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Let's not discuss "proper processes" when Jones illegally hid evidence and refused to participate in our legal system to the point of getting a default judgemen

by munk-a 2y ago

Let's not discuss "proper processes" when Jones illegally hid evidence and refused to participate in our legal system to the point of getting a default judgement against him. Everything he was accused of he did - he refused the right to participate in our justice system and accepted full liability for his actions. On the point of "any award in the billions (much less trillions, as they initially demanded) is exorbitant for mere defamation" this is a pretty clear misunderstanding of our legal system as it is today. Initial claims are a mere formality that do nothing but potentially limit damages - the judgements rendered against Jones were 965M in the Connecticut case and 50M in the Texas case - no other numbers are relevant. Finally, referring to 1.015B as "Billions" feels rather dishonest - the total award is technically above a billion but the families will see nothing near that amount in the final resolution.

wakawaka28 2y ago
[flagged]
- munk-a 2y ago
  It's perfectly fair to stop but I did want to highlight one thing: > It's not a mere technical distinction. The fact that the number is so high essentially guarantees that AJ cannot pay it. A lower amount might have actually been paid. What can we make of this? The intent was not to get restitution, but rather to destroy the business. That seems unethical. There is actually an important reason to secure an absurdly high judgement - some of the creditors involved in this situation are Jones parents (and I believe some affiliate companies also hold some of the debt). The judgement will be divided proportionally by debt so the size of the judgement will impact how much money from the bankruptcy sale Jones' parents will receive. I also think it's fair to view this case through the lens of ongoing damages - Jones has received C&Ds about Sandyhook and ignored them - even during the trial he continued to cause additional damages. There was every indication (to me at least) that if the business survived the damages would continue and the only way to reasonably make the other parties whole was to destroy the business. I understand this may feel like unnecessary censorship but the path to this point was AJ repeatedly ignoring the justice system saying "Stop doing that" and his response to the process up to this point hasn't been to act in good faith.
- mapt 2y ago
  Since when does this "Ability to pay" metric have anything to do with "Damages"? A judgement is what happens when the parties fail to come to any agreement about a settlement; A settlement would be where you'd figure in realistic actual compensation odds. Also: "Destroying a business" and "unethical"? Businesses are artificial constructs we create and protect only for the social benefit they bring; They have inferior ethical status to human being in terms of accountability, behavioral psychology, and the sheer intangibility of meaningfully "harming" a business. We should be employing meaningfully large civil judgements against businesses far more often, because our criminal laws being difficult to apply at corporate scale so often fail to deter criminal wrongdoing which the justice system would otherwise throw the book at a biological human for. Steal one person's house out from under them using fraud and we throw you in prison for 10 years. Do it with 100,000 houses from beneath the corporate veil, and we bail you out for your losses from having to relinquish the mortgage. If not sizable fines, we should be employing "The Death Penalty", and simply revoking their corporate charter and seizing all their assets in a blanket action, when they do abhorrent things. Because, and I can't stress this enough - they aren't people, they're potentially dangerous, amoral / psychopathic algorithms which will only comply with rules to the extent that rules will be enforced in a way that destroys shareholder value.
- motorest 2y ago
