I guess soon I will have to find out whether the Web is considered to be private or public. You see, the distinction may become very important soon in the quickie fix up that our illustrious National Assembly is doing on the Penal Code. Rather than expect for the full revision of the code, our emblematic revolutionaries decided to patch it up to make sure that political opposition can be wiped out.
Whether my blog is considered public or private is very important according to today’s Tal Cual Editorial. If private, if I were to offend Hugo Chavez, I would be punished with prison between 6 and 30 months, half of that if the offense was “light” (Which is not defined). But, and here is the key to my question, the punishment would be increased by a third if the offense was made in public.
Of course, what is an offense? If Chavez says something stupid and I say so, is that an offense? What if he lies and I point it out? Is that offensive too? What if I accuse him of doing something illegal? Guilty? Is calling the letter he wrote to Carlos the Jackal, a love letter, an offense? Is calling him a murderer an offense? Is publishing a picture of him blowing a kiss to Fidel Castro, an offense too? What if I quote someone else calling Chavez a clown? Is that an offense too?
Then we come to the question of private versus public. What is private? Since the legislators took the trouble to define the additional penalty for a public offense, it means they have something in mind about what constitutes a private offense. If I tell Jimmy Carter in private that Chavez lied to him and Carter says it at a press conference. Am I in trouble? What if Carter tells Chavez privately what I said, guilty too?
What if I say he looks fat, like he does (see Tal Cual’s cover today). Go to jail without passing go and collecting 200? Or if I laugh in my blog at these jerky pictures of Chavez in Rio, where he pretended to be exercizing, with heavy sox, headbands and wristbands? He looks like such a fat clown! Should I go to jail for saying that?
By the way, I have to wonder who will be the enforcer for this. Honorable judge Mikael Moreno? Or will it be the People’s Ombudsman, who has so little to do because the revolution has been so successful at eliminating poverty, crime or corruption? Maybe they can appoint the El LLaguno shooters, after all, they have been certified as being innocent, something few Venezuelans can claim. Maybe they can bring back to the country some of those retired Generals living in mansions in Miami and have them serve the revolution once more. No, wait, I am sure that among the 15,000 Cubans in the country they can spare a few to check on violations of this article of the law. Who better qualified and trained that someone that grew up spying on his own family and friends to enforce the law?
I guess for now, I will keep the blog public. If I ever feel the need to make it private, I will rename it the “The Secret Devil’s Excrement”, making it a secret organization or logia, inviting everyone of you (including the Chavistas), and nobody else, to be a lifetime member. This way, my defense will be that my offenses against the President could not be defined either as private or public, they were simply secret. And that my friends, is not contemplated in the Bill at all, which according to revolutionary logic will mean that I will always be innocent, even if guilty.
The Devil's Excrement 
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