Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, has been the subject of a shocking level of personal attacks and conspiracy theories. The latest such example involves a site called Project Constitution, which posted an allegation (with a recording of the purported voice of Erika Kirk) that she helped recruit underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein. It is untrue, but other posters soon spread the viral claim.
As a public figure, Kirk has a higher burden in bringing defamation claims. There are also free speech protections for the statement of opinions, even unhinged opinions. However, some of these attacks appear to cross the line.
The most recent posting declared that it had acquired a “bombshell” audio file and “verified its authenticity.” It then affirms that “The voice is undeniably Erika Kirk’s. There is no mistaking it. And what she says on that call is absolutely damning.”
The posting maintains that this is a “statement of fact” and “It’s not a rumor. It’s not a theory. This is a HUGE story. This is the confirmation we’ve all been waiting for.”
Yet, these sensational claims were followed by a disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This post is my personal opinion and interpretation of publicly available materials. All claims regarding the identity of voices in the provided audio are based on my own research and belief. This post should be viewed as investigative commentary and not as an absolute statement of fact.
The community note flags the original posting as false, stating, “That’s not Erika Kirk recruiting a young girl. It’s a controlled taped phone call circa 2005 to Haley Robson (a known Epstein recruiter) from Palm Beach PD, the child on the line (known as SG) was attempting to get Robson to incriminate herself.”
As a threshold matter, I commend these companies for the use of community notes. Many of us in the free speech community have long argued that defamation and public corrections can counter false claims and disinformation without the use of the prior censorship system under the Biden Administration.
It is unclear who is responsible for this posting. If you clicked on the link to the Project Constitution, you ended up on a page showing a pig in a police uniform.
I could find no information on who is responsible for the site or the postings. (The site has also linked bizarre conspiracy theories that Kirk is transsexual). The site, however, has also posted pictures of an ailing father and seeks donations.
When I started writing this column, the site was still up. Now you find this announcement:
However, there is still an X site featuring a picture of Charlie Kirk with a pitch for “tips”:
X reports that the verified account was created in 2022.
After various sites disproved the allegations, the creator (again without identifying himself or herself) issued an apology:
“CORRECTION: I would like to issue a correction regarding my previous post where I claimed the audio featured Erika Kirk. Upon further verification, the individual in the recording is actually Haley Robson, as detailed in the Palm Beach Police Department’s probable cause affidavit related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Here you can find the documents tht [sic] PROVE this: dn790006.ca.archive.org/0/items/Jeffre I apologize for the misinformation and any confusion this may have caused. Accuracy is important, and I am committed to upholding it in future posts. Thank you for your understanding.”
The claim that “Accuracy is important, and I am committed to upholding it in future posts” belies the fact that it is entirely unknown who the “I” is.
Making matters more difficult is the fact that there are other sites called Project Constitution that have no connection to the site attacking Kirk. The difficulty tracking the site or its creators shows the practical challenges in bringing lawsuits. It is possible for sites to spring up and then disappear like hit-and-run defamation cases.
Past courts have allowed litigants to discover the financial and identifying information from carriers or service providers in civil lawsuits.
If a site identifies its content generators, the legal system can address any defamatory content. However, absent such public information, the sites can offer public figures little recourse.
The controversy shows the dilemma for public figures like Kirk.
Kirk’s Case
While the correction can protect publishers under retraction statutes from some damages, there is a credible basis for possible defamation or false light claims. The original disclaimer’s language itself is in sharp contrast to the gotcha claims above it. Moreover, it contains some ambiguity in still claiming that this is the result of investigative journalism. The later apology seeks to resolve that ambiguity.
On the original posting, courts have routinely rejected perfunctory claims of “in my opinion” or disclaimers when the thrust of the publication is clearly factual. For example, in Wilkow v. Forbes, Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote a “statement of fact is not shielded from an action for defamation by being prefaced with the words ‘in my opinion,’ but if it is plain that the speaker is expressing a subjective view, an interpretation, a theory, conjecture, or surmise, rather than claiming to be in possession of objectively verifiable facts, the statement is not actionable.”
Kirk would have to shoulder the higher “actual malice” standard for public figures established by the Supreme Court. Accordingly, she must show that these sites had actual knowledge of the falsity of the statement or showed reckless disregard for the truth. At a minimum, the latter standard would appear to be satisfied in this case. There is no evidence that the site took steps to confirm that this voice had previously been identified as Kirk’s, let alone to establish that “The voice is undeniably Erika Kirk’s.”
