Court Tells Pro-Trump 12-Year-Old That Calling Him A Defender Of Racism And Sexual Assault Is Protected Speech
from the that's-how-speech-works,-snowflake dept
For a group prone to calling others "snowflakes," they sure seem to get their feelings hurt pretty quickly. Fans of President Trump have filed a lot of defamation lawsuits, litigiously angry they've been called things because of things they've done. This includes notable fans of Trump, such as... President Trump himself, as well as his campaign.
One of the youngest Trump fans sued Newsweek over a piece covering the 12-year-old boy (who is referred to only as "C.M." in the lawsuit) and his MAGA-related antics. The Newsweek article discussed the minor's pro-Trump videos, made more popular by local coverage in C.M.'s hometown. Here's how C.M. turned from precocious pre-teen to a limited purpose public figure. From the Third Circuit Appeals Court decision [PDF]:
During the 2016 presidential campaign, C.M. got a lot of attention. Before he had even turned twelve, he had publicly endorsed now-President Donald Trump and released videos seen by thousands. In one popular clip, C.M. called Hillary Clinton “deplorable.” That video went viral, attracting more than 325,000 views on Facebook alone. From Russian television stations to Philadelphia magazine, many wanted to hear from “Philly’s Biggest Trump Supporter.”
C.M. obliged. In an interview with Philadelphia magazine, he said: “Madonna needs to leave the country. That would help make America great again. She’s trash. She said she wanted to blow up the White House.” After being asked why his Facebook posts use “the same kind of vitriol” that C.M. had said “is tearing this country apart,” he explained: “Look, it’s just a joke. They’re calling Donald Trump a psychopath. They say he’s mentally unfit. They’re demonizing the Republican Party. They’re saying most Republicans are racist. The people I talk about in these posts really have it coming to them.”
Newsweek's article discussed C.M. and another 12-year-old Trump fan, M.M. It mentioned M.M.'s interview with alleged jailbait enthusiast Judge Roy Moore. It discussed C.M.'s appearance on Infowars, where he referred to Megyn Kelly's "hotness" and said things about "globalists."
What C.M. sued over was this summary of C.M. and M.M.'s media appearances.
“These kids are being weaponized,” says Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University. He says the [M.M.] and [C.M.] interviews “camouflage” positions of the hard right “as feel-good sweetness and light, when, in fact, they are defending raw racism and sexual abuse.”
The Newsweek article -- with C.M. and M.M.'s names and faces redacted -- is attached to the ruling. There's nothing in it approaching actionable, but here we are, one level up in the federal court system, listening to an Appeals Court (re)state the obvious. This isn't defamation. This is protected speech.
At the heart of this appeal is the first pair of quotations from Professor Gitlin, at the end of the article’s second paragraph: “These kids are being weaponized” and “they are defending raw racism and sexual abuse.” Those characterizations follow the article’s factual description of M.M.’s interviews with Roy Moore and Jennifer Lawrence, vice president of the America First Project, and C.M.’s interview with Infowars’s Alex Jones. Only after describing those interviews does the article offer Gitlin’s opinion that “[t]hese kids are being weaponized” and that the “hard right” is using their interviews to “camouflage ... defending raw racism and sexual abuse.”
But those characterizations make no factual claims about C.M. The article does not say that C.M. is a racist or sexual abuser. Nor does it accuse C.M. of having made any specific statements defending “raw racism and sexual abuse.” Instead, it quotes Gitlin’s opinion about how the “hard right” is using C.M.’s and M.M.’s opinions. His opinions may seem harsh, but that does not strip them of their absolute privilege.
The court points out any other reading of defamation law would be ridiculous. Speech has consequences -- even protected speech. If the minors didn't want someone to suggest they "defend raw racism and sexual abuse," perhaps they shouldn't have been out in public defending people accused of raw racism and sexual abuse.
While saying that someone committed a crime may be defamatory, publicly defending those accused of racism or sexual abuse is not unlawful. We see no evidence that Pennsylvania would let defenders of those accused of bigotry or crime bring defamation actions whenever a publication mentions their defense.
C.M.'s status as a minor has no effect on this lawsuit. C.M. made himself at least a limited-purpose public figure by agreeing to do an interview with a local magazine. It was this interview -- along with C.M.'s interview with Alex Jones -- that turned him into a public figure. The bar is higher for public figures, who have to prove actual malice: that Newsweek knew it was publishing false information with a reckless disregard for the truth. Since this case deals with protected opinions, there's nothing in there for C.M., no matter how much his complaint flails around searching for something actionable.
C.M. cites three pieces of circumstantial evidence. First, he argues that Newsweek “grossly departed from professional journalistic standards” by not asking C.M. or his parents to comment for the article. Second, he charges that Newsweek must have done so to improve its “declining and anemic sales and online hits.” Third, he stresses that Newsweek put a large photo of C.M. at the top of the article. Even taken together, these facts fall well short of actual malice.
Not asking someone for comment is not defamation. It never has been. The lower court said that even an "extreme departure" from journalistic standards would not rise to the level of defamation and the Appeals Court agrees. That Newsweek sought to profit from the publication of the article doesn't change the math. Newsweek would like everything it publishes to help it turn a profit, not just articles about pre-teen Trump fans. And the accusation about the photo makes the least sense. Here's the court's response to that claim:
The photo shows an energetic C.M. holding up a 2016 Trump campaign sign. That is all.
The court sums it all up by reminding the minor he entered the political arena. Newsweek didn't drag him into it. If he enjoys the freedom to say things about Trump's political opponents, Newsweek enjoys the freedom to report on his pro-Trump efforts as well as draw inferences from his actions.
In the rough-and-tumble of politics, C.M. must endure offensive opinions and heated rhetoric. The First Amendment protects even the most derogatory opinions, because suppressing them would chill robust political discourse. As long as an opinion relies on disclosed facts, it is privileged. That is what happened here. And C.M. did not plead that Newsweek knew the facts were false or recklessly disregarded the truth. We will thus affirm.
If C.M. wants to continue making a federal case of it, he's welcome to appeal this decision one more time. But even if the Supreme Court leans more right than left these days, there's no way it's going to start calling protected opinions defamation. This was a waste of everyone's time, but mostly Newsweek's. And that may have been the point. A lot of these losing lawsuits are mostly demonstrative -- ones that allow the plaintiffs to waste their targets' time and money while making themselves out to be martyrs for the conservative cause. A federal anti-SLAPP law would go a long way towards discouraging these buffoonish lawsuits. Once it's the plaintiffs' money on the line, there's going to be a lot less litigious showboating.
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Filed Under: 1st amendment, anti-slapp, c.m., defamation, donald trump, free speech, public figures, slapp
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Good old(or young as it may be) whiny hypocrites...
Makes public statements slamming opponents of their favorite politician, then proceeds to throw a tantrum when someone returns the favor by simply printing their own words and offering commentary.
Looks like yet another shining example of a 'But free speech is only supposed to apply to my side!' hypocrite, albeit one a little younger than previous cases covered here.
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Play stupid adult games, win stupid adult prizes.
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"In one popular clip, C.M. called Hillary Clinton “deplorable.”"
Well, that is the level of insight and originality I'd expect from whoever pushed him into this...
"They’re calling Donald Trump a psychopath. They say he’s mentally unfit"
...and he's done nothing since the day of his election to disprove that, and seems to be getting steadily worse. I wonder how the 22 million unemployed confirmed today feel about his fitness for office as he ensures his name is on their pity cheques that might keep them fed for a few weeks while he sneaks in more tax breaks for the rich.
"It was this interview -- along with C.M.'s interview with Alex Jones"
How am I now shocked by that association? Did Dan and Jordan do an episode? I'll have to track it down.
