Quick background: the mentally diminished son of a cult leader decided to sic the FBI on Little Miss Attila; she had the audacity to actually exercise her First Amendment rights and express her disapproval of the father, who was the leader of the church she attended as a teenager.  (If this does not make sense, refer to “mentally diminished”, add some mind-altering substances, and consider anew.)

The fray: Stacy McCain ripped apart the young man; Bob Belvedere joined in; Da TechGuy is in full Sicilian fury; Dan Collins points out that one should only fear LMA’s wit; and Cynthia Yockey hit upon some of the more pragmatic issues with this nonsense.  And that’s just the start of the blog-frenzy.

As Cynthia astutely points out, all this has done is to ensure that R.L. Hymers III’s reputation is much worse than it was before he threw a fit.  Furthermore, this young man, who has legal aspirations, is doing himself no favours by taking this route; Cynthia notes:

And somehow this proto-lawyer did not consider the remedies available to him and his father under the laws of libel — although, dagnabbit, one of the elements of libel is that the statements have to be false — which may be why he did not take that avenue of pursuit.

That’s not the entirety of it.  If this young man wants to be a lawyer, and has yet to be accepted to law school, he will have the joy of explaining this little entanglement with the legal system on every law school application that he fills out.  When he sits for the bar exam and attempts to be licensed in a state, he must also disclose this, in sufficient detail to enable the Character and Fitness committees to determine if he should be set loose upon the country with the ability to practise law.  None of those various procedures require one to disclose whether or not one’s father is a cult leader; however, every personal encounter with the legal system must be discussed.

My advice for any future lawyer: everything from your admittance into law school to your ability to be licensed rests on your character, which is often narrowly defined as “avoiding run-ins with the legal system”.  Do not get so much as a speeding ticket or be a day late on a bill and the next few years of your life will be easier.  With that said, you would have to be markedly stupid to actually seek out questionable positions with respect to the law; if you care about even starting this career, please avoid doing things like siccing the FBI on a woman whom you’ve never met because your tender feelings can’t handle what she has to say about your daddy.