As for false light, a person can sue when a publication or image implies something that is both highly offensive and untrue. Where defamation deals with false statements, false light deals with false implications.
The standard California jury instruction asks the jury if “the false light created by the disclosure would be highly offensive to a reasonable person in [name of plaintiff]’s position” and whether “there is clear and convincing evidence that [the defendant] knew the disclosure would create a false impression … or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.”
There is no reason for Erica Kirk to have to tolerate despicable attacks by sites looking for clickbait windfalls. Moreover, it is important for social media companies to require authenticated individuals to be responsible for such postings. Project Constitution can always argue “truth” as a defense, but it should be called to defend this outrageous posting.
Is it time to Change the Public Figure Doctrine?
The Kirk controversy also raises a long-standing question of why public figures should be subject to the higher standard for defamation. I have previously written about the need, in my view, for the Supreme Court to reconsider its prior opinions treating public figures like public officials.
Justice William Brennan wrote an eloquent and profound decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, holding public officials to the higher standard of actual malice.
News outlets were being targeted at the time by anti-segregation figures in lawsuits to deter them from covering the civil rights marches. The court correctly saw civil liability as creating a chilling effect on the free press either by draining the publications of funds or inducing a type of self-censorship. Through this higher standard for proof of defamation, Brennan sought to give the free press “breathing space” to carry out its key function in our system.
The court believed that public officials have ample means to rebut false statements, but that it’s essential for democracy for voters and reporters to be able to challenge government officials. Later, the Court then extended that actual malice standard to public figures, arguing that they (like public officials) hold powerful positions in our society and choose their lives of high visibility.
Two justices have expressed an interest in revisiting New York Times v. Sullivan. Justice Clarence Thomas has been a long critic of the standard as unsupported in either the text or the history of the Constitution. Thomas and Justice Neil Gorsuch objected to the denial of certiorari in Berisha v. Lawson, in which author Guy Lawson published a book detailing the “true story” of three Miami youngsters who allegedly became international arms dealers.
For over three decades, I have struggled in class to offer the same compelling rationale for applying the standard to anyone who is considered a public figure. It takes very little to qualify as a public figure, or a “limited-purpose public figure.” However, why should private success alone expose someone like the Kardashians to a higher burden of proof for defamation?
Writing about hot-dog-eating champion Michelle Lesco does not protect core democratic principles or even support core journalistic principles. To succeed, a Kardashian would still have to prove that a statement was false and unreasonable to print. Moreover, publications are protected in most states by retraction statutes limiting or blocking damages for corrected stories. Finally, opinion is already protected from defamation actions.
Kirk is a great example of the unfairness of the doctrine. Simply because she has chosen to take up the cause of her slain husband should not mean that she should be required to shoulder a higher burden than other citizens in defending her reputation. The doctrine fosters the view that celebrities are fair game for attacks and that they are not like other people in the protection of their reputations.
It is not clear that Kirk will sue any of the sites spreading this false story, but such a case could offer important legal and practical benefits in the area of defamation law.
The problem i have with your assessment is that you mentioned a fake audio call and basically left it at that. There is a massive amount of factual information that has been unearthed regarding Erika Kirk and it has discredited her tremendously. She has told lie after lie about her past, her past relationships, her faith, etc. Her mother’s background is even more outrageous. None of that can be disputed because its coming straight from Erika’s own mouth or from public records. The theory that she was a honeypot is very plausible. Her connections to Romania and her work in NYC providing housing to Eastern European models.. possibly to the home of You-Know-Who’s brother. Add to it the massive direction change of Turning Point USA since she took over – going in a direction that Charlie was opposed too.. inviting his enemies to take part. Yeah this doesn’t look good at all.
A fake audio recording would appear to be a planted combo-breaker… something designed for those influencers that want to defend Erika and allow them to go back on the offensive. Its a common counter-intelligence tactic. I never heard of this Project Constitution outfit.. but what happened REEKS of counter intelligence. “Russia hacked the DNC” Ignore the massive story unfolding and focus on some red herring. Erika is a victim.
Trump was the peace candidate and he lied. As Joe Kent said, Israel got us into this war, and the weak and ineffective Trump fell for it.
I renounce any further support for Trump. The midterms will be a mess and he will rightfully be impeached. This time nobody will bail him out. He has alienated his base. He will only have the warmongers and Israel sycophants to save him. Those are 2 powerful factions (maybe the same faction actually) but it won’t be enough . He will be removed in disgrace. Republicans will lose the next election too and the mistake of being a warmonger and shill for Israel will not be repeated.
