“I am David Karlsruher. Some time ago, I wrote a blog about Stuart L. Leeds wherein I made statements regarding him which were inaccurate and which I should not have made. I publicaly (sic) apologize to Stuart L. Leeds for having done so.” A public apology, by a local blogger, for words written in defiance of the truth is the result of irresponsibility in the blogging world.

I have been blogging for a number of years, at least since 1999, and in that time I have witnessed firsthand the power of the written word to make changes in our society. I have wholeheartedly embraced the First Amendment as the nexus to government restraint. Unfortunately the irresponsible seem to attempt to turn good into bad. Public art is good, graffiti is not. Challenging government is good while writing unfounded allegations with no regard to the truth is bad.

Blogging is about disseminating the truth and challenging the status-quo. It is about engaging the community into demanding better from everyone. It is about holding government accountable to the people. Blogging is not about writing flights of fancy about real people with the intent of damaging their reputations. Blogging is not about acting out personal idiosyncrasies in order to feel empowered.

David Karlsruher recently learned that blogging demands personal responsibility and publically admitted so with his apology. Unfortunately his penance is masked by the defiance of a fantasy in which he asserts he prevailed, notwithstanding the apology itself. And that is unfortunate because a learning experience could have made him a better blogger instead of a bitter writer looking for an outlet to vent his personal frustrations. The events surrounding the apology started simple enough.

An up-start blogger looking to make a name for himself, wrapped in a cloak of self-aggrandizement, decided that to write make-believe allegations would make him the blogger he strived to be.  In November 2009, Karlsruher wrote on his blog that Leeds was out to start political “witch hunts” for him and his friends. Karlsruher, as his blog’s custom, attempted to thinly veil his unfounded allegations by attempting to be witty although knowing full well that his allegation was nothing more than his own mind’s made-up event.

On December 16, 2010, David Karlsruher was deposed in the lawsuit filed as 2009-5018. In his deposition Karlsruher states, under oath, that his allegation against Leeds was nothing more than an expression of his personal “opinion”. In other words, Karlsruher states that his allegation was nothing more than a flight of fancy he concocted in his own brain. Regardless of this, he decided to publish his fantasy irresponsibly and regardless of the consequences. In the deposition Karlsruher admits that his blog, for that day, was based on nothing more than “rumors”. Karlsruher admits, in the deposition. that he had no knowledge of Leeds engaging in unethical behavior much less criminal and even goes on to state that he knew little, if anything, about Stuart Leeds, his accomplishments and his motives. Nonetheless, Karlsruher decided to write an unfounded allegation against Leeds based on nothing more than his own self-created fantasy.

Karlsruher goes on to state, under oath, that his blog gets a “few people a day”. Although only a few people participate on his blog, Karlsruher should have embraced personal responsibility before uttering flights of fancy in written form. And, unfortunately it seems that Karlsruher has yet to learn that lesson.

Shortly after the blogosphere started buzzing about his public apology, Karlsruher immediately tried to vainly mask his public humiliation with the fantasy that he did not lose the lawsuit against him by Leeds, writing; “that’s not what happened”, when someone pointed out that he had lost. Although many posters pointed out that he had publically apologized, Karlsruher seems to hold on to the fantasy that his apology is just some words he wrote on his blog. He even writes that he “quite rightly won”! Those interested in looking into the mind set of someone who lives in a fantasy world can do so by pulling the records of this lawsuit from the El Paso County records. It is telling what the record states when contrasted with Karlsruher’s continued flights of fancy.

With the truth starring him square in the face, Karlsruher seems to continue to live in a self-imposed fantasy world where he continues to fight imaginary windmills threatening his existence. His public apology is a fact, his fantasy world, is well, a self-created world where he himself can dictate the terms of his existence. As long as he keeps his fantasies off of the blogosphere the better chance he has of not finding himself in the same predicament once again having to write a public apology, or worse having to write a check to pay a settlement fee for his flights of fancy.