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Re:
I think we would be better off blaming the coronavirus for the unemployment situation.
We can blame Trump for his delayed and so far weak response (including your assertion that his actions will benefit the rich more than the majority). We can also blame Trump for doing everything he can to deflect responsibility while impugning those who tell us about more reasonable responses. The governor of NY wants us all to wear face masks, but the proper N95 face masks are not available, and Trump wants those that make face masks in the US to sell only to the government. The list of things Trump could have done is long and getting longer, but I doubt we can seriously blame Trump for the virus itself.
We will also be able to blame him for rushing to get the economy fully functioning faster than we should as it appears that it may take a lot more time than the remainder of this month for things to settle down. If history is any precursor to the future we can expect Trump to do many more things for which we can blame him as well.
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Re: Re:
"I think we would be better off blaming the coronavirus for the unemployment situation."
No, if that was all that was to be blamed the rest of the world would be having similar problems. They're not. Some unemployment is higher, but there are safety nets in places and future programs already being discussed.
"If history is any precursor to the future we can expect Trump to do many more things for which we can blame him as well."
...and for his cult to cheer him on and beg for more while attacking the people trying to fix the situation.
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Re: Re: Re:
The rest of the world is seeing similar problems with unemployment. This is not to say that that's the only factor. It is however one of the biggest drivers across the world right now.
Pointing out that other countries are spending money to create "safety nets" is disingenuous. So is the US. It doesn't change the fact that unemployment has taken a sharp rise across the world at the same time for the same reason.
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"The rest of the world is seeing similar problems with unemployment"
Not really. For one thing, unemployment is easier to claim. I've not seen videos of Europeans at food banks or government offices the same as the US. For another, healthcare is not tied directly to employment, so everyone's still covered while Americans are not. There's people here seriously discussing UBI and forgiving rent/mortgage payments, while Trump's cronies seem to think that a single $1.2k payment will get people through to June. There are many reasons why people here are better off, even if there may be similar pain long term to fix the damage.
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But we are socialist, liberal commies so we don't count Paul.
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Trump basically sat on his arse for two months, ignoring experts. And now he's eager to imlement his "Thanos" plan on the US.
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You mean the part of the movie where Thanos snaps his fingers and 0.01% of the population disappears?
Take it easy on the hyperbole, or you'll just look silly.
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No, that comparison is disingenuous. While the stimulus package the US just passed is a good start, it's far short of the access that people in Canada and Europe have to healthcare and other necessities. They're not remotely comparable.
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Yeah, a single 1.2k usd payment that you may or may not get is not what many would call a safety net.
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It certainly won't last long for people who need additional medical care at this time.
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"The rest of the world is seeing similar problems with unemployment."
As some have noted there's a world of difference between being unemployed in a place with a functioning social net and universal health care...and being unemployed in a nation which has a social net so leaky it might as well not exist.
10 million unemployed europeans on unemployment benefits and health care has a different impact on society than 10 million unemployed americans suddenly bereft of the health insurance they had through their job, and without the ability to meet their next mortgage payments.
The news might as well have been honest and stated outright that the homeless numbers have gone up by almost the same amount as the amount of jobs lost, in the US.
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Besides which, many countries are paying businesses to keep people on the payroll, so they're not even unemployed in the first place.
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Are you referring to furloughing? If so, the sensible move would surely be to pay those people to remain employed but not working for a temporary period and compensate the employers until they can return, than force everyone without current work to go on unemployment, then all have to find new employment after this is over with no guarantee of employers remaining open.
Also, whichever situation you're referring to, since Europeans don't have healthcare tied to their current employment and don't have to worry about being refused insurance when we return, it's clear which is the better move even for those who do have to go on the unemployment rolls.
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I don't think it would be called furloughing if I understand right. In that case as far as I know, the person is not getting paid by the company and is eligible for unemployment benefits.
Yes, that is exactly what is happening in at least some European countries.
Which is the stupid way that it's mostly happening in the US.
Employer based healthcare is perhaps one of the most disastrous cases of unintended consequences. See above re: "stupid way".
"Employer-sponsored health insurance plans dramatically expanded as a direct result of wage controls imposed by the federal government during World War II."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States#The_rise_of_employer-s ponsored_coverage
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There's different definitions of furloughing, but they can include being paid by the government, being paid by the employer or otherwise. From what I understand, the basic definition is not being in work but not necessarily being out of a job, if that makes sense.
"Employer based healthcare is perhaps one of the most disastrous cases of unintended consequences. See above re: "stupid way"."
Yes, I remember having a lot of arguments when the whole healthcare debate was raging in the US. I can't imagine being trapped in a shitty job simply because you have to ensure your kids have access to pre-existing medical needs and how much that costs the economy. Hopefully one of the silver linings with so many Americans being out of work is that it's finally realised that private for-profit corporations should not be in charge of medical care, but we'll see.
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That might actually be worth it, but I fear it will take a long time to transition away from for-profit medical care (a separate issue from employer based health insurance).
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True, the whole thing is just depressing to watch from afar. Whatever else I have to worry about in the current situation, being rejected for medical care is not one of them, even if I lose the private healthcare option currently provided by my employer.
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Re: Re:
You're right about Trump's failures in dealing with the virus.
Plus, he's spent the past three years claiming credit for low unemployment numbers that he didn't cause. That cuts both ways. The president gets judged on the state of the economy -- sometimes fairly, sometimes less so.
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Trump was taking personal credit early in his term for contracts that had been signed before he even announced his candidacy. I'm happy for him to take personal blame for the current situation, even if it's not his disbanding of the relevant department and attacks on normal diplomatic procedures that led to the current failures.
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I'm happy for him to take personal blame for the current situation, even if it's not his disbanding of the relevant department and attacks on normal diplomatic procedures that led to the current failures.
I wouldn't be happy about that, I'd be running to get my head checked and my blood tested, because wild hallucinations out of nowhere would be massively more likely than Trump admitting to being at fault for something, nevermind something major.
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Losing Meaning
The kid lost the lawsuit, but it looks to me like he advanced the narrative. Based on the phrase "Everyone that I hate is a Nazi", it looks like we can now add "racist" and "sex abuser" to the vocabulary trash heap of meaningless words that we can ignore when said by the corporate media.
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Re: Losing Meaning
Keep stuffing that straw.
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Re: Re: Losing Meaning
He's not wrong.
If everything is X, then nothing is X.
X in this case is "defender of racism".
But, whatever, these days, whenever someone screams "racist", "sexist" or some other "ist" or "phobe" I just roll my eyes, go "whatever" and ignore them. It's beyond tiring to see Trump and his supporters labeled everything under the sun, almost none of which is true, all because the people doing so have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
When Fox News is actual news, MSNBC is InfoWars and Alex Jones does actual reporting, you know the world is insane. Oh wait, that's happening right now. And yes, Jones is still an insane nutjob conspiracy theorist. I mean, Frog are turning gay! (He wasn't wrong, just not the way he said it was happening.) At least he's entertaining and can be meme'd... Unlike Rachael Maddow, who's the unfunny female version of Jones. I mean, seriously... "Russia will turn off power in Fargo in the dead of winter!"
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Remind me, which side has the most openly avowed…
…in their ranks: Trump detractors or Trump supporters?
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Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
It's beyond tiring to see Trump and his supporters labeled everything under the sun, almost none of which is true,
I would ask what labels are being thrown out that you believe aren't accurate but...
all because the people doing so have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
... I'd say you've already outed yourself as someone who doesn't need to be taken seriously.
I gotta say though, every time I see that phrase I can't help but look forward to the next democratic president, as while it will be equally stupid then as it is now it will be nevertheless be downright hilarious to watch every single criticism of that person dismissed and mocked as nothing more than '[President's name] derangement syndrome', something I'm sure those accusing people today of trump derangement syndrome will accept as entirely valid and justified rather than admit to being raging hypocrites by objecting to it.
