An Open Letter to Jay Simkin and Alan Rice

by L. Neil Smith
[email protected]

Special to TLE

Gentlemen:

           I have a message here from my friend and co-author Aaron Zelman. He tells me (and thousands of others concerned with the same issues we are) that you gentlemen are the source of some trouble to him -- trouble that threatens our organization, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and therefore the future security of the Second Amendment.
           What it comes down to, as I understand it, is that each of you wrote books with Aaron, refused any kind of payment for them, and have now changed your minds and filed a lawsuit to get what you turned down to begin with. One of Aaron's correspondents says you told him that you intend to use the court system to destroy JPFO and then take it over.
           I haven't known Aaron very long -- just about long enough to write and publish a novel with him (his first, my twentieth). I've been in contact with him almost daily for something like a year. I've never known or worked with any individual more kindly, more gentlemanly, or more scrupulously honest. I've never known anyone more energetically and consistently dedicated to the cause of individual liberty -- and believe me, gentlemen, after nearly forty years in politics, I know a great many people dedicated to that cause and my standards are very high.
           I've had a lot of political experience with the Republican Party, the Libertarian Party, and the National Rifle Association, and I know that the only direction JPFO could go, taken out of Aaron's capable and highly principled hands, is toward the same low, abject, crawling compromise that has destroyed any significance those three groups might claim in the bitter struggle for individual liberty and a free society.
           Understand, too, gentlemen, that even if you were to take over JPFO, its entire membership would immediately resign -- leaving you with nothing but a hollow, thoroughly discredited shell -- and regroup within a week around Aaron and whatever new group he chose to create. I, myself, would be both proud and happy to organize and lead such an undertaking.
           Aaron is a great man. When the history of this unfortunate period is written, he will stand out as one of its most courageous heroes. Given current events and the resulting legislative ferment, it seems to me that what you're doing is the moral equivalent of sneaking up on Thomas Jefferson -- just when he was in the middle of writing the Declaration of Independence -- and shooting him in the back of the head.
           Aaron has generously offered to turn your intellectual property back over to you -- even though he had some hand in bringing it into existence -- and you have churlishly refused him. Drop this suit now. And if you are one tenth the gentleman Aaron is, apologize publicly for having distracted him. Otherwise, win or lose, your place in history will be far from heroic, and rather more like that of Benedict Arnold.

Very seriously yours,

L. Neil Smith, author The Probability Broach, Henry Martyn, Bretta Martyn, Pallas, The Mitzvah (with Aaron Zelman), The American Zone (forthcoming), et al.

CC:

Jay Simkin
Economics Division
Wellington Management Co.
75 State Street
Boston, MA 02109

Alan Rice
5 Sycamore Terrace
Springfield, NJ 07081

Mark Foley
Foley & Lardner
777 West Wisconsin Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53233

Any attempt to pass or enforce an unconstitutional law -- especially any law that violates the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights -- is a crime punishable by ten years in prison and a ten thousand dollar fine for each offense (Title 18 U.S.C, Sections 241 and 242). If you'd like to see that law enforced, go to http://www.smith2004.org and make your wishes known.

School Bans Hot Dogs - (KINGS MOUNTAIN) -- After a seven-year-old died in Charlotte this week after choking on a hot dog, a school program in nearby Cleveland County has banned wieners from the menu. The Shelby Star reports that children in Cleveland County's Head Start program will no longer be served frankfurters at lunch. Head Start Director Patti Norman says hot dogs are a major choking hazard for young children. -- Source: Yahoo! News North Carolina Headlines
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[Hmmm, wonder if Kalifornia now will ban "the Saturday Night Special of hot dogs" ... the cocktail frank? -- TLE]

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