About Rick

Yesterday, I received a phone call from a Fresno County Sheriff’s Deputy.

The stated purpose of the call was to follow up on whether or not I am a threat about which the Sheriff’s Department should be concerned. The unstated purpose appeared to be “evidence gathering.”

For what, I don’t know. I would have thought my “Overlords” post would have clarified to anyone who misread the post that started this mess that I am not a threat. At least, it would have clarified it as well as anything I could say during the phone call would.

What concerns me is that, once law enforcement sets their minds to a particular conclusion, nothing — no evidence, no personal statement, no historical data — seems to have much of an impact. What constitutes “investigation” and “follow up” too often is: “I came up with this idea, and then I kept looking for something to prove I was right.”

I want to keep this as short as possible — a man whose judgment I trust more than my own has suggested 500 words or less — so let me get right to the point:

I did not threaten anyone. However much some may wish to interpret my words to mean something different than I meant them when I wrote them, that wish, and your interpretation, does not inform my intent.

Furthermore, I am not currently, nor do I plan to become, a threat to anyone, if by “threat” one means “intending to inflict evil, injury, or damage” in any way that would be illegal in the State of California, or under federal law.

Nor do I intend to encourage anyone else to become a threat to anyone, using that same definition.

No interpretation of the words that I wrote is contrary to what I just said in the block-quote above, unless you add something that I did not include.

If you believe differently, then you are mistaken. One of the unfortunate things about blog-writing is that, to keep things short, you can’t always include all the detailed background to your statements that you might wish. My views on our society, how it does law, who administers the law and how, and whether or not we achieve our stated goals, among other things, are nuanced; they are not black-and-white. I am also a colorful and often deliberately provocative writer. But what I wrote the other day did not say – because I did not intend it to say — that anyone should physically harm any law enforcement officer, or anyone else. 

It is perhaps unfortunate that in the same post, I wrote that gang members should stop fighting and killing each other and should fight (but, notably, not “kill”) those who keep them down. It is also unfortunate that English readers no longer understand the use of the subjunctive “if.”

Since my “Overlords” post was apparently not clear enough, I tried to make this clear during yesterday’s phone call.

Hopefully, there was no static on the line.