4 ms·

On point #1, The operative word in that sentence was "excessive". $1.5B was excessive. On point #2. Your main point is that both sides act in bad faith equally

On point #1, The operative word in that sentence was "excessive". $1.5B was excessive. On point #2. Your main point is that both sides act in bad faith equally, and I disagree. Dems have been eating up CNN/MSM left-wing propaganda and brainwashing for over a decade and so now there's just no common ground between the two sides any longer.

shadowgovt 2y ago
One of the trials Jones faced in Texas was an appeal on whether the fine levied in Texas was excessive (worth noting: the $1.5 billion is a running tally, not a single ruling; his harm spread across multiple people in multiple jurisdictions, and his actions keep convincing separate courts with separate trials that punitive damages are warranted. Legal Eagle has more details on the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSm7sRx-0hA&list=PLzBQ6LRv475qCjs854LXbex_uocayyrNb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSm7sRx-0hA&list=PLzBQ6LRv47...). There was a law passed in 1995 by a Democratic majority to cap damages at $750k in Texas; the judge on appeal to Jones's Texas ruling found that the law was unconstitutional. On point 2, we will probably agree to disagree. If anything, I believe the GOP has taken the most steps to disrupt and destroy norms of legal practice and has opened the door to using the law as a tool for shaping society. The Trump administration, for example, tried to rig the census in 2020 (https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-trumps-census-surrender-such-humiliating-defeat-msna1251831 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-trumps-census-s...), an initiative that fell apart primarily because the daughter of a GOP political operative attained a hard drive of her father's that revealed that a citizenship question would bias the results, under-counting the population of areas with more (legal and non-legal) immigrants. It's actually quite hard to get the Executive's authority on the topic of census questions put under scrutiny, and the evidence in the email correspondence on the drive was so damning that it caused the census change to fail to pass a judicial challenge (essentially the only way for the Executive to fail to pass that bar is if they were lying about the justification, and... They were). What you may be observing is that both sides practice lawfare but one side seems consistently bad at it... Back on Jones: I don't know if $1.5 billion is fair. I do note that the Information Age gives people much larger megaphones to spread information much further than ever before. I don't think we fully comprehend the effect that has on society. In the short run, I don't consider the fact that if you say something so egregiously wrong that you hurt people in multiple jurisdictions, you could be on the hook for damages in multiple jurisdictions and that could result in a sum-total civil penalty larger than any individual jurisdiction would levy to be obviously wrong? Criminal law doesn't generally work that way (federal authority would subsume), but civil law is a different beast. On the plus side, this fate is eminently avoidable: don't maliciously push lies that hurt people in multiple states. I'm not sure you've recognized how egregious the lying was, how unapologetic he was about it, and how much that impacts a final court decision on one's fate (in general, not just if someone has an [R] after their name in a political census).
- quantadev 2y ago
  I disagree that Conservatives treat Democrats this badly. Democrats are the ones who literally invented `Cancel Culture`. Never in history have the two parties been more different.
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    Did they? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_comments_on_George_W._Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_comments_on_Georg... (Wikipedia suggests the term itself originates from black communities, which is not synonymous with Democrats. I think it's fair to assert the practice without the name is much older).
    - quantadev 2y ago
      Your history is off by about a decade. Cancel Culture was mostly a Social Media phenomena and could never have existed without Social Media.
      - shadowgovt 2y ago
        My point is I don't know how we differentiate between "Cancel culture" and "shunning" or "boycotts." The Dixie Chicks had their career derailed with only a nascent Internet in existence. It was never necessary for people to organize and decide collectively something needed to be shunned.
        quantadev 2y ago
        Webster's Dictionary can clear that up for you.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        I believe you were being flip here, but for what it's worth it did not. "Cancel culture refers to the mass withdrawal of support from public figures or celebrities who have done things that aren't socially accepted today." That's a pretty concise description of what happened to the Dixie Chicks after they criticized George W. Bush.

shadowgovt 2y ago

One of the trials Jones faced in Texas was an appeal on whether the fine levied in Texas was excessive (worth noting: the $1.5 billion is a running tally, not a single ruling; his harm spread across multiple people in multiple jurisdictions, and his actions keep convincing separate courts with separate trials that punitive damages are warranted. Legal Eagle has more details on the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSm7sRx-0hA&list=PLzBQ6LRv475qCjs854LXbex_uocayyrNb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSm7sRx-0hA&list=PLzBQ6LRv47...). There was a law passed in 1995 by a Democratic majority to cap damages at $750k in Texas; the judge on appeal to Jones's Texas ruling found that the law was unconstitutional. On point 2, we will probably agree to disagree. If anything, I believe the GOP has taken the most steps to disrupt and destroy norms of legal practice and has opened the door to using the law as a tool for shaping society. The Trump administration, for example, tried to rig the census in 2020 (https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-trumps-census-surrender-such-humiliating-defeat-msna1251831 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/why-trumps-census-s...), an initiative that fell apart primarily because the daughter of a GOP political operative attained a hard drive of her father's that revealed that a citizenship question would bias the results, under-counting the population of areas with more (legal and non-legal) immigrants. It's actually quite hard to get the Executive's authority on the topic of census questions put under scrutiny, and the evidence in the email correspondence on the drive was so damning that it caused the census change to fail to pass a judicial challenge (essentially the only way for the Executive to fail to pass that bar is if they were lying about the justification, and... They were). What you may be observing is that both sides practice lawfare but one side seems consistently bad at it... Back on Jones: I don't know if $1.5 billion is fair. I do note that the Information Age gives people much larger megaphones to spread information much further than ever before. I don't think we fully comprehend the effect that has on society. In the short run, I don't consider the fact that if you say something so egregiously wrong that you hurt people in multiple jurisdictions, you could be on the hook for damages in multiple jurisdictions and that could result in a sum-total civil penalty larger than any individual jurisdiction would levy to be obviously wrong? Criminal law doesn't generally work that way (federal authority would subsume), but civil law is a different beast. On the plus side, this fate is eminently avoidable: don't maliciously push lies that hurt people in multiple states. I'm not sure you've recognized how egregious the lying was, how unapologetic he was about it, and how much that impacts a final court decision on one's fate (in general, not just if someone has an [R] after their name in a political census).

quantadev 2y ago
I disagree that Conservatives treat Democrats this badly. Democrats are the ones who literally invented `Cancel Culture`. Never in history have the two parties been more different.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  Did they? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_comments_on_George_W._Bush https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_comments_on_Georg... (Wikipedia suggests the term itself originates from black communities, which is not synonymous with Democrats. I think it's fair to assert the practice without the name is much older).
  - quantadev 2y ago
    Your history is off by about a decade. Cancel Culture was mostly a Social Media phenomena and could never have existed without Social Media.
    - shadowgovt 2y ago
      My point is I don't know how we differentiate between "Cancel culture" and "shunning" or "boycotts." The Dixie Chicks had their career derailed with only a nascent Internet in existence. It was never necessary for people to organize and decide collectively something needed to be shunned.
      - quantadev 2y ago
        Webster's Dictionary can clear that up for you.
        shadowgovt 2y ago
        I believe you were being flip here, but for what it's worth it did not. "Cancel culture refers to the mass withdrawal of support from public figures or celebrities who have done things that aren't socially accepted today." That's a pretty concise description of what happened to the Dixie Chicks after they criticized George W. Bush.