  > Ok then, the lawsuit was settled with an absurdly large judgement. Nobody thinks he has this money. The judgement was derived from the absurdly large damages he was proven to have caused to his victims. If he has no money to compensate the victims of his actions for the absurdly large damage he caused then this means he's bound to declare bankruptcy. > I think it's relevant as to the intent, which is to get a ridiculous sum rather than simply a reasonable one. The intent is to ensure that people like Alex Jones cannot cause damages to innocent third-parties. The intent is to bring down legal consequences that match the damages caused to others in order to hold him accountable for his actions. Think: if you are going to constrain damages to your cash grab perspective, you'd be ensuring that those well off would be free to cause damages to everyone around them provided the are not as rich so that worst case scenario they would pay a symbolic fine and change nothing in their antisocial behavior. Do you think this makes sense?
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >The judgement was derived from the absurdly large damages he was proven to have caused to his victims. Obviously the amount of damages is entirely subjective. AJ said mean and inaccurate things on his podcast or something and that's about the extent of what happened. No person or thing was physically harmed because of this. There was no doubt some stress involved in being the subject of his podcast, but how much is that worth? There are people who literally get killed or maimed and their families don't get anywhere near this kind of settlement. >The intent is to ensure that people like Alex Jones cannot cause damages to innocent third-parties. The intent is to bring down legal consequences that match the damages caused to others in order to hold him accountable for his actions. Think: if you are going to constrain damages to your cash grab perspective, you'd be ensuring that those well off would be free to cause damages to everyone around them provided the are not as rich so that worst case scenario they would pay a symbolic fine and change nothing in their antisocial behavior. Do you think this makes sense? The emotional damages caused to others here are unfortunate but not worth a billion dollars (at least from where I'm sitting). You don't have to go to such extremes to discourage someone rich from doing bad things. It could have been a more reasonable number that can actually be paid over a reasonable amount of time. Making those payments would remind the offender to be more careful.
- triceratops 2y ago
  > The intent was not to get restitution, but rather to destroy the business. That seems unethical Sometimes destruction of the business is restitution. Nothing unethical about that. Someone saying publicly that you faked your child's death is an unforgivable insult. Money is beside the point here.
  - petsfed 2y ago
    And its not simply that he accused some parents of faking their children's deaths. He also specifically instructed his listeners to rise up and "find out the truth". And he did so repeatedly to an audience he knew to be heavily armed, and prone to violent performances of their beliefs. And he did so after being ordered, repeatedly, to stop saying such things, and to retract his statements. But he persisted, arguably because he wanted the revenue he received from having that audience. Now, most of these parents have dealt with consistent harassment of varying severity revolving around their dead kids for longer than the children have been alive in the first place. Many of these parents never even got the chance to grieve in peace before the harassment, stalking, assault and attempted murder (not sure what else a drive-by-shooting qualifies as) began. Certainly, if any of these nutters continued to harass the parents after Jones issued a retraction, that's entirely on the nutter. But the thing about our legal definition of slander/libel is that it does take into account what happens when third parties hear and act on the slander/libel. Like, if I accuse somebody of pedophilia, and somebody else, of their own accord, murders the person I accused, the murder is considered in determining what the legal remedies are against me, even as the murderer is on the hook for the murder as such.

