Stupid is NOT a defense!
Another Article in the Series Related to “The Dark Side of Social Media”
People who makes mistakes in life many times pass off such mistakes as being unaware of the gravity of their own willful choices… Thus I didn’t know what I was doing was wrong. The Legal System in our own country has a polite term for “Stupid” it is ignorance. Let’s reflect on what our legal system says about Stupid. “Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law.” In other words it’s your responsibility to understand how to behave legally within the law. Failure due to your own lack of taking time to learn how to act and behave, still results in guilt and thus is a punishable event, if you are caught.
Let’s reflect on our own choices and our typical blame game excuses. Many say the want a great job, great relationship with their significant other and family, a great vacation, a great house, car, retirement, physique (my own downfall) and they do nothing to make these desires become s reality. Worse yet they blame the lack of results on their parents or upbringing and/or their employer, economy, or other circumstances. In fact, it is their own failure to adapt to a behavior that would create those outcomes. So, the failure is 100% due to their own poor choices.
Let’s face it, they are probably either too lazy to adapt or too lazy to investigate the situation from credible sources of authority. Stupid can be categorized typically into a few categories normally. Those are usually as follows; pure laziness and failure to act and/or investigate the choice prior to diving right in uninformed or worse yet following the advice of other uninformed idiots. The second major habit of stupidity is just thinking some outside event is going to create their desired result. Here are yet some more examples; Botox to stop your looks from fading due to age, hoping nobody will discover your bad behavior, hoping that you will win the lottery or hit the Jackpot in Vegas or at a Casino. Hope is eternal but not likely to create your desired outcome. Here is another one, believing a person that has hurt your feelings numerous times or betrayed your trust several times is actually worthy of your friendship and/or worse yet your love or trust. Kids are examples of young versions of future adults. They make these mistakes and our parenting is then supposed to teach them the error of those naive choices, so they correct it and as an adult act with the knowledge of how to behave correctly. But News Flash, even if your parents were horrible as an adult its your responsibility to adapt and behave regardless of your lack of training by idiotic or self-absorbed parents.
Now let’s move to this new instant gratification and instant access to information Internet driven age. Not researching choices today is really seriously either Pure Lazy or Malicious Intent thinking nobody will catch you or enforce your punishment if you are caught.
Now let me give you a real life example of both stupid and malicious combined right from my own life. About two years ago I picked a cyber stalker (look up the definition) and seriously malicious cyber bully (again look up the definition). This person whom I do not know at all, I have never done any consulting work in her community so she has not been impacted adversely by my own behavior. I do not believe I have ever indirectly sold her a book (Amazon and other retailers do not tell me who purchases my books), so to my knowledge she has no basis to factually comment on my books or consulting work.
Now she (let’s just call her a made up name like she so enjoys…Doc Bumkus or SoapboxMom) has expressed her opinion of me, my work, and projects I have done work for as a consultant as not opinions but fact. She has done this under the false guise of our first amendment ( Freedom of Speech). She has made comments online that I am a criminal and that I am lying or fraudulent in my statements or that my own stated outcomes are not legitimate. She has reported all this on numerous web sites in order to not only smear my name and ruin my reputation to to also harm my livelihood. She feels that her positions are correct, even though she is just another stupid and lazy person by my own assessment.
Let’s tear her arguments apart so she can be exposed. First let me tell you why this actually matters now to me. She won’t cease her actions, so a client of mine recommended I use her as a case study of how to really combat a cyber stalker and write about it, so others can learn from my own negative experience.
She has attacked my projects, stating they are failed or not worthy of proceeding. She cites other printed sources and claims that since some other source or idiot blogger agrees with her it therefore must be true. Her defense is that I and/or my clients haven’t refuted her claims publicly so therefore our failure to react as she desires is therefore an admittance of some predisposed guilt. She posts this on numerous very public places (so she has committed defamation of character under the law) something not protected by the First Amendment.
You may ask although most say the exact same thing I do, as to why I don’t respond to her taunts in a manner that she acknowledges? Because it’s none of her business and I have no legal requirement to refute her false statements. The burden of proof is on her not me to actually back up her lies and intentional false defamatory statements. In fact, she is so stupid that she cannot understand that if tested to a litmus test of validity to that statement, I could easily validate my claims and have done so already many times for clients of mine. This is what is considered acceptable behavior by law and it has met my client’s own tests of legitimacy because they then have then freely chosen to hire me or purchased my products and services based on their own research of me, my reputation and my pervious work experience.
So, the reason I have not legally addressed her is due to the failure of the legal system to keep up with the ever evolving situation called social media and the Internet. Where she lives Texas does not yet allow me (the resident of another state) to haul her into court for these violations. But that is changing and is evolving to solve that problem as we speak. Once that occurs my ability to do so will not be hampered by the lack of jurisdiction. In my case I tried to sue her where I had proof of her defamation causing harm to me in Ohio, but the judge ruled he did not have jurisdiction to prosecute her. That does not mean she was not guilty just that I had no reciprocity. She has touted this as somehow a victory of her legitimacy, nothing about her assertion of such is factual. But more important to the legal nature of her continued violations is that she continues to post this on public websites to harm my livelihood. She puts it up on Amazon clearly one of the most visible websites in the world and posts on her own created blogs and others so that Google will find them. Even more disastrous to her own defense she seems to know how to optimize her posts so they draw more attention by search engines. Willful malicious intent fine to harm my own economic endeavors which I do lawfully and with full disclosure.