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Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
If even a word of that had remotely resembled anything in the real world, you might have had a point.
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Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
lol!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
Yeah.. if that's reporting then journalism is more than dead.
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Re: Losing Meaning
" it looks like we can now add "racist" and "sex abuser""
You do know that Trump was sued several times for the former and one of the most famous parts of his campaign was him openly admitting to the latter, right?
Yes, words do lose meaning when the person displaying himself as being well defined by them faces no consequences from doing so, but that has nothing to do with the media showing you that person's own words.
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Re: Re: Losing Meaning
Filing a lawsuit does not make anything a fact. Trump never admitted to sexual abuse. Inflammatory statements like the ones you just made are the precise reason why more and more Americans now distrust the corporate media. Your non-factual slander against a political figure that you don't like proves the point.
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Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
"Trump never admitted to sexual abuse."
Unless you look at the "grab them by the pussy" tape, and many other admissions over the years.
"Your non-factual slander against a political figure that you don't like proves the point."
I only base my words upon the factually confirmed actions he has taken, but if your political system is so weak that a guy noting obvious issues from a different continent on a random internet forum can destroy it, maybe you do deserve the marital rapist.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
Doing well until that last bit, but that went well over the line just like it does in other situations.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
I think the last part of his comment was saying that "you" (as in all of us Americans) deserve to have Trump as President (assuming that the theory posited earlier in the sentence is true). I don't believe that it was saying that the commenter personally deserved a rapist.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
I was referring to Trump's first wife having written about how Donald raped her, and how the defence was not " I didn't do it", but rather "a man cannot rape his wife". I have no doubt the allegations were true, based on other history we know about the man, so I'm quite right to call him a sexual abuser based on the mountain of evidence available.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
Truth hurts, huh?
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'If america had just dressed differently...'
'Maybe you deserve a rapist' is a disgusting idea no matter who it's aimed at or the context, but even pulling back and rephrasing it in a more general 'your political system is so broken you deserve a terrible person to run it' still leaves you with the sort of argument that a con-artist or similar person would love, as it supports the idea that some people deserve to have others take advantage of them and/or screw them over.
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Re: 'If america had just dressed differently...'
"...'your political system is so broken you deserve a terrible person to run it' still leaves you with the sort of argument that a con-artist or similar person would love, as it supports the idea that some people deserve to have others take advantage of them and/or screw them over."
I agree that it's over the line, but to some extent he does have a point. Americans ironically have spent so much time ebating themselves over the chest with their great freedoms they failed to notice that for any of those to remain functional, voter participation is needed.
The only ones even bothering to vote are the "Cult Of Trump" who'll vote for the man even if he did shoot someone in broad daylight, and the "Hold-Their-Noses" brigade who'll vote for ANY sock puppet willing to sell executive orders to the highest bidder as long as it isn't Trump. The remaining 50% of americans can't even be arsed to vote. Or are, to some extent or other, prevented from doing so.
The founding fathers had a good argument about the dangers of direct democracy but if they'd seen the current state of affairs they would have preferred the risk of mob rule.
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Re: Re: 'If america had just dressed differently...'
Lost the point there...
You can't compare half of the US citizenry not bothering to vote with a girl who gets abused for dressing provocatively.
This is more akin to someone who, on finding his house on fire, refuses to get off the couch because putting the fire out is someone else's damn business.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
But - when you're a celebrity, they let you do that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
"When you're rich, when you're famous, women let you grab them by the pussy".
Hmm...
Almost like people forgot the first part of that sentence and latched onto the second part like morons who forget that context matters.
Or people who suffer from TDS.
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No, I remember the first part of that sentence. It clearly tells me that Trump believes women let men like Trump grope and fondle them because they’re rich and famous. But the underlying implication is clear: Women let men like Trump grope and fondle them because no one in a police station/court of law would generally believe those women if they reported a sexual assault committed by one of those rich and famous men. Whether Trump shares that underlying belief, or even knows that what he said implies that conclusion, is ultimately irrelevant.
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I would like to see donald try that move on a woman WWE wrestler.
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Or rather, a woman MMA fighter.
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Heck yes. Anyone with skills want to 'shop Trump's face onto this douchebag?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OARa6KXur0
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
I seem to recall that, even at that time, Trump was (or was at least perceived to be) rich, and he was also quite famous. That would mean that he fits the conditions laid out in the first part. I also remember him saying in that same conversation that at one point he—without receiving prior consent from her by his own telling of it—“moved in on [a married woman] like a bitch.” I don’t suppose you have an explanation for that one.
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Re: Re: Re: Losing Meaning
"Trump never admitted to sexual abuse."
Kindly explain how a lengthy televised conversation about how a person in power can do anything he likes to women, ending with the words "You can grab them by the p___y, it's great!" implies anything OTHER than sexual abuse?
I'm keen to discover whether you have a similar misunderstanding about whether the uninvited groping of someone's genitals should or should not be considered "sexual abuse". If that's the case it explains your defense of Trump in that issue.
Would you consider the analogy - an uninvited punch in the face - "assault" or not?
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Re: Losing Meaning
The kid lost the lawsuit, but it looks to me like he advanced the narrative.
Yeah, the narrative of "owning the libs" by playing the role of "perpetual victim."
I can't understand how with such winning, there's such fucking whining from the right-wing nutjobs, and that "parents" are now letting their little shitstains stand in the front row with them, instead of protecting them.
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Re: Losing Meaning
...are you asserting that Roy Moore is not a racist or a sex abuser, or am I just misunderstanding your word salad?
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Roy Moore isn’t a racist and a sex abuser. He’s a Republican.
…whoops, tautology!
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Hey, I'm sure not all Republicans are sex abusers.
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Some, I'm sure, are fine people. But since even Trump admits they wouldn't get elected if elections were fair...
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Some Very Fine People, at that.
To be fair, Trump only used that compliment about civil rights activists, the KKK and American Neo-Nazis.
That might cover Steve King but we can't be sure Trump thinks that way about republicans as a whole.
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I notice the trash uses the same structure to their "He didn't call Nazis fine people" lie as they now use for "He didn't call coronavirus a hoax" one.
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Then why do Democrats need to cheat so much to win?
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Remind me, who was it that was the sitting Secretary of State in Georgia and thus oversaw his own election in a clear conflict of interest? Who oversaw an election in which over 300,000 people were wrongly declared ineligible to vote and the office of Secretary of State delayed over 50,000 voter registrations — both irregularities that largely affected Black voters? Who won an election in which one voting machine in one precinct recorded that Republicans won every race, but the other six machines showed that Democrats won every race, and the lone machine showed Republicans winning by approximately the same margin Democrats won on the other six machines — an occurence for which the odds were, according to a statistician's analysis in court documents, "less than 1 in 1 million"?
Oh, right. It was a Republican.
If Democrats “cheat” to win all the time, how come the only time we ever really hear about voter suppression efforts (including the shutting down of polling places) is when we’re talking about Republicans? And if Democrats really do “cheat” to win all the time, for what reason haven’t you provided any evidence that backs up your claim?
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What was Watergate about?
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Please explain what Democrats have cheated to win.
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By helping everyone with the right to vote to do so, thwarting Republican tampering?
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Both sides are full of racists and sex abusers. I would remind you that the Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and had to be beat into submission to get the CRA passed.
And, oh lord! The sex abusers.
Its not an R vs D thing. Its a 'I have power and therefore I must be special and can do whatever I want to the powerless thing'.
