Bloggers Beware

A South Carolina blogger has been ordered to pay $1.8 million in damages to a local ad agency executive after calling him a “putz” and a “failed lawyer.”

Shocking, we know.

Even more shocking? It wasn’t Sic Willie.

Yet while FITS wasn’t the (immediate) focus of the suit, although there is no doubt that the ruling – issued by embattled S.C. Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein – was intended to have a “chilling effect” on blogging in South Carolina.

And it probably will … on the “pussy” blogs, at least. Not here.

From The Sun News:

Wayne Byrd, an attorney for Brandon, said the statements were not true and hurt Brandon’s business and his personal reputation, though he was not aware of any clients that left the business because of the articles.

Whoa, whoa, whoa …

So let’s get this straight … somebody called a Myrtle Beach ad exec a few names that upset him, but that didn’t actually harm him or his business in any way, shape or form.

And he’s entitled to $1.8 million for that?

Are you kidding?

That’s about as ridiculous a ruling as we’ve seen in a long time, but it’s frankly not all that suprising considering the source.

Judge Goodstein – as FITS readers will recall – is at the center of a major controversy after she was accused of colluding with alleged coke-snorting Charleston attorney Larry Richter to circumvent due process in several Lowcountry “altar boy” molestation cases.

That case is currently pending before the S.C. Supreme Court.

Maybe it’s just us, but it seems strange that Goodstein would feel so comfortable attacking bloggers while she stands accused of conspiring to protect pedophiles.

Much more important than any of that, however, is the underlying issue of free speech.

So somebody called you a putz?

A failed lawyer?

Awww … our advice would be to suck it up and grow a pair.

We get called worse than that every five minutes, people.

Seriously, this Brandon guy is a prominent member of the Myrtle Beach community. His name is plastered all over the biggest, busiest business loop in Horrry County, and his firm is one of – if not the most prominent advertising agency on the Grand Strand. Plus, he was getting taxpayer dollars to conduct a marketing campaign that consistently landed him in the public eye.

You tell us – how does that not qualify him as a public figure?

And even if he wasn’t a public figure, it’s not like he was accused of something awful like selling meth, molesting kids or voting for Alan Clemmons.

Somebody called him a “putz.” That’s it.

We live in a marketplace of ideas, people. It’s as simple as that. And the default setting in a free country must always be to keep that marketplace free, not subject it to unnecessary government regulation.

We certainly hope this ridiculous ruling is overturned, although we will not be demurred or deterred in the slightest from doing what we do – which is telling it like it is.

We ain’t skeered – no matter what “putzes” come after us.