I’m just wondering what is a “war of aggression” if not this
Sal Sar
PS as for Israel its only hope now is get rid of Netanyahu fast. He is destroying the country. Do it for all our safety before the maniac exercises the “Sampson option”
Saloth Sar is the name of the Cambodian leader, Pol Pot, a mass murderer. How can anyone look at you and believe anything you say?
“As Joe Kent said . . .”
Which Joe Kent?
The one who quit because he was and is under investigation for leaking classified documents? Or the Joe Kent who said for six years that Iran is a threat to the U.S.?
Since 2015, the IAEA stated that its ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear program is severely limited, making it impossible to guarantee that all nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.
If we want to be fair, I think we should follow woke’s perspective on IRAN. Simply, they do not lie. They do not deceive. They have the best intentions for the U.S.A. and Israel. They have done nothing but promote world peace. If they promise, swear to Allah and hope to die, they are not developing a thermonuclear bomb, we have no reason to doubt them.
Also, no one would consider selling them a ready to use 20 megaton weapon for 100 billion dollars. Mr. O’Donnell, let’s be clear: No one, certainly no nation, could be tempted by that kind of cash. I know his hair and skin color create quite an attraction for you, but let it go bro, you are not his type.
One might wonder why a normal person would try to ruin the life of a grieving widow of a young husband who has just been assassinated. The answer is that these are not normal people. I suspect that they are “trans people”. “Trans people” are male homosexuals who suffer from self-loathing and try to hurt anyone who does not praise, flatter or comfort them. It is not true that most male homosexuals fall into this category, but many do. We have seen their proclivity for shooting seemingly innocent people as way of getting back at someone or something.
Laken Riley proved how deeply compassionate they are.
OT
“I’ll always be grateful for President Bush for appointing me… but [a justice’s] responsibility goes beyond expressing gratitude or offering any favor to an appointing president.”
“The notion that we carry forward the views of the people who appointed us is absurd.”
“The idea that I’m carrying out his agenda somehow is absurd.”
– John Roberts
__________________
Absolutely, you do not carry forward the views of George Bush.
You carry forward the views of Karl Marx.
NY Times published an advertisement and was 4,800 dollars. Truth in advertisement is covered by FTC laws. The ad was riddled with lies.
Did police suffer harm? Go for a conviction under FTC first. It’s an actual crime isn’t it?
^^^ correction the cost was 4,800 dollars.
The ad is in the appendix of SCOTUS opinion. It has many names assigned to it such as MLK, Harry Bellefonte, Marlon Brando etc approx 64 names some or all said they didn’t sign it. It’s asking for money and has a cut-out donation form. It’s pretty cool from 1960. Antique memorabilia…
The Commitee warrants an FTC investigation as fraud in advertisement laws AND asking for money. I’ll gotten gains …
Go for that…1960 revisited.
^^^ ill gotten gains
FTC rules
It’s notch up for receiving money.
NY Times allowing false ads? They’d expect a slap maybe. Very odd that speech was defined in that case isn’t it?
FTC rules^^^ ☺
Title 16 CFR ^^^ Begin there with the Committee, then move to NY Times when you have the beef. NY Times did publish it. It needn’t be defamation as false light suffices.
Sounds like a quash in high places? Sure, proceed Ms Kirk. Wouldn’t it be swell if everyone had the same wallet when truth is in jeopardy and freedom.
Meanwhile, Lawrence O’Donnell perfectly encapsulated two of the latest Trump lies–that he’s “not afraid of anything” and that he always knew that his choice of counterterrorism head, Joe Kent, was “weak”, despite showering him with praise when he nominated him:
““Those are his exact words, ‘not afraid of anything,’” the MS NOW host said. “The man who has spent years afraid of the Epstein files and is still blocking the full release of the complete Epstein files. The man who wears silly hats because he’s afraid his hair might be blown out of place.”
“The man who’s afraid of letting anyone see his natural skin color or his college transcript or his SAT scores,” O’Donnell continued, adding: “The man who was very, very afraid of being drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War.”
He marveled at the notion that Trump now claims to be fearless and at how “perfect” it is for a question about Vietnam to prompt this lie — as Trump’s father reportedly helped him avoid the 1968 draft by having a doctor diagnose him with bone spurs.
O’Donnell noted that this same man is now sending Americans into war. The conflict has already killed at least 13 U.S. service members and more than 1,400 Iranians and led National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent to resign in protest.
