Running from their own words

Some of you know by now that a couple of YouTube accounts associated with the Dump Bachmann blog have been taken down because of copyright infringement claims by Bradley Dean Smith and Jake MacAulay (their real names; their aliases are Bradlee Dean and Jake McMillian).

These are the guys, of course, who ran a successful scheme for several years to scam the taxpayers by shoving their pseudo-judeo-christian anti-gay crap down the throats of unsuspecting kids in public school assemblies for a fee.

If these guys are Christians, Silvio Berlusconi is a shoo-in for beatification.

But all good thing must come to an end, and Bradlee and Jakee have had to find new markets for their special bilious brand of patent medicine and new ways to support their tax-free lifestyle as "ministers" in the You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International "ministry."

One of the things YCRBYCHI does is what we might call "preachers with card tables." Post-adolescents, inexplicably in Smith and MacAulay's thrall -- and claimed by YCRBYCHI to all be "ordained ministers;" a stunning claim in view of the fact that some of them don't appear old enough to drive themselves and their card table to whatever gas station has agreed to suffer their presence for a day -- hector people for money claiming it's for "suicide prevention" or whatever else the pimply padre thinks the mark might fall for.

Sort of like an extra-annoying Hare Krishna cult.

But I digress. What is more relevant for today's discussion is the is the wholly-owned subsidiary of YCRBYCHI, the Sons of Liberty radio show. It will come as little surprise to you to know that the Sons are Bradlee and Jakee; I mean, who else would they be?

The authors of the Dump Bachmann blog are interested in the Sons for the same reason they are interested in Michele Bachmann: raging homophobia.

The Sons have racked up a rich and wacky oeuvre of podcasts on their crackpot ideas about the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bible, and what should be done with -- or to -- gays and lesbians. Even the Patriot had to take a break from them for a while.

Which brings us -- finally -- to the point of the post. The "videos" that the Sons complained about were, for the most part, just audio clips of the Sons' own words, already available free elsewhere, perhaps with a photo or two of the Sons with local politicians like Tim Pawlenty or Tom Emmer just to add a little visual interest.

By complaining, the Sons are running from their own words, and trying to hide from them, too, even though they themselves say you cannot hide. For once our punk prophets are right.

These are people who pray and bray in public all the time. They want to make news; what they say is newsworthy, subject to comment and criticism, and certainly fertile ground for parody. These are the widest grounds that exist for the fair use of another's words; the fair use doctrine in copyright law obviously covers and protects the activity of bringing the wretched words of Bradlee and Jakee to an enlightened audience.

Regrettably, YouTube is complicit with Bradlee and Jakee and won't trouble itself to look at the obvious case of fair use presented here. It is much easier to tout all the videos of the cute little kittens or jiggling breasts and collect a little money for each set of eyeballs that happens by. You can apparently get very rich by doing that, but it doesn't say much for your civic values.

Fie on you, YouTube.

Update: it's hard to keep a good man (Ken Avidor) down: