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Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#331

Post by krapp »

adamredwoods wrote: post #210
krapp wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political parties and Presidents don't decide what truth is and what lies are in the United States, or other free countries.

Yes they can. They cannot enforce their decisions directly. They can certainly influence, and perhaps even form alliances that propagate those decisions. With those alliances, some decisions can be made into law.

If they can't enforce their decisions, they're not really making decisions. GP was implying that regulating speech meant "truth" and "lies" would depend entirely on which political party happened to be in power at the time. But we already live in a society in which speech is regulated, and that doesn't happen. Trump tried as hard as he could, but every lie he spouted was still pushed against, much to his dismay. He convinced people who already bought into the party line, but no one else was forced into accepting or spreading his point of view.

Freedom of speech still exists where debate, conflict and truth discovery can still occur. Regulating speech mediates free speech, but doesn't have to eliminate it. The marketplace of ideas can accept that some ideas are not worth keeping.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#332

Post by jerojero »

adventured wrote: post #201
jerojero wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is posting an image part of your free speech? Absolutely yes. Then let's see, when was the last time you were exposed to a child pornography image? Hopefully never (though we do have this whole pornhub drama going on). It is obvious that there are ways of controlling speech and we do it all the time. I think only Americans believe in this absolute negative liberty view of speech.

> I think only Americans believe in this absolute negative liberty view of speech. That's a wonderful compliment.

It's really not.

Some groups due to historical or biological reasons require special protection. It is why we protect kids, it is why we protect people with disabilities. But if you take negative liberty to its extreme this special treatment that we offer these groups of people become unwarranted privileges. A world view that is based entirely on negative liberty ends up in a "survival of the strongest" state.

Obviously there is a big discussion on which groups require what sort of positive reinforcement from society to be able to truly enjoy and perform as close to the rest as possible. One simple example is access to buildings for people in wheelchair. When the government requires businesses to put these they're infringing on the businesses liberties to decide how to, well, run their business. But I know very little people who wouldn't agree with this situation.

So, i don't know, I think a purist vision of the state as a non-interfering voice (negative liberty) has for a long while been deemed an inadequate way of structuring society. So I don't think it's a wonderful compliment.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#333

Post by jerojero »

dcolkitt wrote: post #272
jerojero wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is posting an image part of your free speech? Absolutely yes. Then let's see, when was the last time you were exposed to a child pornography image? Hopefully never (though we do have this whole pornhub drama going on). It is obvious that there are ways of controlling speech and we do it all the time. I think only Americans believe in this absolute negative liberty view of speech.

Child pornography isn’t illegal because of the contents of the speech. It’s illegal because it’s an accessory to the original crime of child molestation. That is why the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that virtual child pornography, even photorealistic, is Constitutionally protected speech.

Okay but you're can surely realise that someone in possession of child pornography images that were taken, say, 20 years ago is no longer accessory to the original crime in any way. In fact, it might very well be possible for that person to not have even been born back then. Of course, that's not really how law works because some crimes don't have a deadline.

But whatever the legal reasoning behind it is, the consequence is that you are pretty much forbidden from distributing this material on the internet and so your right to show something to others is being restricted. I would consider that a limitation of free speech. But of course, I can totally see why you'd have the need to justify it in some other way, because we don't want our freedom of speech to be limited in any way. The law is always open to interpretation after all.

What's the reasoning behind restricting people from sharing copies of copyrighted material? Obviously it is also an illegal action. My point being, there are many ways in which our speech is monitored and restricted already.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#335

Post by philliphaydon »

bandyaboot wrote: post #330
roenxi wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you've now made it through 3 posts without doing anything as gauche as mentioning what that evidence is, providing a sample of it or articulating what the Russians have done that you don't like apart from being foreign. As alluded to previously, the biggest complaint most have seems to be that they were allegedly [^] bringing honesty into a political context. They have no power to influence US elections, as s…

I’ve made it through now 4 posts having chosen not to engage with you on topic because you made it clear from the outset that you’re not capable of having a good faith exchange on this. You pre-dismissed anything I might have cited. You say things like I’m bluffing on a weak hand, I’ve got nothing, and I’m supposed to say to myself “Yes, this person is worth expending effort on, let’s have a totally real open minded…

I’m gonna go out in a limb here and say you’re scared to cite anything in fear of it having a rebuttal.

As I said in my reply the report concludes that Trump didn’t collude with Russia to win the election. So the major conspiracy theory is throw out the window. It holds as much weight as Biden stealing the election.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#336

Post by dukeofdoom »

dragonwriter wrote: post #310
dukeofdoom wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Selective participation in discovery is not sufficient and if it hadn't been clear that he had failed to produce all responsive materials when required before the phone oops during the damages phase (which it very much was, for other reasons), that error kind of sealed the deal on that.

No post body was provided.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#337

Post by sazz »

It's always a matter of perspective I think.