She boasts that others who associate with me should act to stop associating with me, my professional associations, my employers, my fans and she even attacks my family and associates them as she has portrayed me, causing them embarrassment and undue emotional stress. She attacks my children and their school affiliations. She is a classic stalker by her acts. She is consumed in her twisted desire to cause harm to me in order to get attention to her. Obviously she has developed this persona due to her own short comings. Now the interesting thing is that her husband works for a company that is a huge web content consulting and service firm Dallas Texas. It would seem to now make sense that her knowledge of how to use the Internet to harm me and others has been aided by her husband either directly or indirectly using his insider knowledge of such techniques passing these along to her (his wife). Now his employer may be in the chain of events even without their knowledge of their employee’s activities outside of his work. So they are Ignorant under the law, but not yet proven innocent of complicity or indirectly aiding the activities by their lack of behavior enforcement of their employees and their family members. Her husband may be guilty as well if when tested by legal standards his involvement is proven to have been on purpose and of his own free will. Now you have wages to garnish as one of the possibilities.
Now as the events and timing unfolds in Texas to allow such civil and possibly criminal matters to be considered by the Texas courts it may be proven that her stupidity may be a prosecutable and/or litigious event that I can choose to pursue. Previous actions did not have a clear cut trail that could be followed where victory was overwhelmingly in my favor. Now as things change and the actions are still actionable it may be a different opportunity. For one thing now an attorney will have more economic reward for restitution to be awarded to me if we can prevail. Under the evaluation I did two years ago, my own stalker was judged as not worthy of the investment to pursue her legally. To put it bluntly the cost would not be possible by my own estimation and that of my attorneys to be recovered from the stalker for my pursuit of her for her potential harm to me, my reputation and my livelihood. Now if I can find an avenue by which I can add on others related to her as possible economic co-conspirators and they can be made to pay for their involvement under the Texas legal system, it may prove to be a worthy pursuit and thus a risk of my own capital to seek restitution from my assailants, stalker, and co-conspirators.
In the end if you acquire a cyber stalker from the vile, malicious dark alleys of the Information highway era, your best defense may be s good offense. You have to hit them where it hurts in their pocket book. A turn about after-all is considered fair play by most of our societal standards and morally acceptable protocols.
Take note of their violations and keep a record of their actions. Create your valid proof to substantiate your own situation. Do not feel any obligation to produce and publish such proof by posting it on the Internet. Those choosing to attack you probably will just continue to disputes its validity or worse yet they will expand their efforts to harm you by bombarding your professional colleagues and clients. Your clients probably do not wish to be subjected to such needless stupid people. In addition step up your own positive image campaign spend time and money creating factual positive public relations and marketing over the Internet to create at least some counter balance to he negative smear and defamation campaign of your stalker and their witless cronies.
Learn from my own errors, by not directly responding to their taunts and ignore them. Just increase your public relations and marketing expense and effort to create a positive counter balance to the stalkers. By responding to them publicly I believe you give them credibility in their simpleton minds and they somehow feel some sick justification or reward for their actions.
Finally, at the appropriate time bring the full weight of the justice system to bear on them. You should do this only when you have the economic resources to wage the assault in your stalkers. Unfortunately even though you can prove your case of economic harm and damaged reputation and livelihood the other party may not be financially at to pay for your restitution. Now the defense of your honor, character and career may not be financially feasible. Do take the time to explore what legal remedies you have at the time and then as time goes by in some cases the laws will evolve to allow you to proceed. It may not be at the instance that you want but patience and timing are very important in dealing with cyber stalkers and cyber bullies. The law is now changing as more and more people are being harmed by the invisible assailants on the Internet. In addition the laws may open up new economic relief avenues such as culpability and complicity of others directly or indirectly involved in these misdeeds. Even employers of such people who do not police their employees involvement in such activities may become financially liable. Now the attorneys will begin to find avenues to recover their fees and thus litigate on your behalf.
Times are changing so be ready to act and protect your livelihood and reputation. Never tolerate cyber stalkers or bullies, because if you do they just continue to bully you and others unfettered by any moral or legal sense of right and wrong.
Remember to pursue and opponent and win you have to have a strategy that will use all elements to your overwhelming odds of winning. Timing in military terms it would equate to picking the terrain (battlefield) and timing ( when you have overwhelming superiority) to attack them. You may feign retreat or allow them to continue to believe they have prevailed just so they in fact lower their defenses and give you further advantage. Then you strike when you feel everything is totally in your favor.
Once engaged I believe the best philosophy to adopt in total victory! Allow no mercy or they will go onto someday be capable of harming you or others again. Wipe them out financially, emotionally and professionally. In other words you legally do to them what they maliciously tried to do to you. The world of Karma would probably say “they got their own medicine, or they brought this upon themselves by their own self-fulfilling behavior response justification). They created the means to their own end or demise. They do not deserve mercy or forgiveness that is for God and the courts to determine not you.
In my own scenario as it may be in your own case, you have other legal remedies that may create some form of respite and economic relief from these malicious bottom feeders on the information highway. I have decided to write and speak out about this issue on both a personal and business level. By advocating for changes it may help others in the end.
I also have decided to write a fictional story using much of the characters twisted views for the villain in the fictional novel. Her own victims from previous activities she has been involved in created a ready stockpile of examples I could fictionalize to create a quite interesting murder-mystery-thriller. In addition, to creating a possible award winning novel it could easily fit into a genre for a great book to film project. There is no better revenge than to profit from the stalkers attack on you by making a good example of this issue and allowing Hollywood to do their thing about it and thus pay you handsomely for your grief by telling your story and rewarding you with a nice economic royalty check for your resourceful and creative ability to put pen to paper and tell the tale in a highly visual screen play.
However, you choose to react to your own situation use good judgement and get professional guidance so that you do not react in a way that is not lawful. There are so many lawful ways to extract your revenge and seek and get restitution there is no need to react in your stalkers own fashion. Good Luck. Remember you are dealing with a very disturbed and mentally unstable person so be patient and wise.
Professional Keynote Speaker 