Kent wrote in his resignation letter Tuesday that he “cannot in good conscience” support the war, as Iran “posed no imminent threat” to the U.S. and the war was launched “due to pressure from Israel.” Trump later said he “always” felt the combat veteran was “weak.”
O’Donnell exposed that lie just as swiftly by showing viewers a screenshot of Trump showering Kent with unbridled praise on social media after nominating him to his now-former position.”
Then, there’s the flip-flopping on EU and NATO allies and whether he wants or needs their help (they have mine sweeping ships nearby; Trumpy Bear decommissioned 4 of our mine sweepers before he decided to attack Iran). First, Trump said our allies owed the US help to clear the Strait of Hormuz and he would be getting agreements from them; after they turned him down, he declared that we don’t need their help and “never did”.
Why did the National Organization for Women and Mz.’s takeover PMSNBC to be “fundamentally transformed” into MZ NOW?
Was there a bankruptcy or a default or a D I V O R C E?
Perhaps a case of decompensating TDS?
Lawrence O’Donnell, “STOP THE HAMMERING” at 2:00
ANON’S source of “NEWS” is Lawrence O’Donnell ?? ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha STOPM THE HAMMERING!!
Lawrence O’Donnell is the stupidest man on TV. No wonder Gigi the lunatic believes him.
O’Donnell is one of the smartest men on TV.
He has degree in economics from Harvard, and was chief legislative aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan for many years.
He was also the Staff Director of the Senate Finance committee while Moynihan chaired the senate finance committee.
O’Donnell was in charge of a team of tax lawyers who wrote tax law and finance legislation. The politicians are not involved in the nitty gritty of writing legislation. The staff people do that.
O’Donnell has forgotten more about how the government works and how legislation is written , than you will ever know.
So, Staff Ostiary O’Donnell? So stipulated.
“The politicians are not involved in the nitty gritty of writing legislation.”
– Nutchachacha
We always wondered just what the —- ever happened to America.
Ya know, we are fully aware that:
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it — away from the fog of the controversy.”
– Nancy Pelosi
So smart that he doesn’t know he has TDS????
What did O’Donnell get wrong? Trump has hidden his SAT scores and college transcripts, threatening his schools if they somehow got released. He did fake bone spurs to dodge the draft. He does wear stupid hats to protect his pompadour and constantly lies. He is also doing everything possible to prevent full release of the Epstein files.
Trump IS a coward.
Yeah, Trump’s college transcripts compared to Obama’s are……oh, never mind!
Obongo’s transcripts are right here:
The Law of Nations, Natural Born Citizen, Vattel, 1758.
Obongo was ineligible.
When it comes to religious zealots who vow “Death to America” and commit more of their economic priorities to nuclear weapons than to an adequate water supply, do you really want to wait until a nuclear attack on the U.S. is “imminent”? That would be too late. That would be irresponsible to let happen.
While I salute Mr. Kent’s service to our country, I completely miss the logic in only going to war where a devastating attack is “imminent”. We have to take into account motive and means. The motive has been “death to America” for 47 years. And the means have been developing, and being conducted in secret, it’s impossible to know how close. If Iran had allowed unfettered IAEA inspections, we would know how close.
I favor the approach Israel and the US are taking…to finally cut off the head of the snake. Yes, it’s a complex undertaking, and the outcome is never certain, but we can accomplish long-term peace and therefore should pay the price at this point. The price will always go up if we kick the can down the road.
. . . do you really want to wait until a nuclear attack on the U.S. is “imminent”?
That’s exactly what Gigi wants. In fact, she wants to wait until after the US has been attacked with nukes, since she views such an attack as a positive good, as (in her view) America is evil.
They finally found the WMDs. They weren’t in Iraq. They were in Iran.
President Trump just found them.
Not to worry; he’s taking care of them as we write.
MAGA blindness to reality is breathtaking. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran was not working on an atomic bomb. They had been inspecting the facility.
Trump said last June that Iran’s nuclear program was “totally and completely obliterated.” If that’s true, they couldn’t have been close to nuking us. Iran’s deal with Obama allowed inspections, and then Trump tore it up. The Iranians were willing to reinstate inspections and were actively pursuing an agreement to avoid any conflict when Israel got Trump to start bombing Iran even while negotiations were ongoing. That’s bad faith— didn’t the Japanese do something very similar? Weren’t Japanese representatives meeting with FDR when the planes took off to start bombing Pearl Harbor?
