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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 3534561 times)

EuchreJack

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49665 on: October 12, 2022, 11:43:33 pm »

"Bad facts make Bad law."

The problem is that our common law system builds future cases upon past cases. So by allowing the racial bias to be permitted in this case of a clearly guilty black man today, that racial bias can be used to convict a clearly innocent black man tomorrow.

Many of you clearly understand that, so this is mainly for those who don't.

Rolan7

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49666 on: October 13, 2022, 12:17:38 am »

"Bad facts make Bad law."

The problem is that our common law system builds future cases upon past cases. So by allowing the racial bias to be permitted in this case of a clearly guilty black man today, that racial bias can be used to convict a clearly innocent black man tomorrow.

Many of you clearly understand that, so this is mainly for those who don't.
This, exactly!

I don't think I can put it better.  It's an argument against vigilantism, essentially.  We can't override even one case on "common sense" because that leads to exploitation down the line.

Miranda was an awful person who deserved jail, and was dangerous to release, and yet Miranda Rights were a net benefit for our society.  (While they lasted).
Alex Jones has caused incalculable harm with his Covid lies alone, plus the stochastic terrorism, and finally the harassment he encouraged towards the Sandy Hook parents.  I think he's liable for the latter (and the legal system agrees) but I understand the value in allowing people, in general, to say really really REALLY stupid things.  Maybe, to some extent, it's even okay when it encourages people to do terrorism.

I half remember a quote, often used on my local college music radio:  "This [perversion?] is the price we pay for freedom [in our society?]!" (indicating with intonation that it's worth paying)
I still brook no tolerance for intolerance.  The individuals, generally rich capitalists, who promote prejudice must be resisted at any cost.  Because they seek to destroy the very freedoms I mean.

But I guess that means Alex Jones going bankrupt.  Little slap on the wrist for him, unlike the people in my life who had went through it.  We all have our support networks untouched by bankruptcy...  Somehow I doubt he's going to be like all the panhandlers I see ever day.  Why is that?
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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49667 on: October 13, 2022, 01:36:27 am »

@nenjin and @EuchreJack
I concede the point (or whatever the proper terminology is). Mostly, I wasn't able to see beyond what that guy did, but I understand that bit about how cases are decided based on the interpretation of laws in previous cases. It wasn't clicking that this case has joined that case history.
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Lord Shonus

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49668 on: October 13, 2022, 03:59:58 am »

Precedent is not a simple thing, and does not include every aspect of the case. Here, the circuit court decision (and remember that the SCOTUS decision creates no precedent) is fundamentally saying "the appeal fals apart before we get to he issue of racist jurors, so we're not addressing that". Somebody trying to cite this later in a similar case that doesn't have the clear-cut issues at a earlier level would have great difficulty using it to excuse similarly bad jurors. Also, citing it at all outside of the Fifth District would be useless, because court precedent is only binding on that court's subordinate courts.


A SCOTUS decision would be binding nationally, but that isn't what we have. A denial of writ is fundamentally "we do not believe that this case has errors in procedure, defective law, or constitutional questions that compel us to hear it, so we will not do so". It isn't "Texas is correct", it is "we aren't going to check Texas's work".


EDIT: Forgot to comment on the Alex Jones thing

While punitive damages are often shaved by appellate courts, usually in regard to how disproportionate they are to the compensatory damages, it is much harder and rarer for a appeals court to reduce compensatory damages. The basis for this is that punitive damages are vindictive "Make it hurt" punishment, while compensatory damages are supposed to be "this is the cash value equal to the harm the defendant has done to the plantiff", and reducing that requires strong proof that the jury was wrong. This is important because that billion dollar verdict is compensatory. Punitive damages haven't been decided yet.

Meanwhile, it is very rare for a bankruptcy court to discharge debt caused by intentional tortious action. Costs caused by negligence or error can be discharged, but not those relating to stuff you did in full knowledge of what you were doing. It is possible for a bankruptcy court to fudge this if they really like you, except Jones has already appeared on film soliciting donations with a promise that the plaintiffs won't be getting a cent from him. This is the sort of thing that makes bankruptcy courts feel anger.

In short, Alex Jones is fucked.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2022, 04:12:15 am by Lord Shonus »
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49669 on: October 13, 2022, 06:38:17 am »

I'm of two minds here:

As a society we should be putting a stop to profiting off hate and scare mongering and calling people names.

However, $1B is not compensatory damages for "8 families and 1 first responder": $1B is the economic output of 400 people for their entire life!  Given two wrongs don't make a right - I don't feel good about the mis-labeling of the award simply to get around the appeals angle.  I understand why it was done, but I don't feel good about it...I'd rather there was a better way.

It speaks to my sadness of the growing trend to "it's ok to 'stick it to the rich and powerful, because they are rich and powerful" - it de-humanizes those people (as heinous as they may be), which puts us as no better than them... just with fewer resources.  It's not ok to "stick it to" anyone...
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Lord Shonus

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49670 on: October 13, 2022, 07:18:48 am »

The standard is "the value of being made whole" - the point where "defendant's action + money" is equivalent to "no action + no money". This is seriously flawed, because there's no amount of money that can really compensate for being told your murdered child didn't actually exist and was a paid actor. Not to mention the massive harassment campaign Jones orchestrated. Still, it is impossible to make Jones unsay those things or retroactively not set up the harassment campaign, so money is really the best the system can give them. The staggering amount of money is because Jones inflicted an absolutely staggering amount of harm. It is quite a bit higher than you would normally get in a wrongful death suit, but that's fairly reasonable - you can only kill somebody once, he kept this up continuously for most of a decade.
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49671 on: October 13, 2022, 07:42:42 am »

Right that's the point though - make the argument as "we want to punish him" not "this is the amount harm done" - because, as you said, harm cannot be measured that way.

