Trump would love to allow liable laws to be weakened so you can! Too bad it’d sue anyone that reports actual wrongdoing open to being sued by the koch brothers or whoeer has enough money to want to not have their name mentioned in a bad light even and especially if they deserve it.
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Have you read his novel, Torment Incorporated? It’s hilarious.
I swear to the constitution and the rule of law that this is one of the nicest compliments I have ever received! Especially since I strive to be a Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie style patriot… without the singing, because from me that wouldn’t sound pretty in the slightest.
Pete Seeger was of my parents’ generation. In our household, he was the example of what a patriot looks like. A man of the people. Someone who had suffered for his political views in the McCarthy years. A hero who had stayed true to his ideals. A person who felt connected to the worst off, who appreciated their culture and who worked for their aspirations. A quiet person who never boasted. A character who never bowed to fashion or the expectations of others. A singer happiest in a small circle of like souls. Someone whose life and songs celebrated the greatest of America’s democratic ideals: The ineffable value of the ordinary person.
Pete Seeger: American Patriot | HuffPost Entertainment
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What on earth does this have to do with libel?
Stolen sex tapes and revenge-outings are not in the public good. There’s no slippery slope because these are different acts.
You are right, they technically are different acts. But that isn’t it how they will be treated, even though they should be. Think about it this way, lets say you are a congressman who wants to make it easier for billionaires and millionaires to silence press freedom but you know that passing a piece of legislation that actually straight up says that will be impossible so what do you do? You point out the Gawker case and say you are just making it easier for people to defend themselves from tabloids and publications like Gawker that are assholes.
So lets say this piece of legislation really does make it easier to sue certain publications like Gawker or other tabloids for libel… but it also has made it easier to sue the New York Times for libel, or an individual reporter at the Guardian*. So instead of just allowing a harmed party to sue a publication that has say… outed them for being gay, or published a clip of a sex tape they were in, you also have allowed Donald Trump to sue the washington post for saying he isn’t worth as much as he says he is. Or for fact checking him. You have opened the floodgates.
*Not to mention that to bring a lawsuit for libel in the first place, even when it is deserved, you need to be very wealthy. If a news organization slanders me by… oh lets say they attribute false information to my name, accuse me of something I never did or could have done, if I am poor? I am fucked.
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This is already legal. This is setting no precedents that didn’t already exist. These are two different scenarios. Slippery slope fearmongering works better when one thing leads to excesses of the same thing, not when you’re tying to compare two unrelated actions.
The floodgates were already open, hence the shrugs over this particular case.
Besides, you’re not going to address any of this until you address money being speech.
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