Netanyahu sees the handwriting on the wall—- Republicans are going to get trounced in November. They had to get the bombing started before Congress could stop Trump. They convinced Trump that a sudden, heavy, multi-pronged attack on Iran and killing their supreme leader would bring swift success— and that killing the supreme leader would allow protesters to take over the government. Trump also thought that starting a war would divert attention away from the Epstein scandal and if there was quick success, it would help his dismissal poll numbers. He was wrong on all counts. Based on Joe Kent’s comments, we know that Trump lied about there being an “imminent threat”.
Trump obviously didn’t think about Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz —-much less how that would affect the global economy. He lifted sanctions against Russia, and Russia is actually helping Iran kill our people. Russia is making billions every day.
This entire fiasco Trump started is based on a lie and Netanyahu played Trump for the fool he is. Taxpayers lose billions every day fighting Israel’s war, we’ve lost at least 13 servicemen and women, gas prices are soaring, the cost of food is rising and there’s no end in sight. There’s no exit strategy.
And, you are really naive if you think that what Trump has done will result in lasting peace—-they hate us more than ever. We blew up a school full of little girls and our president lied by blaming the Iranians.
Note also that our allies aren’t going to rescue us either— who can blame them? First there’s the tariffs, the accusations that other countries are ripping us off, then the lying about Iran being an imminent threat and then we attacked Iran without consulting our allies and while there were active negotiations that were making progress. No one trusts us anymore and who can blame them?
“they hate us more than ever.”
You are right. They hate us even more because we so easily destroyed their present offensive position.
They wanted to kill us 47 years ago. Are you worried about being killed twice?
You really shouldn’t base your belief that we “destroyed their offensive position” based on anything that came from the Trump administration. Even most MAGA supporters are slowly awakening to the simple fact that Trump and his administration constantly lie, especially about things that make him look bad. He always has to be “right”. That’s why he can’t let his 2020 election loss go. He said that Iran was on the verge of nuking us and that the Iranians bombed their own school. He’s never going to back down from these lies. And, the rest of the world knows he’s a liar.
Iran has allies, too— and they hate us too. Iran was trying to work with us when Israel got Trump to bomb them and kill their leaders. There was not an impasse. It reeks of bad faith and it’s not going over well any place other than Israel, UAE and Saudi Arabia. They own Trump. The rest of the world knows that, too.
It was the Israeli air force that killed the Iranian leaders. The rest of your comments are also wrong.
3 time trump voter here. he lied. this war sickens me. read what joe kent wrote. it says it all
Sir do you believe the fraudulent PR that the Iranian regime is actually unpopular? that is a evidently a CIA fiction contrived to fool Trump into thinking this would be a cake walk.
however unpopular the mullahs were in some circles– bombing them probably united support and extinguished opposition via that natural process of rallying around the flag which happens everywhered
same mistake vietnam, iraq, afghanistan, why?
because it was always a lie contrived by CIA to justify actions taken totally independently of whatever the “domestic support” really was
Korea too. I’ll say this. Kim Il Sung was a war hero who fought the Japs– Syngman Rhee was a collaborator. If you know Koreans in Korean, they will admit it’s true.
Ho Chi Minh was another war hero. if they had a real election in Vietnam, he would have been a shoo-in. Not just up north but in the south too. The whole RVN was fake from the start
War with Russia or China is far more imminent – why not nuke Beijing and Moscow right this minute? Fire every nuke in the arsenal against every major city and port of both countries and take them out now? In fact, every nation on this Earth might one day mount an attack on the US. Perhaps obliterating all other people outside of the US make sense under this “why wait” philosophy.
Hoover warned RFK that JFK better break off his affair with Judith Exner. Her cash payments to and from Jack to her other boyfriend, Sam “Flood”, would destroy the President if he decided to leak the story.
Once the account of Teddy killing Mary Jo Kopechne was twisted and long buried, the press lowered him down to his grave as a King.
Teddy didn’t “kill” Mary Jo Kopechne. He didn’t promptly take steps to try to save her because he was drunk when the car they were riding in plunged off of a bridge. He wouldn’t have plunged off of the bridge but for taking a wrong turn and ending up on an unfamiliar dirt road with a one lane wooden bridge without any guard rails. He didn’t report the accident immediately. He admitted that these things were wrong, and he pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, but he certainly did not “kill her. He received a suspended sentence and his driver’s license was suspended for a period of time. A grand jury was convened but declined to indict him on any criminal charges.
