Larry Schweikart: Democrats Push the Panic-Porn Button

DB Daily Update ^ | Larry Schweikart

[ArcadeQuarters]

> “I’ve been taking hydroxycholoroquine for two weeks,”

How is he still alive?! Doesn’t he know that it instantly kills anyone within 300 feet?

[Old Yeller]

Propoganda news every evening. That’s all they cover. Hysteria news.

[Texas Eagle]

I’ve yet to see Benito Coomo wear a mask. Or Wretched Whitmer, or Gavin Nuisance, or (insert name of demonicRAT command and control freak here).

[kosciusko51]

Courtesy ping

[brownsfan]

All of this lockdown nonsense has soured my view of my fellow citizens. A view that was already pretty sour.

This all makes sense and I am cautiously optimistic.

[CIB-173RDABN]

TDS may prove to be lethal to those on the left that can not separate their imaginary world from the real world.

November is going to be very interesting.

[Kharis13]

All of this lockdown nonsense has soured my view of my fellow citizens.

I feel the exact same way. It didn't help my outlook when I saw a headline this morning from MSNBC: "Americans are freedom-obsessed".

[Jet Jaguar]

Bump

[painter]

BUMP! For later.

[PGalt]

Thanks. HOORAY Larry! Optimism BUMP!

[lasereye]

who missed the Ron DeSantis/Rick Scott/Josh Hawley/Mike Braun elections in 2018.

The polls generally had Nelson and Gillum winning in FL, but IIRC the Hawley and Braun races were considered tossups or leaning GOP just before the election.

[laplata]

“All of this lockdown nonsense has soured my view of my fellow citizens. A view that was already pretty sour”.

That’s how I feel except I would say “many” of my fellow citizens.

Not all by any means.

[BipolarBob]

The PANdemic will turn into a DEMpanic.

[Hojczyk]

There will be no economy if they follow the CDC guidelines...

[Jeff Chandler]

♫ This is the dawning ♫
of the
Age of Hysterias

[Guenevere]

Their propaganda is so obvious it’s ridiculous.
He owns them!

[glennaro]

Many Americans are obsessed alright -- obsessed with the virus. It seems with every move many people make, the first thing and nearly every thing thereafter most people think about throughout each and every day is the virus. There are very few exceptions. Even sports, normally a welcomed diversion from everyday cares, is far, far less concerned with the competition than it is with "safety" about the virus. And the growing anti-social fads of mask-wearing and "distancing" serve not as protective measures but as incessant reminders of the fiction that we are all but one cough away from certain death

I'm just sick of the whole damn thing ... especially as I continue to see grown men -- dads and so-called leaders of men -- to be so frightened and so submissive toward what amounts to nothing more than a bunch of power-obsessed political hacks -- in front of their wives and children no less! It's disgraceful ... it's disgusting ... and it's pure cowardice.

Well, I may not capable of beating the guys and gals with the guns, but I am commmitted to disregarding -- outright ignoring everything and anything more to do with the Chines virus. That's it! I've had it! This soul-crushing lockdown of America should have ended a month ago after, according to "The Experts", this thing "peaked". Furthermore, I will continue to ignore anyone who wishes to speak to me who hides their identity behind a dehumanizing, totally ineffective and anti-social face covering ... Screw 'em!

President Trump, honor your oath to defend the Constitution and do your job to open up America and put an end to this sh*t ... Do it now!

[SaxxonWoods]

Panic-porn is even pushed here, which tells you how insidious it is.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

This would be the slam dunk of all time if libel law were enforced now as it was for all American time prior to 1964:

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 Court’s 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.”

That opinion didn’t 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 it’s true or not.

“Now the old libel law used to be (that) you’re responsible, you say something false that harms somebody’s reputation, we don’t 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, it’d 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, we’re 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 don’t think that’s a good idea anymore.’”

JUSTICE SCALIA: THE 45 WORDS — AND ORIGINAL MEANING — OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT

To understand why libel (and pornography) laws were untouched by the First Amendment, you have to understand the meaning, not of “is,” but of “the.” In both the First and Second Amendments, “the” has similar import. “The” RKBA was simply the right as it existed and was limited in 1788. It would strike anyone as ridiculous if I were to suggest that RKBA allows assault with a deadly weapon. Likewise “the” freedom of the press was freedom as it was enjoyed and as it was limited in 1788. You can’t legally threaten bodily harm with a deadly weapon, and you can’t legally assault someone’s reputation with a (reputationally) deadly weapon, either.

The right to physical safety and reputational safety are nowhere addressed explicitly in the Constitution, but the Ninth Amendment enshrines the Federalist position on the “enumeration” of rights:

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

That is, the first eight amendments make explicit rights which had historically been abused by tyrants, but “enumerating” them in a bill of rights was not actually necessary. The Ninth Amendment would have covered any one of them even had they not been enumerated. The fact that those first eight amendments were unnecessary in principle did not chance the fact that politically they were necessary - and psychologically they are an ornament. They do that very well, but the real lawyer work of common law is the nuts and bolts of liberty.

But notice

". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment” - New York Times Co. v. Sullivan decision, 1964

how easily the Warren Court was able to manipulate our love for freedom of expression to suppress our freedom from the tyranny of journalists united under the banner of the wire services.