Posted on 02/29/2016 6:58:09 AM PST by LouD
Donald Trump’s distinctive rhetorical style — think of a drunk with a bullhorn reading aloud James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake under water — poses an almost insuperable challenge to people whose painful duty is to try to extract clarity from his effusions. For example, last week, during a long stream of semi-consciousness in Fort Worth, this man who as president would nominate members of the federal judiciary vowed to “open up” libel laws to make it easier to sue — to intimidate and punish — people who write “negative” things. Well. Trump, the thin-skinned tough guy, resembles a campus crybaby who has wandered out of his “safe space.”
Trump is a presidential aspirant who would flunk an eighth-grade civics exam. More than anything Marco Rubio said about Trump in Houston, it was Rubio’s laughter at Trump that galled the perhaps bogus billionaire. Like all bullies, Trump is a coward, and like all those who feel the need to boast about being strong and tough, he is neither....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Meanwhile - I’ve been a FReeper since 2000, and I am now getting a message saying my comments and posts are being submitted for review, and when I tried to FReepmail the Admin Mods, I am told that “my account is too new to use that feature.
All anti-Trump dissent must apparently be suppressed.
Who is “we?” Fake conservatives, who stood opposed to the Tea Party? People who think Planned Parenthood is “terrific?” Who reject the invisible hand of the marketplace for the controlling hand and unbridled hubris of the state? People who are so afraid of freedom they will run into the arms of a wanna-be demagogue?
Our establishment pukes so richly deserve the same treatment, but they will just whine, and grumble, and write nasty screeds forever.
Parasitic sub-humans like George Will could die screaming in flames, and I would not care a bit.
That is a recent and very unfortunate path Britain has taken. The laws about accountability of the press is neither recent, nor unfortunate and one is not an outgrowth of the other.
I find it interesting that “principled conservatives” have nothing much to show for the last thirty years.
Based on what?
“I noticed that George Will is comparing Trump to Huey Long. Good luck with that. There may be 12 people in the country, not in academia, who would understand the reference.”
And at least seven of them like Huey Long.
I think it would help Cruz supporters ALOT if they stopped the name calling of Trump supporters!!!
Scalia October 11, 2011 on New York Times vs. Sullivan USSC decision in 1964:
“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 continued. “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 the living constitutionalists on the Supreme Court, the Warren Court, 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 any more.’”
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/justice-scalia-reflections-on-new-york-times-v-sullivan
You are correct.
NOT one smear posting about Trump has been cut from this website. You all have had free reign to be as intellectually dishonest and childish as you have wanted for months.
What will get cut is the same couple of Freepers posting the same set of stories about Trump over and over and over.
Odd how Cruz supporters seem to feel the rules need not apply to their conduct.
Find it odd that the “Principled Conservatives” now have adopted the same political tactics of smear, claim victim-hood and plant rumors that Conservatives have spent the last 40 year fighting tooth and nail against.
Its never too early to gloat. :-)
Elected officials. What are you smoking? It would be like any other libel case, a court. If the media wanted they could police it themselves by creating standards for reporting and then there would be no need. You seem to feel that any requirement that facts reported are true leads to censorship. I beg to differ.
For the record, I want the Government out of everything possible. National defense and treaties, they retain the powers delineated in the constitution. That is not an overnight “wave a wand” situation and Trump’s stated objectives will move us in the right direction.
Blind faith? I don't think so. However, look at the frantic Cruz supporters who have nothing to hang their hat on except platitudes and words uttered by their candidate. Cruz needs more experience in governing and in life to prove himself.
Now you’re veering off in a whole new direction. My issue is the idea of the government deciding what is responsible reporting and what isn’t.
Just about everything you said I agree with when it comes to the press. They are part of the problem. They are part of the reason why there’s a Trump. They have soiled themselves horribly. And the bright spot is the public knows this. Look at their ratings. Look at their subscription levels. They’re dying. They either have to adapt or die. And we have an abundant supply of info that we can get to go around them. But the idea of the state deciding what is responsible reporting or not scares me and should everyone. Again, it sounds good now because it Trump saying that about the liberal press who is regarded as the enemy by us conservatives. But what happens when Trump leaves office. If I can find it, there’s a link that someone posted of a conservative web site in Canada that was force to shut down because of libel laws. Would Free republic have the resources to fight, let’s say, Harry Reid if something was posted here that he thought was a lie a bout him.
I’ll decide for my self what’s responsible reporting
Odd how the “Principled Conservatives” cannot figure out that is one of the reasons we are “angry”,
thanks.
You said...
“Elected officials. What are you smoking? It would be like any other libel case, a court.”
We already have laws against libel. Who would bring the libel case to court? The elected official, of course
You said...
“You seem to feel that any requirement that facts reported are true leads to censorship.”
It could. But indirectly so. Again, the threat of suing can be enough to silence someone. Read the history of the Fairness Doctrine. It was used to silence opposing “irresponsible” views.Not directly. But indirectly.
And fact have become a fluid term. What’s one person’s facts is another man’s fiction.
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