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Yes, and then the parties essentially flipped, and now the Republicans are the party of homophobia, voter suppression, and opposing the Equal Rights Act — on top of all the racism and support for racist groups/causes that were once the realm of the Democrats. Or haven’t you heard of the Southern Strategy?
But it is more commonly associated with Republicans than with Democrats because of people like Donald Trump, Roy Moore, and every Republican lawmaker who demonstrates support for the Confederacy and its “heroes”.
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They never flipped. The Democrats still support all those same things. Look at which side is pushing for segregation. It certainly isn't the right. The only difference is that they're pushing against White People.
You haven't been paying attention to the Left much since Obama got elected, have you?
They're so far to the left that they consider Obama right wing, Bernie Sanders moderate and Donald Trump (who is to the left of Mitt Romney) far right.
Then again, perhaps you agree with it, because you, yourself, are far left and don't realize it.
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Republicans support voter suppression efforts that primarily target people of color, cutting the social safety net that helps keep afloat the poorest among us (which includes a hell of a lot of non-White families), and sometimes even admitted White supremacists. Democrats generally don’t.
Republicans support efforts to push LGBT people back in the closet, including “conversion ‘therapy’ ”, and would gladly overturn Obergefell v Hodges if they could just so gay people could become second-class citizens again. Democrats generally don’t.
Republicans support outlawing abortion — i.e., they support the government being able to control a woman’s body such that a female rape victim would be forced by law to have her rapist’s child against her will. Democrats generally don’t.
So you tell me: Which party endorses segregating groups of people into different classes under the law based on race, sex/gender identity, and sexual orientation?
I’m sure there are some left-wing voters/political activists who feel this way. But the number is less than you believe…and less than I’d like, really.
(Also: Donald Trump isn’t far right, but the far right embraces him because he helps accomplish their goals.)
You…you think there’s a “far left” in the United States? That’s fucking hilarious. The U.S. may have pockets of “far left” activists, but there is no collective “far left” in this country because there is barely eve a “left wing” in this country in the first place.
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"They're so far to the left that they consider Obama right wing, Bernie Sanders moderate and Donald Trump (who is to the left of Mitt Romney) far right."
I would just add to this - that set of political positions where I come from could still logically make you a member of the Conservative party.
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Where exactly has the Democratic Party in recent times supported any segregationist positions? And what party or politicians have been supporting slavery (something else you mentioned earlier)? And in case you hadn’t noticed, the Civil Rights Act (along with later, similar laws and regulations) was passed and signed by Democrats.
Aside from the fact that voter suppression wasn’t as much of an issue until around that time, so less focus from Democrats was put on that issue around that time, I haven’t noticed much significant difference in the Democratic Party since Obama got elected, and I was actually paying a lot of attention to politics from a few year before then to now, especially around that specific time period. I have noticed some changes to the Republican Party, however.
Most other western countries would agree with that. By today’s standards, people like Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower—all very much Republicans during their lifetimes—would be considered leftists in America today. Heck, even Reagan and Nixon—who were staunch Republicans—had some more liberal views and/or policies than many more moderate Republicans today.
You’re problem is that you’re on a platform drifting to the right over time, so to you, it looks like everything not in that platform is going further to the left.
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Bets on it being the "Affirmative action is racism!" lie?
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I suspect you have it reversed- the thought process is probably more like "I want to be able to do these things to people, if I have power then I can get away with it!"
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"Its not an R vs D thing. Its a 'I have power and therefore I must be special and can do whatever I want to the powerless thing'."
Presently, the draconian bullshit emanates from the GOP. For example, The president has total authority and I am the chosen one. Oh yeah, let's not forget I take no responsibility
It's like good cop / bad cop.
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" I would remind you that the Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and had to be beat into submission to get the CRA passed."
...and I would remind you of the Southern Strategy that flied the ideologies of the parties after those things, and to learn some damn history before you repeat it.
"Its not an R vs D thing"
Then why are there so many more examples of republicans doing these things than there are of democrats? Nobody's saying that zero Ds are doing these things, just that the imbalance is strikingly obvious.
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"I would remind you that the Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and had to be beat into submission to get the CRA passed."
So they were, but after the "New Deal" thing where FDR tried to use affirmative action to recruit black people into positions of responsibility the democratic faction consisting of wealthy southern racists traditionally part of the democratic party, all migrated into the republican party.
So the democrats you're referring to, the ones in favor of Jim Crow? All became republicans at some point after 1950.
Ironically the republican party also lost members over the new deal, when the more liberal-minded and pragmatic conservatives left for the democratic party over the split of FDR regulating the banking industry.
The problem with everyone bringing up what the "republicans" and "democrats" were standing for is that around 1950 or so, the political positions of both those parties switch 180 degrees. Today, Lincoln would be a democrat.
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Donald Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville debacle involving White nationalists/supremacists and counter-protestors. He also kicked off his campaign for president in 2015 by implying that all (or most) Mexicans crossing the border (illegally or otherwise) were rapists and thugs and that the country/the Mexican government wasn’t “sending” the “best people” up north.
Donald Trump said women would let him “grab ’em by the pussy” because he’s “a big star”, with the clear implication being that women let him sexually assault them because he would be believed more than they would in a court of law. He was also once credibly accused by one of his ex-wives of raping said ex-wife while they were married; that the accusation was eventually withdrawn doesn’t make it any less credible when taking into account his history of marital affairs, his general behavior towards women, and his caught-on-tape confession of him using his fame to commit what is clearly sexual assault.
How can you thus say “the corporate media” calling Donald Trump a racist and a sex abuser is “meaningless”?
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Easy. He chose Trump in 2016 (probably because Trump is a loudmouth idiot who reflects a lot of Kobe's personal opinions he normally has to keep private) and now feels he has to defend that choice rather than taking a critical look at the situation and admit he made a mistake. Human Nature 101.
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"He chose Trump in 2016 (probably because Trump is a loudmouth idiot who reflects a lot of Kobe's personal opinions he normally has to keep private) and now feels he has to defend that choice rather than taking a critical look at the situation and admit he made a mistake."
Or, not quite impossible, chose Trump, found what his personal opinions make him look like, and is now forced to defend Trump because he can't survive facing the yawning abyss his choices has led him to.
It's why so very many republicans today double down on defending Trump to the point where it resembles religious hysteria. Because what they fear most above all is having to face the factual truth that they have voted for and endorsed an outright racist, misogynistic narcissist who openly envies and admires ultra-authoritarian dictators like Kim and Putin.
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Never a right-wing extremist's accusation/insult that isn't projection.
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"Never a right-wing extremist's accusation/insult that isn't projection"
and this is why "FEMA death camps" is now bothering me
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I don't know about anti-SLAPP.
I think the precocious little brat could do with a couple of SLAPPs himself!
Who is actually paying for the Lawyers?
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Uh, no, child abuse is not acceptable even if the child in question is a repugnant person and/or saying repugnant things.
As for who's paying, I imagine there's plenty of people out there clutching tightly to the 'poor oppressed conservative/republican' narrative that finding enough money for a lawsuit like this would not in any way have been difficult.
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Funding that narrative through legal action is practically a sub-industry within the broader industry that is right-wing grifting.
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"Court Tells Pro-Trump 12-Year-Old That Calling Him A Defender Of Racism And Sexual Assault Is Protected Speech."
Especially since that's exactly what the current POTUS is. Just sayin'. BTW, what's the difference between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson? Bojo doesn't put his hair on a wigstand before going to bed!
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"BTW, what's the difference between Donald Trump and Boris Johnson? Bojo doesn't put his hair on a wigstand before going to bed!"