“[A] limited Constitution…can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing…To deny this would be to affirm…that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
OT
Comrade General Secretary and Dear Leader of the Omnipotent Black-Robed Juristocracy, Chief Big Wampum Justice John Roberts Usurps the King’s Power, Giving Orders to the President and the Nation.
“The problem sometimes is that the criticism can move from a focus on legal analysis to personalities. Judges around the country work very hard to get it right. And if they don’t, their opinions are subject to criticism. But personally directed hostility is dangerous and it’s got to stop.”
– John Roberts, 3/17/26
Chief King has gotten a little bit Big For His Britches.
What should be criticized is the fact that judges and justices have “interpreted” or unconstitutionally amended the Constitution into the Communist Manifesto when they are sworn to support that fundamental law.
As a reasonable test, Mr. Chief Justice, please provide a citation to the Constitution wherein Social Security and Medicare, and the entire communist American welfare state, enjoy a legal basis or are otherwise authorized.
Chief Justice, you can’t even see the forest for the trees.
Alternatively, you actually do, and it is your intent to destroy once-free America.
“Judges around the country work very hard to get it right.”
– Chief John Roberts
________________________
Judges have worked hard from the outset to support Karl Marx rather than the Constitution.
As supported by the judicial branch, the communist American welfare state is legislated to formally persist under Marx’s maxim: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
In the toxic atmosphere of today, things are better left alone. The worst part is They don’t let you walk away.
Henry David Thoreau – Walden (circa 1854)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden
” I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.” —Henry David Thoreau – Walden ~ Chap19
—
This is good reading for All (applicable today):
ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (scroll down page below)
Thoreau, Henry David. “Walden, and on the Duty of Civil Disobedience”. Gutenberg. Retrieved May 3, 2014.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm#chap19
Ref.:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm#linkCONC
Defamation is speech that shall not be abridged by Congress, nor shall its freedom be denied by states.
The 1st Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
The 14th Amendment Due Process Clause states, “…nor shall any State deprive any person of…liberty….”
That “liberty” includes the freedom of speech, which includes defamation, and the Supreme Court has no power to modify or amend that portion of the Constitution, which is irrefutable.
From a strict textualist standpoint, the logic is airtight:
– The Command: The Fourteenth Amendment states verbatim: “nor shall any State deprive any person of… liberty.”
– The Definition: “Liberty” encompasses the freedom of speech, as speech is a fundamental exercise of human liberty.
– The Inclusion: Because the word “liberty” is used without qualification, it logically includes all forms of speech, including defamation, as the text provides no list of excluded categories.
– The Limitation: Under Article V, only Congress and the States can change the text. Therefore, any judicial decision that “excepts” defamation from “liberty” functions as an unauthorized amendment to the document.
By adhering to the verbatim text, the conclusion is that state defamation laws are a direct violation of the Due Process Clause.
The current legal system operates in contradiction to this because the Supreme Court relies on judicial doctrine—specifically the idea that “liberty” only protects “rights as historically understood” rather than the plain meaning of the words. This allows them to exclude defamation based on 18th-century common law rather than the 21st-century text.
You haven’t thought about securing your rights. What would it take? Someone who hates you, and then wages a deceptive infowarfare campaign to 1) get you fired from your job, 2) threaten you physical safety and that of your family via anonymous doxxing (intending to spur a mentally ill person to carry out the attack), 3) make most of your community disparage you repeating falsehoods planted by your nemesis, and 4) brainwash your children on line to hate you and everything you stand for?
Were that to happen to you, would you reconsider how you have ceded the freedom to destroy yourself to others as a token of THEIR unqualified “free speech”?
Would just imaging this possibility get you to rethink how the speech rights of others have to be balanced with measures preventing the abuse of speech to project intentional harms?
1st Amendment
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
14th Amendment
“No State shall…deprive any person of…liberty….”
Interpretation is not a power vested in the judicial branch anywhere in the Constitution, as entirely arbitrary “precedent” and “doctrine” also do not constitute law or enjoy any legal basis.
Judges and justices enjoy no power to modify, amend, or amend by interpretation the Constitution.
Yet they do so persistently out of their own bias and partiality.
Madison and the Founders had a notion of “freedom of speech and of the press” that was was in keeping with the moral strictures of the times. Theirs was an honorific public culture, steeped in Judeo-Christian morality.
If you pushed out a whopper (falsehood) disparaging a fellow American, you could expect the consequences to be dueling with pistols. That had a strong deterrent effect on defamation, and other dishonorable forms of public attack. Publishers of newssheets and handbills operated under such self-moderating constraints.
