{"id":326648,"date":"2022-11-26T21:30:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T02:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/?p=326648"},"modified":"2022-11-25T22:53:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T03:53:35","slug":"alex-jones-is-innocent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/2022\/11\/alex-jones-is-innocent\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Jones Is Innocent"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Walter Block, International Man<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let us stipulate that the horrid Newtown Connecticut shooting is a historical fact. Should Mr. Jones be compelled to pay one red cent to the parents and family members of the victims for denying this?<\/p>\n Well, lets see. I maintain that Barack Obama was actually our first president and George Washington in now the occupant of the White House. As I see things, Christopher Columbus discovered China in 1992 and Native Americans discovered Spain in 1492. I know you\u2019re surprised that these claims are contrary to what you learned in school, but I assure you, they are correct. Hey, I have a Ph.D. I\u2019m therefore a know-it-all.<\/p>\n TRUTH LIVES on at\u00a0https:\/\/sgtreport.tv\/<\/a><\/p>\n True, my advanced degree is not in history, but a Ph.D. is a Ph.D. I have also uncovered the fact that Hitler was actually a Martian who loved Jews, and Albert Schweizer was a mass murderer. I can\u2019t resist; I\u2019m on a roll here.\u00a0 Martin Luther King was a guard with New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (also a member of the Ku Klux Klan), and Woody Allen won an Olympic gold medal in boxing in the heavy weight division. I\u2019m having fun here; you\u2019re lucky I don\u2019t pile on any more, at least not for now.<\/p>\n Should I be made to pay, big bucks, for these nincompoop statements of mine? Let us say, at least arguendo, and quite possibly in reality, the feelings of many people were hurt by at least some of these frothings of the mouth of mine.<\/p>\n If hurt feelings justify punitive payments, then every movie or book reviewer who wrote critically of his subject is in trouble. Right now, sports writers are casting aspersions on the Los Angeles Lakers who are doing poorly, despite having two world class players on their team. This, despite the fact that they were widely expected to at least contend for the championship. You think the members of this team are happy with all this negative publicity? When a girl refuses a dance with a boy, she hurts his feelings; when he doesn\u2019t ask her in the first place, her feelings are hurt (whether or not she\u2019ll afterwards accept his invitation).<\/p>\n It is just plain silly to think it is justified to compel anyone to pay anyone else damages whenever the former hurts the feelings of the latter. Yet, what else it is it that Alex Jones has done other than denying a sad fact of history, to the consternation of a group of folks?<\/p>\n Suppose I was to deny that any mass shootings, ending in murders, ever took place in the entire history of the United States. That would not exactly make me very popular. In many European countries, and Canada as well, to deny or deprecate the severity of the Holocaust will earn you a spell in the pokey. Many people, not only of the Jewish faith, take great umbrage at such goings on. As a Jew, I can attest that many of my ancestors fell victim to these Nazi depredations. These deniers are hurtful to many. But should any of them be made to pay compensation to those who are offended, let alone be sent to prison? Of course not. Thankfully, no such law is now in force in the U.S.<\/p>\n If so, what would be the legal basis, the justification, for any such penalty? Hurt feelings simply will not suffice.<\/p>\n