[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I looked forward to my 20th FREEPERversary in February of last year - then when it came, I realized that the congratulations did not belong to me but to Jim Robinson and FR for being the go-to place for sanity in an insane political world.

FR was my lifeline when I was minding my Mother who, fading away with Alzheimer’s, mostly just sat around.

Speaking of insanity, IMHO it always existed in politics but really received license from the government in 1964 when the Warren Court unanimously(!) held in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that

". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”

That position is simultaneously both impossible to argue with, and indefensible.

Who doesn’t love himself some freedom of the press???
Mark Steyn is an exemplar of a public figure who would defend Sullivan.
Rush Limbaugh, ditto.

And yet Sullivan is in fact directly in conflict with

Amendment 9

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

. . . which says that if the Constitution doesn’t explicitly "deny or disparage” a right which existed in 1788, all the handwaving in the world cannot suffice to vindicate an argument against that right.

And the right of people - “public figures” or no - to sue for libel certainly did exist in 1788. As Antonin Scalia put it in a 2016 speech,

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 don’t think that’s a good idea anymore.’”

Think what would happen to “the media” if Sullivan were overturned!
Republican politicians (and Justice Kavanaugh, BTW), would positively own them.

And

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Exodus 20:16

rightly so.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

MSM can put over hoaxes. E.g. Trump says drink bleach. Trump said Charlottesville skinheads were nice people.

They could report that Biden won the election.

Eventually the 1964 New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision must be challenged and overturned. Just like pornography law, libel law was never understood to be affected by the First Amendment until 1964. Pornography law is still on the books, and libel law legitimately should be also.

The reason is simple: the Federalists had much bigger fish to fry - getting consensus support for the new constitution - than trying to change libel law or any other right of the people or the states via the Bill of Rights. Deliberately assaying to change a right was the furthest thing from their minds, and no court questioned that until the Warren Court’s Sullivan decision. The First Amendment doesn’t say anything about libel, and it doesn’t legitimately mean anything about libel.

Mark Levin had President Trump on his TV show a few weeks ago, and both of them agreed that Sullivan has to go.