Fear and Blogging

A blogging community I belong to, BlogCatalog, had a curious discussion yesterday: "MoonDanzerDelivers is Being Deleted."

As nearly as I could tell, the author of a blog had decided to delete her blog after receiving two or more anonymous calls. She perceived at least one of the calls to be threatening.

As her blog took a strongly anti-Bush stand, many of those who participated in the discussion decided that "they" are threatening her. "They" seem to be government agents, a government agency, or something of that sort. Probably the United States government, but that wasn't entirely clear from their statements. Not to me, but then I realize that there's more than one government on Earth.

After a quick look at her blog, taken before she took it down, I'm pretty sure that I'd find very little in it that I agree with.

However, there was nothing in what I saw that suggested that she was seeking the overthrow of the United States of America's government, seeking to betray classified information, or engage in other illegal acts.

She was quite within her rights to maintain that blog.

Just as I have a right to maintain a blog that is unlikely to win me a speaking engagement with Multidisciplinary American Studies at UC Berkeley.

I am disappointed that "Moondanzer" deleted her blog out of fear.

If she believed that the anonymous calls were from some crank, then a reasonable course of action for her would, in my opinion, be to contact local law enforcement and her telephone service, in an effort to stop the calls, and determine who the caller was.

(That's what I did, when my family started getting vaguely threatening calls. The calls stopped, but we never did determine exactly who was making them.)

If she believed that the anonymous calls were from some shadowy government agency or a rogue agent, or whatever equivalent terms there are, I can understand why she might have been hesitant to call the police. "They" might well have the police under their collective thumbs.

Her best course of action, if that is what she believes, might have been to contact as many news services as possible. In her position, I'd have probably started with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and every other major metropolitan paper in the country. A government conspiracy to suppress free speech would be news.

I've yet to use publicity in quite that way, but believe that it's a reasonable approach. Think of the implications of a government conspiracy in America to silence bloggers. A real conspiracy, that is. A story like that would have been NEWS!!!

Instead, she deleted her blog. I can understand her decision, in a way. She said that her husband worked with the FBI, and she apparently feared that his security clearance would be violated. Somehow. I had a very hard time following the logic of her blog posts.

In my opinion, fear is a good indication that some matter must be attended to. It is, however, not a good reason for taking action.

Deleting a blog because of two or more anonymous calls was not, I think, reasonable.

All that has been accomplished is that one person has engaged in self-censorship, and made it a little easier for some to believe that "they" are out there, lurking in the shadows and threatening the lives and welfare of helpless humanity.