Earlier today I posted this blog on a reader comment that came to me today via email. It is advised to read that post first before continuing to read this post. The reader who sent me the email under discussion has responded back, and me to him, etc. This has gone on all evening. I rarely engage in a tit-for-tat, but this has opened up some unique and worthy discussion. I have chosen not to use his name because he is not perpetuating a vicious personal attack. Rather, I think he has been wronged by the state (police brutality is my guess), and thus he has a bone to pick with those of us who write about these issues, but *appear* to be “removed” from the reality. He writes:
Instead of writing about lofty ideals and spending time with speaking engagements, there are some of us who walk the walk some of the LRC contributors talk about.
If I’m incorrect in my assessment, please feel free to correct me, but I cannot remember any LRC writer getting their ass beat by the kind of rogue cops Will Griggs so eloquently writes about or any of them being arrested for daring to confront judges and other politicians. That would be me and those like me.
My thought is this: Remember? How can he possible know what we all have or have not experienced? How could he know what we have/haven’t done? Why is he so bitter? I give him a break because I think he is desperately seeking empathy and assistance.
The reader has no clue as to what we LRC writers have done, including me (1) recently confronting local police (TWICE) and standing my ground where others would have cowardly retreated, and (2) getting fired from my job for writing on controversial subjects with my true name byline. Yes, I was fired from my job in January 2006 for what I did on my own personal time, at home (writing). I worked for a Fortune 500 auto industry company, and we had a vicious HR (Human Resources) department that was an adversary of all employees. The CFO had threatened me with retribution upon finding out what I was writing about in my off-time (lots of my co-workers read my stuff and that spread like wildfire). When he confronted me, I said, “What I do on my own time is none of your fucking business.” No one will ever own me, including those who sign my paycheck. Truth and sanity comes first, and the bills come afterward.
I was one of the highest performers in that Finance Department, but there came a day where I was called into HR and immediately fired, and I was physically escorted out the door by a crew of corporate bullies. Many of my co-workers (led by a newbie 22-year-old who I had mentored) were shocked, and they stormed HR to protest and shout their displeasure. The HR Director, who was a newer hire at the time, walked out on a Friday shortly thereafter, without warning, telling her leadership “I quit.” She quit, in part, because of the politics surrounding my firing. At the behest of friends, I have already committed myself to finally writing about this entire incident before the end of this year.
I remained unemployed for many, many months, and friends and colleagues begged me to write under a pseudonym and erase my web archives in order to save my “reputation.” I refused. I said I would never allow any employer to dicate how I will spend my free time, away from the office. I would rather bag groceries at Costco as opposed to selling my soul for a paycheck and benefits. When I eventually got hired by a downtown Detroit Fortune 500 financial services firm, I suspected that the hiring CFO had a hunch I was fired from my previous job. He took a chance on me, and I was stellar enough that when he left the company, I was one of the few people who he brought over to the new company, where he became the Senior VP of Finance. I have been with that company, and him, for three years now. That firing was the greatest thing that ever happened in my career. Sometimes things really do work out beautifully.
Additionally, another LRC writer who is my good friend was fired from his job two years before I was, and that is because it was discovered that he was writing the truth about the evils of monetary policy and the Federal Reserve via his articles on Mises.org and LewRockwell.com. This friend worked on the West Coast in the finance/insurance industry. His CEO found out about his writings via an informant who had read an article of his on LewRockwell.com, and that CEO sent a Human Resources hack from Boston to the west coast to fire him on the spot, without his boss’s prior knowledge. His boss cried during that meeting. It took my friend many months to find a comparable job, and it was in another state.
There are many more stories about LRC’ers that I don’t have time to tell.
Additionally, I fight on many other front lines that you see me write about. How dare the reader assume what they can’t possibly know about what we do?
We have a couple of lawyer writers at LRC who have been arrested, fined, etc. for battling courts, police depts., and all the rest. Take Jim Ostrowki, for instance, who works as a lawyer, and has a family, yet is always stirring the pot, somewhere, to defend liberty. I could go on and on, but this needs more attention than this blog can provide. We LRC writers do what we do because, usually, our backgrounds make us ideal to write on that which many of us have experienced firsthand.
Lastly, one of our LRC writers, Micheal Kreca, was KILLED by San Diego cops after repeatedly refusing to give in to them. Michael was a friend of mine, and a long-time correspondent, and I had to read it in the paper that he was dead. Michael – RIP, my dear friend.