How you get from that to what we are seeing now:
Closed chat rooms where psychopathic teens compete for points on coercing naive youth toward self-harm and suicide
Doxxing of one’s political opponents, intending the mentally-unstable will harass and physically attack
Foreign terrorist organizations propagandizing children to hate the United States
Porn-site operators fighting in court for continued easy access by children surfing online
An 8-year war entered by the US into based on a clever fabricated infowarfare campaign by Shiite Iraqis
A sitting President insisting to have won an election that he objectively lost leading lawyerly plot to overturn the election
A candidate whose low-life son abandoned hard-drive evidence of criminal behavior and official grifting
works with ex-CIA PsyOps experts to dupe the electorate that the laptop was Russian hacking
By 1780 standards, these are all inauthentic, untrustworthy and dishonorable exercises of speech. If you detach the words used in the 1st Amendment from the moral climate of the era in which it was ratified, then you have warped the meaning and impact of those words beyond recognition.
“The consent of the governed”, our founding principle, is totally eviscerated if that consent can be obtained through trickery and deceit. That’s just common sense. Therefore, 1A is NOT a green light to dupe The People in pursuit of political power and goals. Its protections don’t go that far.
The Constitution was written for a moral people — there was no pretense it would work absent that assumption.
Translation:
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution presupposed an honor-bound, moral culture where falsehoods were deterred by social consequence. Detached from that moral context, modern speech—deception, manipulation, and abuse—distorts its meaning. Consent of the governed fails if obtained by deceit; free speech is not a license to defraud. The United States Constitution was framed for a moral people.
Is your treatise to replace law then?
1st Amendment
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
14th Amendment
“No State shall…deprive any person of…liberty….”
Wow, an AI summary of my point about the moral fabric giving 1A its historical context.
My treatise is to make calibrated, incremental strengthening of Defamation Law so that it deters all forms of Public Frauds waged for political effect. In strict compliance with 1A, civil lawsuit, not prosecutorial action is proposed as the legal countermeasure to inauthentic, deceitful infowarfare.
Jurors of ordinary Americans decide fact from fiction in Public Frauds court, not political partisan hacks occupying bureaucratic govt. offices (as they’re doing in Europe).
Public Frauds courts would have streamlined, Rapid Discovery processes (subpoenas, compelled depositions under oath) to quickly expose the originators of premeditated whoppers. Speed is essential, since deceitful infowarriors only hope to dupe the public temporarily while policy decisions are pending. Whoppers have to be deflated before they can achieve their intended effect.
An example is Hunter’s laptop. The lie planted with ex-CIA help only had to work for the last 3 weeks before Election Day. It might have kept 10% of the vote from abandoning Biden and his mendacious campaign operation. By February (after the Inauguration), the truth spilled out about Tony Blinken and Mike Morrell having engineered a cover-up with the help of sympathetic media.
Under the system refinements I’m proposing, if they were in effect at the time, a Public Frauds lawsuit would have been filed the day after the “Russian hacking” fabrication was pushed out. Within days, its originators would have been found out, and forced into court-ordered depositions. The Biden campaign would have been revealed as the charlatans they were, and the Biden family the grifters they were.
Whether having that knowledge while they voted would have swung the outcome, it’s impossible to say. But, the important point is that they voted equipped with the truth.
Public frauds lawsuits are a reasonable way to demand authenticity from office seekers during campaigns, and put the brakes on political propaganda ops. Since it’s based on civil lawsuit, it fully complies with the Constitution’s ban on Congress enacting censorship laws and prosecutions.
Start here: Restrict the vote, which was reserved to the states by the Constitution. Never in history was democracy intended to be of the one-man, one-vote variety. Since inception, democracy has been of the restricted-vote kind. Believe it or not, the republic in China operates the government of the American Founders using a severely restricted vote and a Congress that elects a president; its mortal deviation is the absence of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Founders did not intend for the “dictatorship of the majority.” In 508 B.C. Greece, democracy was created with severe restrictions on the vote, resulting in a turnout of ~12%. In 1788 America, turnout was 11.6%. What is your opinion on the unintended consequence of the “dictatorship of the majority,” aka the “dictatorship of the poor?”
What is most alarming is knowing that there are millions of citizens out there that would believe a story like this. The intelligentsia of the nation is falling at a pace accelerated greatly by the so-called main stream media. Is there a cure?
