File it Under: "This used to be a Helluva Good Country"

What happens when a blogger posts a link to a state tourism ad and points out that the phone number on the ad is a phone sex line?

He becomes the target of a multi-million dollar lawsuit, of course.

Lance Dutson, the blogger of MaineWebReport, explains:

Warren Kremer Paino Advertising has filed a 3 count multi-million dollar federal lawsuit against me for the reporting I’ve done in this blog. They are claiming defamation, libel, and copyright infringement.

Getting the sheriff to deliver the suit to me, in front of my kids and neighbors, is the latest freaked-out situation this Office of Tourism has put me in. I have to say this has disrupted the Dutson household a bit, that’s what happens when someone files a crushing lawsuit that, if successful, would utterly destroy my life.

So here I am, one man against the state and its contractors, put in the position of shutting up or being pounded by their deep pockets and a wild misconception of what the court system is supposed to be used for. One person who has exposed a cavalcade of incompetence and who has to choose to allow it, or face an onslaught of personal attack and legal action.

This is crap, total crap and I’m not going to fold, not at this point. They’ve already screwed with me and my family so much, and I will not be bullied into discontinuing my work here. This state agency is wasting money, telling stories, and paying subcontractors who seem more focused on spending their time and money bludgeoning critics with legal threats and lawsuits rather than working to promote Maine tourism.

This is supposed to be our biggest industry, but it’s being run like a trailer-park daycare on its 3rd notice from the Human Services people.

(You gotta love the "trailer park daycare" line.)

Fortunately a team of volunteers is rushing in to help Dutson, including a couple of capable attorneys, and scores of Pajamahadeen and even some MSM press coverage is airing out this controversy to the point where perhaps someone with some sense in the hierarchy that is the State of Maine will realize that their efforts to muzzle a lone individual have hurt the state far, far more than he possibly ever could have.

We expect a happy ending, but the process itself is disheartening. That modern government and its corporate lackeys (masters?) are all hubris and no humor, and that more often than not they resort to wielding the big, legal stick as their first option, is disgusting.

Perhaps more correctly, it shows the creators of the ad have a perverted sense of the use of humor. They want to use it to make money. When non-profit humor (at their expense) is employed, they react angrily, punitively, as if the very concept of the free expression of laughter is now forbidden in their America. It's as if they are saying, "when we use humor for profit, we are funny; when you use humor to mock our mistake, you are road kill."

Perhaps we should forget the border rules; let all who wish to enter, do so. (We've never met a hispanic with a lousy sense of humor.) Then deport every humorless, government tit-sucking corporate weasel and his attorney-familiar to Mexico. Or Venezuela.