Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars, was just ordered to pay $4.1 million to the victims of parents of the Sandy Hook shooting… for hurting their feelings.
Is there any free speech anymore?
That’s the question a lot of people asked themselves today when it was revealed that InfoWars’ Alex Jones was ordered to pay $4.1 million to the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy…
And some say he’s getting off LIGHT, because according to the AP, “The parents had sought at least $150 million in compensation for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
It’s important to note that Jones didn’t call out anybody by name…
When he made his wild claim that the shooting in Sandy Hook was a hoax – he didn’t single one individual out.
That’s not defamation.
So, if he didn’t defame anybody – that means the judgment must be based on the “intentional infliction of emotional distress”.
Or, in other words…
He hurt their feelings.
Do we not have a 1st Amendment that guarantees the right to say whatever we want – whenever we want – without fear of persecution of the US government?
“Oh.. but he wasn’t prosecuted by the US government. He was sued by other individual citizens.”
Yes, but the judgment was handed down by the US government…
And that is a scary precedence to set.
It means that even if you’ve never touched an individual or their property – or even MET said individuals – or even ADDRESSED them AS individuals…
They can take you to court and you can be forced by the US government to pay punitive damages.
Does that sound like freedom to you?
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” –
Harry S. Truman
