter Irons, who had this to say about the suit. While Seed magazine provides strong support for it's scibloggers, many indy bloggers are not so fortunate and even knowing they can win, can be intimidated into silence.

It is important, not just in this case, but every time this sort of thing happens. It is not ok to try to shut down speech we may not like in this manner. It is one thing if someone is committing acts of liable, that are intended to dishonestly damage the reputation of another. But the circumstances in which this is actionable are rightly, very narrowly tailored in the U.S.

So please, help me in a small way with this issue. Post Le Canard Noir's article in full, or at least write about it and link others who have. Write to the SoH a short note, explaining your feelings about the tactics they used to shut down their critics. Make it clear to them that it was their tactics that spread this story much further, to many more people, than it would have gone, had they just left it alone. This is important to all of us and it behooves all of us to get involved.

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