I guess I'm being overly pedantic here - mostly coming from "mean what you say, and say what you mean" which is different from "use words to make people feel a certain way, regardless of what those words really mean" which is the modus operandi of basically everything these days... too much "feeling" versus "reality."
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Il Palazzo

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49672 on: October 13, 2022, 08:08:21 am »

Somewhat tangentially to that topic - I'm always mystified by the process that awards, say, 36 million to one victim, but 34 to another, and 27 to yet another. Like, it gives an appearance that the harm is precisely quantifiable, and this family was hurt exactly 1/15th more than the other, etc. How do they do it? Do they have a checklist to go over?
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Lord Shonus

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49673 on: October 13, 2022, 08:50:48 am »

Probably has to do with how much each specific plaintiff's kid was targeted by Jones. Some got plastered on Infowars more than others.
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Grim Portent

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49674 on: October 13, 2022, 10:16:25 am »

Some were also hounded more by his followers, recieved more death threats and so on.
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Rolan7

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49675 on: October 13, 2022, 10:31:33 am »

I'm of two minds here:

As a society we should be putting a stop to profiting off hate and scare mongering and calling people names.

However, $1B is not compensatory damages for "8 families and 1 first responder": $1B is the economic output of 400 people for their entire life!  Given two wrongs don't make a right - I don't feel good about the mis-labeling of the award simply to get around the appeals angle.  I understand why it was done, but I don't feel good about it...I'd rather there was a better way.

It speaks to my sadness of the growing trend to "it's ok to 'stick it to the rich and powerful, because they are rich and powerful" - it de-humanizes those people (as heinous as they may be), which puts us as no better than them... just with fewer resources.  It's not ok to "stick it to" anyone...
Exactly, it's not compensatory damages.  It's punitive.  The idea is to charge a value that will stop Alex Jones (and other rich fucks!) from deliberately harming people in this way.  A big part of the case has been establishing how much money Jones made from his deliberate lies, but ultimately that's irrelevant...  Punitive damages would still be necessary if he spread these lies pro-bono, or squandered the monetization.

It's like the infamous McDonalds coffee incident.  The idea wasn't to make the victim whole, it was to charge McD's enough money that they (and other corporations) would stop deliberately harming people.  They had a policy that they knew was hurting people, but saved them money.  They wagered that no one would successfully sue them over something so "trivial", and they did pervert justice after the trial by making the woman into a laughingstock in the public eye.  But they stopped scalding people for money, and other chains knew that they would receive equal or *worse* punitive damages if they tried that same shit again.

We might be in a situation where any amount of punitive damage isn't going to stop Alex Jones from harming these families in the future, but at least it can unravel the media operation he uses.  He's never ONCE going to go hungry but at least he won't have his own show.

This is the *nice* way to handle him.  Normally someone so harmful and unrepentant would incarcerated or executed to protect society.  Instead he gets to declare bankruptcy and retire happy, continuing to sell his sob story with Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson and whoever else.  That's the price we pay for freedom- if he got what he deserves, we'd live in a much worse society.

I know it's trendy to hate the people who own our mass media and politicians, and hold them responsible for our situation.  I don't see a problem with that.  They never face real consequences anyway.  None of those vampires is ever going to be poor, just have a smaller multiplier on their "more money than one person could ever legitimately earn or need".  If we went by "eye for an eye" for deliberate harm, every one of these ghouls would be DEAD several times over... but it's better for society if we just ding their bank accounts (the ones we can even find).
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Lord Shonus

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49676 on: October 13, 2022, 10:33:37 am »

Compensatory and punitive damages are different things, legally. You can argue that punishment is the intent, but legally this is compensatory. Which is much harder to wriggle out of.
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Vector

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49677 on: October 13, 2022, 11:49:26 am »

It speaks to my sadness of the growing trend to "it's ok to 'stick it to the rich and powerful, because they are rich and powerful" - it de-humanizes those people (as heinous as they may be), which puts us as no better than them... just with fewer resources.  It's not ok to "stick it to" anyone...

When a person, despite your attempts to deter them and deescalate, and despite concrete, material evidence they are doing harm, examines your suffering and decides to become wealthy from it, that person has stepped over a line.

Recognizing this by no means dehumanizes the person who looked at their options and decided that what they wanted today was to wring you for all the grief in your body.
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dragdeler

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49678 on: October 13, 2022, 12:32:41 pm »

m.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2022, 10:59:39 am by dragdeler »
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EuchreJack

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #49679 on: October 14, 2022, 12:13:12 am »

I predict the Alex Jones cases will only make the hatemongers smarter. They'll hide the money better so they can perfect and do more hate-mongering.

As for Alex himself, he has probably earned himself the sort of cash and services that will keep him from experiencing true poverty. His insight is probably considered valuable enough that he won't just be abandoned, but will probably be an advisor and/or spokesman for the next generation of hatemongers.

Hopefully, someone can find some criminal charges with which to threaten Mr. Jones. That is the only real deterrent for him personally.  This would require Texas to decide they're done with his bullshit. It's not as unlikely as it might initially seem: Bad press can get old.
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