No. Boris Johnson plays a clown as part of a carefully cultivated image. It's all an act he's gotten very good at. From a hairdo he actually makes sure is ruffled into a bird's nest before every interview to making sure journalists catch him in an ill-fitting bicycle helmet or dress carefully coordinated to look like a folksy yokel. All the while with a warm tolerant smile at the jibes thrown his way. It makes him stand out as a safe choice both to upper-class conservatives who appreciate his impeccable Eton history and the common folk who think he's not that far from being "one of them".
Trump going on a misogynistic or racist rant without realizing it, though? That's real enough. And a lot of his voters are just as pleased as can be that someone finally calls the black man back to the plantation and the woman back to the kitchen...
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Pretty much. Trump is an idiot who essentially fell upwards through a lifetime of scams, where he managed to avoid accountability by forcing the costs on to someone else when his sort-sighted con jobs eventually failed. Say what you want about the man, but the ignorant, narcissistic man-baby persona he presents does seem to match up with his known history away from the cameras.
Boris has been playing a long game - half of the long-standing myths surrounding the EU that he fell leaned upon during the whole Brexit fiasco were things he invented while he was working as a columnist, and he did enough to hide the actual long-term issues with his stint as London mayor behind a clownish persona - one that he was clever enough to make actually lovable. But behind the scenes there's no doubt he's an intelligent conniving soul.
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"But behind the scenes there's no doubt he's an intelligent conniving soul."
And it would take a british audience to appreciate the idea of an upper-class impeccably educated Eton boy acting like a lovable twit. It's all in good fun.
Mind you he's also a very accurate opportunist. The EU would never have made a good target if much of what he implied wasn't rooted in truth. His factual inaccuracy gained ground mainly because, after looking at the EU bureaucracy, those lies looked plausible enough. And today of course, even when his original claims were outright fiction his criticism of the EU now makes him look like a prophet.
I'm convinced myself that the UK (or any member state, really) getting out of the EU is the right thing long-term. The "four freedoms" and schengen was good enough...but the federalization has brought nothing but crap, and an emerging new class of government better described as "neo-feudal" than anything else.
In the short term of course the EU will nail the UK to the wall any which way it can. as a warning unto others. As it will to any other presumptive secessionists.
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"His factual inaccuracy gained ground mainly because, after looking at the EU bureaucracy, those lies looked plausible enough"
More like because half the population gets their news from sources that outright lie to them and/or sold specifically so people could look at topless teenagers and play bingo rather than learn about the actual facts. That's why bendy bananas has become such a cliche - the EU rule was identical to the prior UK one, but the rabble were roused because they were lied to and were scared of kilograms. It was Little England, convinced that the EU were giving us nothing even though we had more concessions than anybody else, convinced that problems caused directly by the Uk government was the fault of the people helping us out.
There's problems with the EU, but the Brexit vote was predicated on apathy and lies about what those problems actually were.
"I'm convinced myself that the UK (or any member state, really) getting out of the EU is the right thing long-term."
I disagree, but that's too heavy a subject for this thread. Suffice to say, I don't see any real benefit - after a couple of decades we might get back what we had before the vote, but without the benefits of being part of a larger trading bloc.
I'll agree if I see the results, but the fiasco so far does not fill me with confidence. I will be happy to be proven wrong, but it's not looking good from where I sit.
"In the short term of course the EU will nail the UK to the wall any which way it can. as a warning unto others."
The UK have been screwing themselves without their help so far. Half the time after article 50 was invoked was wasted with Tory infighting and the EU going "erm, you have to tell us what you're actually asking for before we can negotiate it". Then they agreed to multiple extensions while the UK decided who was actually in charge and what they thought they actually voted for, and then they concentrated negotiation time on things they knew up front were non-negotiable.
The EU have to look after their own interests, but the majority of the problems with UK have had so far was nothing to do with them.
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"More like because half the population gets their news from sources that outright lie to them and/or sold specifically so people could look at topless teenagers and play bingo rather than learn about the actual facts."
Yes and no. The best political lie is always going to be mix of lies and truth carefully presented with a definitive aim in mind.
The EU bureaucracy is antidemocratic, self-serving, wasteful and corrupt...but the details in exactly how that pans out won't go over well with the crowd getting their news from the tabloids.
So he lied about a way the EU isn't screwing things up in order to pave himself a convenient road for a future career while relying on the fact that the EU does screw enough crap up to make his assertions plausible enough to the lazy sheeple.
"It was Little England, convinced that the EU were giving us nothing even though we had more concessions than anybody else..."
I'm not familiar with what exact the UK was offered but it's interesting to note that almost every EU member had to be heavily bribed to join. At some point there will be a few member states paying for the lot and that's not going to be sustainable.
"Suffice to say, I don't see any real benefit - after a couple of decades we might get back what we had before the vote, but without the benefits of being part of a larger trading bloc."
Similar questions have been raised every time a major empire was building itself and it's neighbors faced the choice of joining up or being forced to obey anyway. I'm guessing in the best possible future the EU collapses under the weight of corruption and ineptitude already evidenced in full. In the worst possible, and increasingly likely future member states will eventually have to fight their way to freedom by force of arms.
The four freedoms were a grand step towards peace. The federalization of europe nothing more than an invitation to place the next spate of pan-european wars at some undefined future date in the calendar. If the commission had been better populated from the start it could have panned out differently, but with the current setup the writing's already on the wall - it took the US several decades after the new deal to get to the same point of hopeless corruption and corporate rule that we've managed to get to within the last ten years.
And given that the democratic deficit is worse in the EU than in the US it'll be even harder to fix, notwithstanding that EU citizens are still more motivated to vote.
"The EU have to look after their own interests, but the majority of the problems with UK have had so far was nothing to do with them."
As you noted the UK parliament went at it like a bad session in the house of lords. It was a complete shit-show.
That said, even if the UK did get its shit together at this point you can rely on the EU to make an example. Whatever comes out of Brussels will be a punishment game meant to show every other potential secessionist, ten years down the line; "Behold the dissident! See him starving and in misery! Repent! Repent lest ye be condemned to suffer his fate! Glory to the New Holy Roman Empire!!".
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You see, half of things you say here aren't what I normally observe. In fact, they're the same sort of thing I hear from people who get fooled by the gutter press. I swear, if everyone who whined about the EU being "undemocratic" actually voted for their MEPs we'd be much better off, but most of them just ignore the European elections, then whine when the EU doesn't give them 100% control.
Similarly, if you know anything about the history of the EU and are unaware of the role the UK played in its early development and the ridiculous number of concessions that have been made to us over time, you probably are coming form a very different position of knowledge than I am. Which, sadly, is the same place so many Brexiters come from. Facts seem to get in the way sometimes.
"As you noted the UK parliament went at it like a bad session in the house of lords. It was a complete shit-show."
Yes, so why should the EU make any further concessions when everything from triggering article 50 to begging for extensions was purely the decision of the UK? At that point, the EU has way more responsibility to protecting its citizens still living in the UK than anything else. If someone says they're quitting their job, spends the next hour crying in the bathroom, then starts trying to demand taking office supplies and arguing over whose food they can take from the communal fridge, why is it the fault of the office manager for taking the decision to make sure the remaining staff aren't harmed in the tantrum?
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Noxious sentiment. Are lawyers the only ones entitled to the privilege of defending people accused of heinous acts without themselves being labelled as supporters of the heinous acts?
That's not to say I'm defending Trump in any capacity. I just loathe to see any kind of norm shit on just because someone unlikeable made use of it.
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Are lawyers the only ones entitled to the privilege of defending people accused of heinous acts without themselves being labelled as supporters of the heinous acts?
A lawyer's job involves defending their client to the best of their ability, and sometimes that includes defending those accused of or even guilty of some pretty heinous stuff. When it's your job to do something you get a bit more wiggle room to work with.
