First Principles

This is a funny little lesson on getting one’s facts straight.

Today, I noticed that Chuck Muth had written a blog post about me, one which is just a straight up, flat out, verifiable flasehood.  There’s no other word for it.  I understand he’s upset with me for exposing his Republican-harming unethical conduct in the past, but that’s no reason to get all libelous.  When you write about politics with some angry, personal grudge, your blinders will be on and you’re going to trip over your own feet.  Such was the case with Muth today.

Muth wrote and published the post this morning, which accuses me of plagiarizing material on illegal immigration for a press release during my 2010 primary campaign. He then sent it out via E-mail as part of his always ironically named “Muth’s Truths” blast.

The problem, though, is that the alleged plagiarist wasn’t me.  It wasn’t even my race, frankly.  The incident involved me criticizing my opponent, along with another candidate, for sending out carbon-copy fliers on the topic.  Here’s a story about it from the time.

Chuck realized he’d screwed up in his post, and tried to publish a correction of sorts.  Then he clearly realized that he had published a blatantly false accusations, looked like a fool, and just deleted the post from his blog without a word.

I, however, read the post via an RSS feed.  Here it is in full, along with the lame correction attempts:

Hasn't he learned by now that the Internet NEVER forgets? Click to enlarge.

When I clicked on the headline to go to Chuck’s site, though, this is what came up:

Down the coward hole.

I wasn’t going to bother with all of this, since the post was clearly only up for an hour or two, and it’s unlikely very many people read it.  But then someone forwarded me his E-mail blast, which I HADN’T been aware of, and which has the original false accusations with NO corrections.  That’s sitting in too many E-mail inboxes for me to just ignore this.

Libel, by the way, is a crime, punishable up to a year in jail.  In order to prove libel, a prosecutor must show that the publication of the false statement was “malicious,” and that either the person knew the statement was false when it was published, or that he published it with “reckless disregard” about whether the statement was true.  Since the truth of this matter was SO readily verifiable, it would seem hard to say the later situation isn’t the case here, but y’all can certainly decide that for yourselves.  I certainly have no interest in clogging up the criminal justice system (there’s my public defender kicking in) when a good public shaming will do the trick.

I’m happy to accept criticism for my positions and my actions.  I’m certainly not perfect.  That’s why I have a comments section where dissenters are always free to publish, and unlike Muth, I won’t delete comments that legitimately take me to task.

But I must be doing OK if the only thing a critic like Chuck has left are out-and-out lies.  Shameful.

I would say I’m looking forward to a public apology, but I’m not going to hold my breath.  Such an admission of wrongdoing would require some measure of honor.

~~~

In my Assembly race, I lost to Pat Hickey.  We both ran strong, aggressive campaigns, and in the end the people of AD25 decided to go with him for a number of reasons.  I immediately threw my full-throated support behind him, because that’s what you do after a primary race when you have far more in common with your former adversary than with the avowed anti-capitalist running on the Democratic ticket.  Pat and I have been on great terms since then (which I certainly appreciate from him, and I hope he does from me as well.)  Carrying around endless grudges and trudging up lies over such a thing is not only soul-poisoning, but it does NOTHING to advance the cause of liberty.  Indeed, it harms it greatly.

I wish Chuck would realize this, for his own sake and for that of the movement he claims to champion with his still-large soapbox.

~~~

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Chuck Muth has zero credibility.  He doesn’t tell the truth.  EVERYTHING he says or write must be taken with a grain of salt the size of an aircraft carrier.  If he gets it into his head that he doesn’t like you and can’t articulate why, he’ll just lie about you, or spread any old rumor he can think of in reckless disregard of the truth.  That’s what he is and what he does.  This little episode is yet more incontrovertible proof of this.  And at this point, ANY candidate or organization that does business with him will, in my mind, be of suspect integrity themselves.

It’s incredibly unfortunate that for so many years, Chuck has had a monopoly of sorts on the Conservative narrative in Nevada.  He could have been a tremendous asset, but instead he’s poisoned everything he could have achieved with needless vitriol, untruths, and mindless personal attacks on people who would ordinarily be allies.

The Conservative movement in Nevada deserves so much better than this.

Update:  Well, the good news is that this post forced Chuck to retract and even apologize, sort of.  The bad news is that he published several more accusations that are either absurd on their face (Ellie Lopez shared what was essentially a photocopy with me (the alternative is that I hacked her computer, which you can be assured I possess neither the skill or inclination to do), without reservation or condition (why would she give it to me if she wanted it kept a secret?), and I used it in a press release to both of our mutual benefit during a campaign?  Really?  THAT’S a scandal?), or they are simply out and out lies. Given that Chuck keeps getting caught posting things which are clearly not true and which any responsible journalist/blogger/human beings would never publish (passing on other people’s untruths as a publisher is still libel), I think further responses are simply unnecessary.

The one thing that IS true is that I did, in fact, lobby for the Public Defender’s office in Carson City, where I did things like fight for a Veteran’s Court which has subsequently had HUGE success in helping veterans with mental health issues get treatment when they otherwise would just sit in jail; successfully prevented various law enforcement agencies from trying to do things like be able to demand your bank or utility records without a warrant or even probable cause whether you agree to it or not; and generally argued against the continued expansion of government power.  I was speaking on behalf of my office during those testimonies, which is why I generally stay away from discussing those topics here – but I’m hardly ashamed of any of it.  The benefit of my job is that I get to defend the Constitution on a daily basis, not unlike my LAST stint as a one of those HORRIBLE Public Employees (Aeeeiiiii!!!!), where my title was Lieutenant, US Navy.  Apparently all public employees are suspect to Chuck, even when they go on a couple of deployments, and that probably explains why he never bothered wearing the uniform of his country himself.  None of this is or was a secret to anyone who spends any time in Carson City during the legislative session.  If Chuck’s only learning about it now, he’s far further out of touch than I thought.

Again, Conservative activists and candidates need to ask themselves who they want representing their arguments, and who helps and hurts their cause – getting sustainable and conservative ideas turned into law.  Maybe it’s just me, but choosing to go with a thin-skinned bombthrower who can’t tell the difference between friend or foe or the truth and a lie just doesn’t seem all that productive.