The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Hoge’s Victory Lap

Posted on | June 14, 2013 | 53 Comments

After his stunning courtroom triumph today over the atrocious troll Bill Schmalfeldt, John Hoge recounts at length exactly what kind of atrocious troll Bill Schmalfeldt is:

On 14 February, I received 40 tweets in less than one hour from @BreitbartUnmask ranting about Lee Stranahan, Aaron Walker, and me. Just after midnight on 15 February, I posted a notice on this blog and on Twitter addressed to @OldUncleBastard, @BreitbartUnmask, and @OccupyRebellion demanding that they stop communicating directly with me.

Now this relates to two sections of Maryland law, Harassment (§3-803) and Misuse of Electronic Communication (§3-805), that Hoge had read and which apparently Schmalfeldt hadn’t.

Understand this: It is one thing to say mean things about someone, but another to say mean things to someone.

The use of e-mail or Twitter to communicate hateful messages to someone — when the recipient has demanded that you cease such communications, notifying you that further messages will result in a complaint under the above sections of the law — is quite foolhardy.

And . . . Bill Schmalfeldt is quite a fool.

Such a fool is Bill Schmalfeldt that he supposed he might bring legal action against Hoge — don’t ask me to explain that — and listened to some of his online friends (including “Breitbart Unmasked”) who encouraged him to think that he, Schmalfeldt, was actually a victim.

Sadly, no.

Friday afternoon I talked to a friend, an attorney of no small reputation, who was somewhat skeptical of the use of Maryland’s law in this manner, which he felt might establish a bad precedent — a chilling effect on free speech, as it were. And so I began to say in a very serious way, how deeply I was concerned about the possible infringement of Bill Schmalfeldt’s First Amendment rights.

Then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

After I’d finished laughing — it took a while, I gotta tell ya — I eventually went over to Hoge’s blog and hit the tip jar. Everybody should.

And then you, too, can laugh and laugh and laugh and . . .

 

Category: Bill Schmalfeldt, The Kimberlin Files

Comments

53 Responses to “Hoge’s Victory Lap”

  1. Quartermaster
    June 16th, 2013 @ 6:18 pm

    I almost wish you had left the troll’s comments up so I could see the froth around his mouth. It is often amusing to see trolls trip over their own feet, so to speak.

  2. K-Bob
    June 16th, 2013 @ 7:53 pm

    I mostly watch to see you guys deliver the smackdown.

    But you could see what he was doing: pretending to be the aggrieved party, deserving of consideration on an equal basis with his targets and related victims, and he was using Stacy’s blog to get that phony position out there.

  3. Quartermaster
    June 17th, 2013 @ 4:33 am

    I know and understand that. That’s why I said “almost.” I saw the BS he wrote before it got zapped, and his response to me came to my in box via Disqus. It was a pathetic response – the sort I would expect from a 9 year old that caught doing something they ought not be doing. Most punks are like that.