When it comes to a member of the public however it depends on how you go about it and what you're defending. If you're defending the person's rights then no, defending those isn't necessarily an indicator that you're defending the person, as the rights of the very worst person are the exact same rights that protect the very best, such that even if you don't care about the fairness angle simple self-interest more than covers that.
If you're defending the person however then you start to veer into questionable territory, as a person is defined by their actions and words, such that defending the person almost by necessity means defending what they have said and done unless you are very clear that you are only defending specific things that they have said and/or done.
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Are lawyers the only ones entitled to the privilege of defending people accused of heinous acts without themselves being labelled as supporters of the heinous acts?
You mean like when Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for defending someone accused of rape when she was a lawyer? I understand you're not defending Trump, but your "norm" of lawyers not being attacked for defending criminals seems a bit misguided.
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Speech has consequences. You should be prepared for being called a racist if you defend racists and the racist things they say/do instead of their civil rights. I wish the racist propaganda of the Ku Klux Klan would disappear from the planet forever, but my desire doesn’t (and shouldn’t) make their First Amendment rights go away.
And by the by, lawyers like the ones who defended convicted rapists Brock Turner and Bill Cosby likely end up being calling “rape supporters” and whatnot. That’s what happens when you defend men accused of rape and use some sort of rape apologia (e.g., “she didn’t mean it when she said ‘no’ ”) for that defense.
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Sure, he's 12 years old
But he certainly does an impressive Trump impersonation.
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Re: Sure, he's 12 years old
That's because Trump does such a good twelve-year-old impersonation.
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Re: Re: Sure, he's 12 years old
Finally, one of these trumpaloon cretins with a physical age that matches their mental age.
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Re: Re: Re: Sure, he's 12 years old
matches their mental age.
Oh, for a moment there I thought you were going to say "matches Trump's IQ"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Sure, he's 12 years old
Frankly, how do you even measure Trump's net IQ? When Trump enters a convention, the cumulative IQ in the room goes down.
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Re: Re: Re: Sure, he's 12 years old
Look on the bright side: it means this one has a chance to grow out of it.
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Re: Re: Sure, he's 12 years old
More like a four-year-old. Fortunately, most twelve-year-olds already have a more realistic insight into their own importance and capabilities and their capacity of development.
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"For a group prone to calling others "snowflakes," they sure seem to get their feelings hurt pretty quickly."
Trump is the whiniest little bitch god ever put on this planet.
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While I agree with the general sentiment, I think we could probably do without the misogynistic/homophobic slurs.
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Um. What?
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Seriously? You're going to ask me to explain the typical usage of the word "bitch" to you and why it's offensive?
Come on.
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Personally, I’m more confused about what in that would be considered “homophobic”. Although I’m not sure “bitch” is misogynist, per se (I’ve seen women use it plenty in the exact same way men do, including the relevant use), I get what you mean since it is most commonly used (as a noun) as a clearly derogatory and offensive slur against a woman/women, so I won’t quibble on that. However, I’m not sure how it’d be homophobic.
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"Trump is the whiniest little bitch god ever put on this planet."
Don't start. If Trump is evidence of the existence of higher powers then he is, in the same vein, also evidence that said higher powers are actively malicious.
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Re: bitches gonna bitch
Um, Miles: you might not have met TDs trolls before, but I have. Never mind those bitches.
For the record, bitch has many usages, and those provably most harmed by it are males who are raped in America's gulags that use rape as a tool of social (and discursive) control.
These males are called bitch, and frequently raped at rates that are astonishing (one statistic holds that 270,000 rapes are reported in US prisons every year; and that is just the REPORTED rapes in prisons.)
And so, this charge that the use of the term bitch is mysog...massage a....misnomerism...whatever is completely bullshit, because its just an outdated establishment dialectic suppression tactic.
And, we all know that rape now includes anything that can activate the online mobs of the Catholic church, or the International Justice Missionaries, and related crisis PR troll factories.
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Bitch is commonly used as an insult toward women; since the word also means “female dog”, the insult is that the woman being called a “bitch” is no better than a dog. (Incidentally, that would make “son of a bitch” a similarly sexist statement about someone’s mother.) Yes, men use it to needle other men about their own bravery/manliness, and yes, men in prison will use it as a reference to victims of sexual assault. But that still makes “bitch” a misogynistic insult because it is coded to a single gender; anyone called a “bitch” is inherently implied to be female, even if they’re a man.
Bastard, on the other hand, has no such connotations. It’s also a better insult because it implies the worst thing about someone is not their biological sex/gender identity, but rather the fact that they exist.
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Re: Re: bitches gonna bitch
"For the record, bitch has many usages, and those provably most harmed by it are males who are raped in America's gulags that use rape as a tool of social (and discursive) control."
No, seriously, ROGS...stating that bitch is ok terminology because there's a case for it harming males is as nonsensical as claiming that the racist derivative of the word "Negro" would be OK as long as someone started applying it to...say, white old men.
The first use of said word would be by a herd of closet racists walking around black people slinging the N-word around while sneering and then innocently claim that oh, they were really referring to their old white grandpappy at home.
There's no "dialectic suppression tactic" around that word except that it STILL, by definition, means that it indicates both that the person it's aimed at is a female dog and implies this is a really bad thing.
You don't get to say "hit like a girl" either unless you want some woman MMA fighter to take great exception.
But sure, you just keep right on trying to convert anyone who doesn't agree with your global conspiracy theory number 1 or 2 as a bona fide spin doctor. The rest of us will keep focusing our energy on the real, factual world and it's problems rather than your implied assumption that 99 out of a 100 people secretly work for the illuminati.
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Re: Re: Re: bitches gonna bitch
Technically, much like how “bitch” was first used to mean “female dog” (and still is sometimes), “nigger” originally referred to a kind of parasitic mite that would burrow into human skin. Still doesn’t change the offensiveness of the term now, although I will say that “bitch” does have some less female-centric meanings, namely when used as a verb. It’s still generally considered offensive, though.
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"“nigger” originally referred to a kind of parasitic mite that would burrow into human skin."
Hmm, the way i've read it the obvious etymological link is the word "negro" from spanish turning into its present slur by going through a few US southerners who felt pronouncing it with two g's was preferable.
Either way ROGS is still standing around, calling the objection to the use of outright misogynistic language as a dialectic suppression tactic which, argued by extension, makes every objection to ANY language likely to harm, marginalize or demonize any given minority easy to dismiss.
So once again he's building his arguments entirely around a logic usually applied by contemporary neo-nazis and bigots who need to somehow make certain types of words more acceptable. To me at least that still raises more than one rhetoric red flag.
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You would think people would understand that 'hurts my feelings' is not the same thing as 'defames me'.
He should be thankful.
The same legal theory that allows him to say these things without finding himself in front of a judge (whether or not he 'accidentally brutally stabs himself in the stomach while shaving notwithstanding;)) is the same theory that allows others to spout their opinions about his content with the same freedom.
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Re: accidentally brutally stabs himself in the stomach
while shaving https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6mJw50OdZ4
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Re:
The same legal theory that allows him to say these things without finding himself in front of a judge (whether or not he 'accidentally brutally stabs himself in the stomach while shaving notwithstanding;)) is the same theory that allows others to spout their opinions about his content with the same freedom.
And that is what makes him not just a hypocrite but a particularly stupid one, because by his own standards he would have been digging his own grave as people turned right around and sued him into the ground for what he'd said, and no amount of 'it was a joke'/'they had it coming' would have saved him.
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Keep in mind that, unlike a certain POTUS I could name, this 12-year-old is an actual 12-year-old. I don't know if you can sue minors for defamation or not, but if not, the kid's got a few more years of spouting bile before he is able to face any consequences of current gravedigging.
