I have not liked Bobby ever since reading Brad Darrach's book several years
ago. Yes, yes, I know that Darrach enlarged on the truth considerably, but a
couple of persons who were involved during that period have told me that he
captures Bobby's person pretty well in spite of the inaccuracies and
inventions. If Bobby the man is anything like the person portrayed by Darrach,
then he is a mindless (but by no means brainless) unpleasant, spoiled,
solipsistic hellion.

But he is not a criminal. And odds are that he is, even at this
writing, undergoing beatings and torture at the hands of our boys in Japan. He
does not deserve that in a legal sense, though a few good whacks might
help him in other ways.

We should be fighting to help Bobby NOT for his sake but for our sake.
The State has grabbed a man who played chess. It is not charging him under the
internal revenue code, but it is charging him under laws that in
another time would have automatically been ruled unconstitutional because they
transfer legislative authority to the president.

Bobby is not a criminal, and he remains the only person in the world
charged with having violated an executive order re the embargo against Serbia.
It is a political act by our government.

There was once an idea that criminality -- what defined it -- was
based on norms rather than the convenience of the State or the will of
legislators who decide to declare a given act, which was perfectly legal on
Monday, to be illegal on Tuesday, though it may become legal again next year on
a Wednesday. This is a dialectical, Bolshevik understanding of law that denies
the existence of norms.

We are all criminals if one defines this status as having broken some
portion of the federal codex. Not one of us would survive a search of the
codex; not one of us would serve less than 20 years if a bureaucrat
looked for something to nab us.

So, Bobby has been nabbed for the "crime" of playing chess in
circumstances that did not suit the president of the United States. If we take
chess seriously and if we value our own liberties, then we should be defending
Bobby Fischer.

__________________________________________________ ______________
"FIDE has made its decision. Players who refuse to be drug tested will not be
able to play chess." -- Dr. Press, co-founder of the FIDE Medical Commission.