by munk-a 2y ago

wakawaka28 2y ago

[flagged]

munk-a 2y ago
It's perfectly fair to stop but I did want to highlight one thing: > It's not a mere technical distinction. The fact that the number is so high essentially guarantees that AJ cannot pay it. A lower amount might have actually been paid. What can we make of this? The intent was not to get restitution, but rather to destroy the business. That seems unethical. There is actually an important reason to secure an absurdly high judgement - some of the creditors involved in this situation are Jones parents (and I believe some affiliate companies also hold some of the debt). The judgement will be divided proportionally by debt so the size of the judgement will impact how much money from the bankruptcy sale Jones' parents will receive. I also think it's fair to view this case through the lens of ongoing damages - Jones has received C&Ds about Sandyhook and ignored them - even during the trial he continued to cause additional damages. There was every indication (to me at least) that if the business survived the damages would continue and the only way to reasonably make the other parties whole was to destroy the business. I understand this may feel like unnecessary censorship but the path to this point was AJ repeatedly ignoring the justice system saying "Stop doing that" and his response to the process up to this point hasn't been to act in good faith.
mapt 2y ago
Since when does this "Ability to pay" metric have anything to do with "Damages"? A judgement is what happens when the parties fail to come to any agreement about a settlement; A settlement would be where you'd figure in realistic actual compensation odds. Also: "Destroying a business" and "unethical"? Businesses are artificial constructs we create and protect only for the social benefit they bring; They have inferior ethical status to human being in terms of accountability, behavioral psychology, and the sheer intangibility of meaningfully "harming" a business. We should be employing meaningfully large civil judgements against businesses far more often, because our criminal laws being difficult to apply at corporate scale so often fail to deter criminal wrongdoing which the justice system would otherwise throw the book at a biological human for. Steal one person's house out from under them using fraud and we throw you in prison for 10 years. Do it with 100,000 houses from beneath the corporate veil, and we bail you out for your losses from having to relinquish the mortgage. If not sizable fines, we should be employing "The Death Penalty", and simply revoking their corporate charter and seizing all their assets in a blanket action, when they do abhorrent things. Because, and I can't stress this enough - they aren't people, they're potentially dangerous, amoral / psychopathic algorithms which will only comply with rules to the extent that rules will be enforced in a way that destroys shareholder value.
motorest 2y ago
> Ok then, the lawsuit was settled with an absurdly large judgement. Nobody thinks he has this money. The judgement was derived from the absurdly large damages he was proven to have caused to his victims. If he has no money to compensate the victims of his actions for the absurdly large damage he caused then this means he's bound to declare bankruptcy. > I think it's relevant as to the intent, which is to get a ridiculous sum rather than simply a reasonable one. The intent is to ensure that people like Alex Jones cannot cause damages to innocent third-parties. The intent is to bring down legal consequences that match the damages caused to others in order to hold him accountable for his actions. Think: if you are going to constrain damages to your cash grab perspective, you'd be ensuring that those well off would be free to cause damages to everyone around them provided the are not as rich so that worst case scenario they would pay a symbolic fine and change nothing in their antisocial behavior. Do you think this makes sense?
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  >The judgement was derived from the absurdly large damages he was proven to have caused to his victims. Obviously the amount of damages is entirely subjective. AJ said mean and inaccurate things on his podcast or something and that's about the extent of what happened. No person or thing was physically harmed because of this. There was no doubt some stress involved in being the subject of his podcast, but how much is that worth? There are people who literally get killed or maimed and their families don't get anywhere near this kind of settlement. >The intent is to ensure that people like Alex Jones cannot cause damages to innocent third-parties. The intent is to bring down legal consequences that match the damages caused to others in order to hold him accountable for his actions. Think: if you are going to constrain damages to your cash grab perspective, you'd be ensuring that those well off would be free to cause damages to everyone around them provided the are not as rich so that worst case scenario they would pay a symbolic fine and change nothing in their antisocial behavior. Do you think this makes sense? The emotional damages caused to others here are unfortunate but not worth a billion dollars (at least from where I'm sitting). You don't have to go to such extremes to discourage someone rich from doing bad things. It could have been a more reasonable number that can actually be paid over a reasonable amount of time. Making those payments would remind the offender to be more careful.
triceratops 2y ago
> The intent was not to get restitution, but rather to destroy the business. That seems unethical Sometimes destruction of the business is restitution. Nothing unethical about that. Someone saying publicly that you faked your child's death is an unforgivable insult. Money is beside the point here.
- petsfed 2y ago
  And its not simply that he accused some parents of faking their children's deaths. He also specifically instructed his listeners to rise up and "find out the truth". And he did so repeatedly to an audience he knew to be heavily armed, and prone to violent performances of their beliefs. And he did so after being ordered, repeatedly, to stop saying such things, and to retract his statements. But he persisted, arguably because he wanted the revenue he received from having that audience. Now, most of these parents have dealt with consistent harassment of varying severity revolving around their dead kids for longer than the children have been alive in the first place. Many of these parents never even got the chance to grieve in peace before the harassment, stalking, assault and attempted murder (not sure what else a drive-by-shooting qualifies as) began. Certainly, if any of these nutters continued to harass the parents after Jones issued a retraction, that's entirely on the nutter. But the thing about our legal definition of slander/libel is that it does take into account what happens when third parties hear and act on the slander/libel. Like, if I accuse somebody of pedophilia, and somebody else, of their own accord, murders the person I accused, the murder is considered in determining what the legal remedies are against me, even as the murderer is on the hook for the murder as such.