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Re: Re: Re: spouting bile
POTUS
SPOTU
SPOUT
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Legal consequences perhaps, assuming defamation can't be applied against those young enough, but social is another thing entirely, especially if he's going to be running around showing how much of a hypocrite he is in public.
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Curiosity
So help me to understand: Some nutty professor claims that a kid is supporting sexual abuse and raw racism? And he claimed that because the kid said that a woman was "hot?" Or is it because he supported a candidate that was falsely accused of hitting on girls a few years younger than him 30 years ago? Charges never proved, of course. So Professor Magoo claims that kid supports sexual abusers. Where did he do that? And where is the "raw" racism? Is that like half-cooked racism? Or baked racism?
The kid supported neither and those claims by Professor what's his name are libel. Period. Because the kid did an interview and made a few videos that means any dope can say any lie and not be sued within an inch of his bank account?
Wow, this is THE textbook case for changing libel laws. Unbelievable. You know why? If some conservative professor called Gretta T. a retarded nutcase who has blood dripping from her fangs, you would be supporting her libel suit whole heartedly.
That is the "tell." Justice for me,but not for thee. Libel laws need to be changed by statute. This is a travesty as it stands now.
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Re: Curiosity
Libel laws need to be changed by statute.
I guess Trump will get to it eventually.
I mean things take time. We're still waiting for him to lock up Hillary Clinton for fucks sake. And don't get me started on that check from Mexico for the big beautiful wall and my sooper-dooper Trumpcare.
Maybe you should tell Trump and the rest of the stooges who are tethered to his asshole that when you're running the show, bitching about things not getting done just shows how impotent you are.
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Re: Curiosity
You've already long proven that such a state is impossible for you, so why should we bother?
You're just going to ignore the truth like always.
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Re: Curiosity
If you really think that, you don't know TechDirt or the community of commenters here.
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No. Re-read the quote from the professor again:
He said that adult political activists (“the hard right”) are using the children in question as “feel-good” camouflage for positions that defend “raw racism and sexual abuse”. The Appeals Court agreed with that interpretation in its decision.
No. The conclusion was drawn from the way these children presented opinions based on existing right-leaning opinions (including defenses of the myriad misbehaviors of Donald Trump) and delivered softball, meant-to-disguise-bullshit interviews to far-right/right-leaning politicians and media personalities known for racist/sexist attitudes and actions (e.g., Roy Moore).
There’s a difference between “falsely accused” and “credibly accused but unable to prove”. Roy Moore fell into the second category because of numerous accusations of sexual misconduct with young girls that added up to something of a pattern of misbehavior but couldn’t be adequately proven in court even if the statute of limitations hadn’t run out. And the shitbirds at Project Veritas failed to drum up a false accusation against Moore, which means his supporters were more likely than his detractors to make false/less-than-credible accusations against him.
No, he didn’t, and insulting him by way of decades-old cartoon references won’t change that fact.
A trio of appellate judges disagree with both your interpretation of what he said and your characterization of your misinterpretation. Guess whose opinion carries the weight of the law.
Not really. Not only would that ridiculous statement be obviously hyperbolic (and provably false), it would also be as protected an opinion as a professor saying “these children are being used as camouflage for hard-right politics by adults”. The statement about Thunberg is odious and ignorant and clearly meant to entertain those who delight in such cruelty, but it’s still protected speech.
I bet you’re the kind of person who would love to “open up the libel laws” so that any kind of negative opinion about people whose politics align with yours would be “unprotected speech”.
“Free speech for me, but not for thee,” says the person who can dish it out but can’t take it without melting like a snowflake.
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Re: Curiosity
Wow, this is THE textbook case for changing libel laws.
You misrepresented the facts of the case, and you do not seem to understand libel laws.
If some conservative professor called Gretta T. a retarded nutcase who has blood dripping from her fangs, you would be supporting her libel suit whole heartedly.
Um. No? We have called out SLAPP suits that are aimed in both directions of the traditional political spectrum many times. What you describe would not even be remotely close to libel and would be an obvious SLAPP suit that we would speak out against.
That is the "tell."
Yes, that you have so little argument that you make up what you think we would say, which runs counter to historical evidence.
Libel laws need to be changed by statute.
The 1st Amendment might have a problem with that.
But, lemme guess, you believe that the 2nd Amendment is sacrosanct and any gun law violates it?
Congrats: you're ridiculous.
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Re: Curiosity
It's funny when people think saying "Period" after a statement makes the statement true.
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Isaiah Berlin, ritual defamation, and taboo
Positive v. Negative liberty
"Many people whom are critical of political correctness and the shaming, ostracism and character-assassination tactics of “Social Justice Warriors” frequently assert that these “SJWs” represent a threat to free speech.
SJWs respond by saying that freedom of speech is protection from the government punishing you for your speech, but it isn’t protection from social consequences for your speech....
But this argument is disingenuous at best, and represents a tactical shift in the definition of free speech and freedom generally....
....Legal protection of freedom of speech, such as the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, protects negative liberty of freedom of speech from being infringed upon by the government.
Other laws, such as prohibitions against violence and fraud and coercion, protect the negative liberty of freedom of speech from being infringed upon by other individuals, so long as these laws do not contain exceptions for “this other person said something I don’t like and therefore I decided to kill them” defenses.
But it is not invalid to talk about a positive liberty of freedom of speech either. Even if laws are taken out of the equation, when unspecified consequences are enshrined as acceptable responses to controversial ideas, this intimidates people from discussing or analysing these particular ideas.
Where economic harm or character assassination is considered an appropriate response to the violation of broad taboos, even if speech is legally free the marketplace of ideas is constrained.
Freedom of speech has always been conjoined with the notion of uninhibited debates over and discussions of ideas which are controversial and even hated."
https://libertyworks.org.au/freedom-of-speech-and-consequences/
Its ritual defamation, by any other name, and the citizens have no recourse in the courts.
These kids are not responsible by any legal doctrine, and its sad that some people find it OK to target children.
So, same goes in the case of Greta Thunberg: is she also somehow responsible for Holodmor and the Ukraine, any more than these kids are responsible for Nazification and fascism?
The problem is argumentation from the binary fallacy with no viable middle road, though the court got it right: "The court sums it all up by reminding the minor he entered the political arena."
I will keep this in mind during the next Greta meltdown.
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Re: Isaiah Berlin, ritual defamation, and taboo
That’s great and all, but it has nothing at all to do with the article. I don’t think anyone was saying anything about any of that.
Still, I’ll bite; what “Greta meltdown” are you talking about?
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Re: Re: Isaiah Berlin, ritual defamation, and taboo
"Still, I’ll bite; what “Greta meltdown” are you talking about?"
He's saying that in this this case the only defence he has is false equivalence.
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Yeah, right. Isaiah Berlin would love your rhetorical dishonesty. ANd, your obvious anti-democracy bulshit.
You are a classically dishonest, and against due process in any form kind of troll.
Like: That black kid looked at my white wife in a funny way=lynch that fucker, and let history sort it out, cuz Stephen T. Stone said "revolution!!"(from his IT department desk at a college known for less-than-honest- facts-and-tactics).
You fail at basic democracy, and even basic socialism.
Stephen T. Stone, Techdirt, fascist prepper.
There’s a difference between “falsely accused” and “credibly accused but unable to prove”
Please define credible within the law, or the constitution. Her word against HE? Just show me a fat Catholic girl that ever got married. There you will find your own argument above.
Tired, religious bullshit, from unaccountable women who one day play the whore, the next play the Virgin. You are pretty Catholic, but too stupid to know it.
Then, keep your #fakerape analysis in your moms bedroom where it belongs, Sonny boy because your binary disconnect is only useful to idiots.
Idiot.
