What if there was a coup to overthrow the President and the media was behind it?
There is! Traitors are the disease! The firing squad is the cure!
What if there was a coup to overthrow the President and the media was behind it?As for the media- theyre simply a**holes. This is the biggest story arguably in the history of the country and no one other than Fox has the slightest interest in it.One wonders if theyll cover the coming indictments.
. . . and what if a Warren Court decision enabled the media do do it?The Morrison v. Olson decision is now considered bad law, which is useless to cite as a precedent. And yet, but for Antonin Scalia, Morrison would have been a unanimous decision. Scalia wasnt on the bench in 1964 when Justice Brennen, writing for a unanimous Warren Court, said that the First Amendment implies that public figures generally couldnt sue for libel. Justice Scalia explained why that is wrong.
Scalia argued his view on textualism was the ultimate defense of the First Amendment. In March 2012, an Associated Press report said he told an audience at Wesleyan University that the Courts early justices would be astonished that the notion of the Constitution changes to mean whatever each successive generation would like it to mean. In fact, it would be not much use to have a First Amendment, for example, if the freedom of speech included only what some future generation wanted it to include. That would guarantee nothing at all.Justice Scalia explained thatThat opinion didnt prevent Scalia from harsh criticism of what is widely viewed as one of the essential court rulings protecting free speech and a free press the 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
At the Newseum in the Aspen Institute 2011 Washington Ideas Forum, Scalia said the landmark ruling meant you can libel public figures without liability so long as you are relying on some statement from a reliable source, whether its true or not.
Now the old libel law used to be (that) youre responsible, you say something false that harms somebodys reputation, we dont care if it was told to you by nine bishops, you are liable, Scalia said. New York Times v. Sullivan just cast that aside because the Court thought in modern society, itd be a good idea if the press could say a lot of stuff about public figures without having to worry. And that may be correct, that may be right, but if it was right it should have been adopted by the people. It should have been debated in the New York Legislature and the New York Legislature could have said, Yes, were going to change our libel law.
But in Times v. Sullivan, Scalia said the Supreme Court, under Justice Earl Warren, simply decided, Yes, it used to be that George Washington could sue somebody that libeled him, but we dont think thats a good idea anymore.
JUSTICE SCALIA: THE 45 WORDS AND ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT
- the ninth and tenth amendments codify the position of the Federalists that a bill of rights was not without its problems - it would be impossible to codify all our rights, and would work mischief if some were enumerated, and others were not. Those amendments basically say that the Constitution is explicit in its grants of authority to Congress and the president, and the Constitution does not otherwise change any rights at all.
- The Second Amendment is explicit in referring to the right of the people as something the Constitution does not, and actually could not, affect. But the same is true of 1A, in the sense that it refers to "the freedom . . . of the press. The point is that freedom of the press already existed, but that freedom was limited. And one of the limits on freedom of the press was the right to recompense if libeled - and the intent of neither 1A nor any other part of the Bill of Rights was to change any - repeat, any - right.
- Remember, the Constitution was on probation as long as the promised bill of rights was not delivered - states could have seceded very easily if a whiff of bad faith were detected. In that context you as a Federalist are very careful not to compromise anyones rights. Scalia concludes that Brennans - the Warren Courts - claim that 1a required some change in someones rights was wrong.
In my quote from the link, I highlighted "a reliable source which Sulivan allows reporters to rely on as defense from an accusation of libel. Who would be a reliable source? Who else but the Associated Press? But the AP wire is a virtual meeting of all major news outlets - and as Adam Smith pointed out, People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. The wire services have created a conspiracy against the public which has been in effect since memory of living man runneth not to the contrary. That conspiracy promotes its own influence and denigrates the competence of society:
The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. ― Alexander Hamilton