Hello, everybody.
I received another e-mail from the publishing company this week. They asked me something that, up until recently, I had not even considered.
They asked me if I wanted to use a pen name or other such pseudonym. I haven't answered them, because I wanted to know what you guys thought.
As I said, until recently, I had no intention of using anything except my real name. But, as usual, some of out IDI "friends" tried to scare me (only to find out that I don't scare easily). But it wasn't just the usual "watch out for lawsuits" stuff this time. No--now, our "friends" are going far enough to hint at possible bodily or professional harm!
Specifically, they suggested (threatened) that some of the people I trash on in the book might want to "get even." I can understand that. If it were me, I'd want to get even. That's one of the reasons I wrote this book!
That doesn't bother me one bit. I've got all the protection I need if someone shows up at my door uninvited. But there was something else, too; something I hadn't given much thought. They wondered if it was foolish to attack powerful lawyers. After all, it wouldn't behoove me well to make enemies of the legal community, would it?
At first, I laughed at that assertion. After all, what could these lawyers possibly do to me? I can only assume that they meant people like the former members of the DA's office, Lin Wood and the Haddon Law Firm. Except that these people have no grounds for lawsuits because they are, respectively, political and public figures. But that's not where it ended. My "friends" did not specifically state such, but the implication was clear: these people have the ability to ruin me through other means, including under-the-table ways.
I have to admit, that one made me pause. We here at WS often talk about what bad guys AH, ML, LW and Haddon & Co are, and the Soviet-style dirty tricks they have used on behalf of the Ramseys. Well, it's true! They ARE bad guys, number one. LW would slit his own mother's throat for $10 (except that Papa beat him to it!). And number two, we know from prior incidents that they HAVE pulled dirty tricks on people who got "out of line." The DA's office tried to ruin ST publically, LW sent goons after Cina Wong and Gideon Epstein and threatened them with lawsuits if they dared speak out. And we all know what the Haddon firm tried to pull on Tom Miller. I don't doubt that these people would try anything from ruining my credit score, getting me fired from my job, right up to trying to put me in jail for a crime I didn't do.
The thing here is, what is more important: my own safety, or, as Thomas Jefferson put it, watering the tree of liberty? On the one hand, my book and message would not change if I used a different name. On the other hand, all the problems I just listed just make me WANT them to come at me, because then it would give me a chance to drag them into the light.
Folks, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The only reason these people are able to do these things is because most people don't know about them. In the old Soviet Union, people who spoke out against those in power were often threatened, fired from their jobs, made unemployable, thrown in jail, executed, or disappeared without a trace. Well, this is America. The Founders set it up so people CAN'T do those things openly. They can only get away with it when nobody speaks up.
So, what do you guys think? Should I play it safe, or should I be a total megalomaniac?