Of course, now they will all dance again because they have finished off a "bad guy". Right-wing, talking nonsense, earning money - fits perfectly into the prey pattern.

I watched "The Big Short" again yesterday. There was the saying that people are only ever interested in the next football match or some celebrity's rehab.

You could also extend it to which "bad guy" is thrown to the lions. The main thing is that the mob gets its entertainment.

The real bad guys - the ones who have brought suffering to hundreds of thousands of people - remain untouchable, of course.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#338

Post by bandyaboot »

philliphaydon wrote: post #335
bandyaboot wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve made it through now 4 posts having chosen not to engage with you on topic because you made it clear from the outset that you’re not capable of having a good faith exchange on this. You pre-dismissed anything I might have cited. You say things like I’m bluffing on a weak hand, I’ve got nothing, and I’m supposed to say to myself “Yes, this person is worth expending effort on, let’s have a totally real open minded…

I’m gonna go out in a limb here and say you’re scared to cite anything in fear of it having a rebuttal. As I said in my reply the report concludes that Trump didn’t collude with Russia to win the election. So the major conspiracy theory is throw out the window. It holds as much weight as Biden stealing the election.

> I’m gonna go out in a limb here and say you’re scared to cite anything in fear of it having a rebuttal.

Again, I’m not going to get in the weeds with someone who isn’t arguing in good faith. There’s no good that can come from it. In this case it’s extra pointless because I agree with this person. Nothing in the Mueller report is going to convince them of anything.

> As I said in my reply the report concludes that Trump didn’t collude with Russia to win the election. So the major conspiracy theory is throw out the window. It holds as much weight as Biden stealing the election.

The report doesn’t do anything of the sort. The report is entirely focused on assessing evidence of criminal liability. Since collusion isn’t an actual crime the report nothing directly to say on the matter, much less actually coming right out and concluding that it didn’t happen. That’s just ridiculous.

There is evidence that is presented in the context of other matters of potential criminal liability that would be relevant to any discussion of “collusion”. One example would be Manafort and Gates sharing internal polling data with the Russians. You would have to contort yourself pretty hard to rationalize this as something other than coordinating with Russias’s campaign of interference/assistance.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#339

Post by pstuart »

phpisthebest wrote: post #319
pstuart wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Want to tone down the number of people that believe in conspiracy... More Facts, less Spin... Really? More facts will change their minds? Who will they trust with those facts? This is bordering on cult-like behavior and it shows no signs of improving -- I'm not optimistic about this at all.

Trust is built over decades, and torn down in minutes. News outlets (on both sides) have been caught in multiple partisans lies, disinformation, and spin/suppression of inconvenient facts for "their side" for many years now, this has eroded the trust in media and makes presentation of facts harder. Neither side wants to acknowledge anything that would be seen as supporting the position of the "others" So in the conte…

Sorry but not buying the "both sides are the same" bit.

> Neither side wants to acknowledge anything that would be seen as supporting the position of the "others"

You seem to be holding up your side of that argument but I don't roll that way. I abhor partisan politics and am happy to point out flaws of the Dem establishment.

As to the last election, it was as fair as one can hope for -- you're taking the defense of the legitimacy of the election to cult-like behavior? What exactly is the left doing that's cult like in that regard?

And thanks for the lecture on the veracity of news -- gosh I had no idea that people like William Randolph Hearst ever existed and manipulated the media generations ago.

Maybe too hard for you, but nuance is a thing -- any source of information is going to have bias and imperfection and it's a matter of understanding that bias and taking nuggets of knowledge. Case in point: while the NYT has made many egregious mistakes (supporting the Iraq war being a biggie), I still trust them as a news source more than Fox.

Fox news was designed as a propaganda wing of the GOP. This is documented. And yet all of you on the right happily lap it up and dismiss any source that doesn't satisfy your preconceived biases.

And as far as COVID goes -- prior to the past president viruses were not political. Bush was at least pro-science in that regard.

Re: Alex Jones must pay $50m in punitive damages for Sandy Hook hoax claim

#340

Post by dukeofdoom »

gerdesj wrote: post #70
pessimizer wrote: post #10

I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories he wants whether or not he believes them himself, but he slandered the parents of dead children to the degree that some of the most insane and aggressive people in the world think that they're the agents of a world conspiracy with the intent to enslave the planet. $50 mil is a light judgement.

"I'm a supporter of Jones being able to spread whatever insane theories" I think you are a supporter of freedom of speech in general - that's something I thoroughly approve of too. I also think you are able to understand the difference between seeing a horrendous crime and seeing that crime and attempting to profit from it. That seems to be what this bloke did: He tried to change and engorge the narrative regarding t…

You should be especially concerned than. Listen to the closing argument from the plaintiff's attorney, what it is they are after.

https://twitter.com/Spiro_Ghost/status/1555690309077565440

And it's effectively is to silence Alex.

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