President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

This has nothing to do with Trump. The first amendment might as well not exist when they do this with our rights. All you have to do is say that something someone said, led to something bad. ... and you can turn A LOT of things people say into "crimes." ... This is how despotic governments suppress open exchange of ideas.

Put 10 idiots into a room who decide that something I said gives them license to go out and hurt others. ... and it shouldn't make me responsible for THEIR behavior. Punish the actual crimes, but don't do this.

The crimes here were committed by the people who assaulted others. ... not the douchebag they were all there to see. Just because a lot of us agree he's a douchebag, doesn't change the right to free speech.

Trump should be tried in the court of public opinion. As in, people should have been (and still should be) challenging him by asserting their own right to free speech. This kind of thing has no place in a court of law, though. It's sad that our constitution has lost its teeth to this degree.

 

My problem is the fact that we have actually screwed up our justice system to where a court actually lets something like this proceed. That in itself is theoretically chilling to free speech -- because now you can effectively try to shout people down if you don't like what they have to say with a threat of civil litigation that will cost them time and money. I know court cases like Schenck (and I was waiting for someone to trot out the tired "fire in a crowded theater" hting) have put limits on the first amendment. But this is a case in which you aren't even making a direct A to B assertion about Trump's speech causing some kind of harm. Now we have it being extended it to one step beyond the actual speech, as in, "He said something, that caused someone else to do something, that hurt someone else." I really think that you an use that kind of nebulous reasoning to make just about anyone criminally or civilly liable for anything you want to pin on them. It's ridiculous to me.