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You need to calm down, then speak to a therapist about your obsession with me. Beyond that, alls I have to say to you is this:
LOL
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Re: in-house TD trolls v the actual "people"
Hey, hows all that pornography of yours working for keyword: Stephen T. Stone, pornography, Pornhub fan, Techdirt?
Luvin me freedom, far far away from wherever people like you are from.
But that doesn't mean I am not helping the DHS(as a true patriot) build a dossiere about you, based in your habits as a domestic terrorist prepper (based in your own words).
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You need to see a therapist about your obsession with a person you’ve never even met.
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Re:
Or... anything really. Even if he had 100% of everything correct and had the evidence to prove it, the way he opts to display it here ensures nobody would ever believe it.
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Re: Re:
"Even if he had 100% of everything correct and had the evidence to prove it, the way he opts to display it here ensures nobody would ever believe it."
Which is sad enough in itself. It's a sad fact that there are people around whose rhetoric is so toxic that even the most persecuted minority would hold up their hands and shout "Please don't be on my side anymore!!".
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Re: Re: in-house TD trolls v the actual "people"
Who cares?
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Re:
Again, please use “reply to this” when addressing a particular comment so we can easily refer back to the comment you’re quoting from.
There are a few other issues with what you said, but I want to specifically point out a couple, first with these quotes about Stephen T. Stone:
Now, it’s been well established that Stone is an atheist; he does not believe in the existence of any supernatural entity, supernatural phenomena, or life after death. As such, he is clearly not religious, and he is certainly not Catholic. The fact that you think someone can be Catholic and somehow not know it shows how little you know about Catholicism.
The other thing I wanted to address is that, as far as the law is concerned, at least, an accusation isn’t false if it hasn’t been adjudicated to be false or the person in question admits to it (or is clearly uncredible).
As far as credibility of these particular claims is concerned, we have multiple women who never met or knew about the other women who have independently made very similar accusations that are entirely consistent with each other and with what’s known to be true. We also have evidence that measures were taken well before these accusation were made public that suggest that he engaged in behavior consistent with the allegations (like closing the mall). As I recall, some also had corroborating witnesses. That all sounds pretty credible to me.
To be clear, neither Stone nor myself are saying that they are absolutely beyond a doubt true, nor are we saying that Roy Moore should be jailed or legally punished over these allegation until and unless they are proven in a court of law and he is convicted. However, that’s very different from social consequences, doesn’t make the allegations false, and is entirely irrelevant to whether or not anything mentioned is libel or not.
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Obsessive, flagging trolls, much like Wikipedia's in-house trolls.
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
TD should really look into this flag brigade, which operates exactly as how Aaron Swartz described Wikipedia's trolls.
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Re:
We are just responding to the obsessive moron who keeps personally attacking us, apparently so disconnected from reality that he hasn't realised that new posts on a thread generates email updates to previous posters.
If you don't like being flagged and responded to when you post such attacks, perhaps consider not doing so, and thus not prompting people to defend themselves?
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'Everyone I meet is an asshole... eh, must be them.'
You almost gotta laugh at the denial/dishonesty in play. 'I keep getting flagged, could it be because I post ranting, deranged comments that frequently include personal attacks against other posters? .... nah, it must be a coordinated effort to silence me because I'm just so right!'
I hope that they are just a troll really, because if not they've got enough mental issues that they would set a shrink up for life.
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Re: online bullying, techdirt, flag brigade, that one guy
Do you wish to comment on anything substantive, or just piling on in the personal attacks?
Aaron Swartz documented a similar mechanism over at Wikipedia. Care to comment about that?
You un-flaggable in-house trolls are a design feature, not a bug, of modern meta-narratives.
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Re: Re: online bullying, techdirt, flag brigade, that one guy
Some of those to whom you refer as “un-flaggable in-house trolls” have indeed been flagged, and some have even had at least one post of theirs hidden or get caught in the spam filter, so you’re completely wrong on that.
As for Aaron Swartz, in addition to being quite skeptical about that whole thing, that is not evidence that there are any in-house trolls here, or that any of the specific individuals you single out are such.
PaulT and That One Guy didn’t comment on anything substantive because there wasn’t much substance to your comment to address to begin with.
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To be fair, if they are a troll, they still have a number of mental issues which would require years’ worth of therapy to fix.
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Re:
As I often say in these threads - either he is a nutter who has the emotional capacity and intellect of an emotionally disturbed child, or he is a grown adult who things that playacting as such a person is a good use of his time. The latter is worse, since at least the former could get treatment if they so choose.
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Re: Re:
Both could technically get treatment so I'd put them equal on those grounds at least, though I'd agree that the later is worse because that one would be a choice. It's one thing to act in a deranged manner because your mind isn't quite working as you may want it to, another thing entirely to choose to act like that.
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Re: online bullying, techdirt, flag brigade
Oh, Look! None of those trolls just below my post here have any opinion at all about Aaron Swartz's primary source opinion about
Wikipedia's fake editing system, which is (coincidentally) full of trolls exactly like these below.
Big surprise there. The named trolls now appear, all at once.
Good thing CA has tough laws about that/s.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100319/0503118631.shtml
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Re: Re: online bullying, techdirt, flag brigade
"None of those trolls just below my post here have any opinion at all about Aaron Swartz's primary source opinion "
Because it has nothing to do with the actual subject of this thread, and has nothing to do with any other post made by anyone else here.
Do you have anything either on topic, or which refutes another claim here?
"The named trolls now appear, all at once."
Yes, the victims of your bullying bullshit do appear when you attack them. Stop doing that.
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Re: Re: online bullying, techdirt, flag brigade
No one has stated an opinion on the allegations regarding “Wikipedia’s [supposed] fake editing system” because it has nothing to do with us, the discussion prior to you bringing it up, this article, its author, this site, or the people running this site. It proves nothing related to any of that, either, even if the allegations are true. It’s a completely irrelevant non sequitur that’s not worth addressing here.
My initial reaction to the accusation is skepticism, but I’m not going to bother going any deeper here because (1) I don’t really care that much and (2) this isn’t the place to have that discussion.
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Re:
"Obsessive, flagging trolls..."
I'm not sure whether you're really that far into the rabbit hole...but has it occurred to you that some behavior on an online forum is simply so visibly appalling most readers just aren't disturbed enough not to reach for the flag button?
Your one-line ad homs, wordwall ad homs, and wordwall presentations of how "normal, yet shameful behavior by authority figure A and B" is really part of a sinister illuminati plot driven by the Israeli and propelled by the 99 out of a 100 people who are in on the evil scheme...THOSE don't require obsessions to flag. Not anymore than showing the screaming hysteric in your living room the door counts as obsessive.
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I am sure rational people who have been following along since around last year know who is doing the bullying.
Remember, this is demonstrative speech, combined with academic research, demonstrating how topics are rendered taboo, here at Techdirt and elsewhere.
No rational person would say I started anything. Only the named trolls and bullies, who are cited in the research as such.
And Aaron Swartz's excellent analysis of Wikipedia trolls has EVERYTHING to do with what the named trolls above are doing. Its a direct comparison.
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Please get help.
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Re:
PLease grow your foreskin back.
Oh, wait: grow a penis first.
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I’m not going to hatefuck you, son.
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Re:
Unless there is at least strong evidence of a direct connection between either the people running Wikipedia or the alleged “Wikipedia trolls” and either the people running TechDirt, any of the people or entities mentioned in the article, or the alleged “named trolls”, I’m afraid Aaron Swartz’s “excellent analysis” is completely irrelevant here. If you feel the need to have this discussion, either start your own subreddit or other forum on that topic or put it on one of the articles that don’t really have a particular topic, like the “This Week in Techdirt History” posts or the ads. Heck, do so on the posts that point out the funniest/most insightful comments of the week. At least then, relevance won’t be an issue.
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