Words live long, particularly if they’re angry and written down.
Chris Nogy should know.
Here is part of what the Benton County Republican recently wrote:
“The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line.
“If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat to take immediate action against them politically, socially, and civically if they screw up on something this big.
“Personally, I think a gun is quicker and more merciful, but hey, we can’t.”
There were more words, many more words, from Nogy published in the Benton County Republican Party’s April newsletter, all of which are aimed at party members with the apparent intention of holding state representatives accountable for not voting as Nogy (and presumably others in the party) wanted.
State lawmakers recently passed a private option plan to use federal Medicaid dollars madeavailable through the Aftordable Care Act to buy private health insurance for an estimated 250,000 low-income Arkansans.
The plan, which must still be approved by the Obama administration, passed with important help from some Benton County Republicans.
Nogy has since said he stands by his call for action against those “turncoat” representatives who voted for a version of “Obamacare.”
His article was a lengthy conservative rant, which would have attracted no attention outside the county but for the hyperbolic threat of violence against straying legislators.
The thought that the writer might be willing to walk up to a lawmaker and shoot him or her - and feel justifi ed in doing it as an exercise of Second Amendment rights “to remove a threat domestic” - was unsettling to many who couldn’t know how serious he was.
Naturally, those are the words that have been most often quoted since their appearance in the party newsletter put out byLeigh Nogy, Chris Nogy’s wife.
She was then a party offcer and both were members of the county committee, but both have since resigned their posts in the aftermath of the controversy his column generated.
That aftermath included a State Police investigation of Chris Nogy’s writings not only in the newsletter but also in e-mail directed to some state representatives.
State Police concluded that Nogy made no credible threat to lawmakers, although some of them were apparently distressed by the threatening communication.
Benton County Republican Committee Chairman Tim Summers, himself a former state lawmaker, promptly issued a statement, calling the suggestion of violence against legislators “abhorrent,” which it was.
And Summers requested the resignations of both Chris Nogy and Leigh Nogy as Benton County Republicans rightly sought to distance themselves from Nogy’s remarks.
Even Nogy has said he regrets writing them.
He seems, however, to regret more their distribution beyond the committee.
“If it had been kept internal, it would have caused some rants, some raves and a whole lot of conversation that might have led to a plan,” he told a reporterlast week.
Instead, the contents of the newsletter went out through legitimate news channels within Arkansas and have been picked up by all manner of online sites nationally.
As of Friday, one Internet search engine turned up almost 9,000 listings for “Chris Nogy.”
Page after page of links quote his now-infamous words, fi rmly tying him to this violent thought, no matter what his original intention might have been.
Nogy exercised his First Amendment right to free speech, waved the Second Amendment around like a weapon and discovered the consequences in a nation full of people with the same protections.
There is a lesson here for anyone who writes anything.
Whether “scathing,” as Nogy entitled his comments, or something less hyperbolic, words have a way of hanging around and of spreading to greater audiences.
Nogy will have to do something huge to overcome the identity these angry words have created for him on the Web.
Otherwise, he’ll forever be that guy from Arkansas who suggested shooting legislators.
BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.
Opinion, Pages 10 on 04/28/2013