Rapid due diligence Public Frauds lawsuits.
Not everyone is as highly intelligent as you Spencer Kent Offord. What the USA has an intelligentsia? On this site … god help us, the scum of the USA..
You enjoy the absolute freedom of speech and press to advocate for your position, to counter false beliefs, and to set the record straight.
Spencer, I share that concern, but I don’t think the “cure” is going to come from better referees in the media so much as from better formation of the citizen. We now have millions of people who can read perfectly well but have been trained to process every story as team‑validation instead of as a claim that needs to be tested. As long as that’s the habit, bad actors will always find an audience. The only way out I can see is the slow work of rebuilding families, schools, and associations that teach people to love truth more than narrative and to see basic fact‑checking as part of their job as citizens, not someone else’s job on their behalf.
Olly: Existential/empirical thought evolves into “systems processing” of external sourced information:
i.e.,
Descartes’ “I think, therefore, I am [capable of self-agency]” has become, “I will let others do the thinking for me. I trust them. Therefore, I am still capable of agency….because I trust what they told me and I adopt their premise.”
Good thinking on your part.
Lin, I like that framing a lot. It captures the way “I think, therefore I am” has slid into “they think for me, therefore I still feel like I am choosing,” when what we are really producing is dependency that still feels like agency.
Start here: Restrict the vote, which was reserved to the states by the Constitution. Never in history was democracy intended to be of the one-man, one-vote variety. Since inception, democracy has been of the restricted-vote kind.
Believe it or not, the republic in China operates the government of the American Founders using a severely restricted vote and a Congress that elects a president; its mortal deviation is the absence of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The Founders did not intend for the “dictatorship of the majority.”
In 508 B.C. Greece, democracy was created with severe restrictions on the vote, resulting in a turnout of ~12%.
In 1788 America, turnout was 11.6%.
Not so sure I agree with the good professor this time. I am every bit as horrified as he is in how Erika Kirk is being publicly treated. However lowering the bar may not be the answer. It is a high bar and that should be high to protect free speech. It is not insurmountable, but it is tough. Whether she likes it or not, Erika Kirk is a public figure. I think the question is at this point, did she step into the ring or was she dragged? Was she a public figure before Charlie Kirk’s death or only after. What truly scares me is not Erika Kirk, but the unintended consequences of lowering a bar to try and remedy a bad situation. I can see every public or semi-public figure suing due to derogatory comments. Opinion can very strong and hateful and not cross the line. It can also be used in ways never imagined up to the advent of the internet and chat groups. Unless the system can come up with a good solution to both protect the private and public people, I would rather leave this ugliness alone because the cure may harm more than it helps.
“It’s the [law], stupid!”
– James Carville
___________________
1st Amendment
“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press….”
14th Amendment
“No State shall…deprive any person of…liberty….”
re: Ascertaining the “reasonable reader.”
We do have defamation statutes, decisions, precedents, anti-SLAPP measures, and convincing objections to Sullivan and its legal progeny.
However, I do find an absence of another important element/coefficient in the equation: the exponential power of a dominant political ideology that CONTROLS mass communications affecting the “reasonable reader.”
Anti-trust laws address monopolistic influence in the marketplace of economic power, but not monopolitic (mono-politic) influence in the marketplace of competing ideas and the average John Q. Public “reasonable reader.”
When 90% of mass communication entities and public networks have been bought out and now controlled by a singular political ideology, what messaging is being used to influence and ultimately form the “reasonable reader?”
What constitutes a “reasonable reader” when on a daily basis, he is inundated with subliminal voting messages like: “The Biggest Change to Voting in Republicans’ Election Bill Could Become a Burden for Many Voters” (ABC News); or “U.S. Territories Confront American Identity,” (USA Today); or Hispanic “Daisy Hernandez on the Myth of Citizenship” (YouTube)??? Or how about the quasi-subliminal messaging in, “Will RFK Jr’s MAHA Voters Shun the GOP in Midterms?” (USA Today)
But there is some hope. Remember Nina Jankowicz, Biden’s Czar-ess who ran his Disinformation Governance Board?
We must remind ourselves that a panel for the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (two of the three justices were appointed by Biden) gave Little Ole Fox News (lone canoe in a river of warships) a victory in Jankowicz v. Fox News, https://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/242544np.pdf
“The District Court dismissed Jankowicz’s complaint, finding that [Fox’s] allegedly
defamatory statements were not actionable because each was either: (1) not of and
concerning Jankowicz; (2) opinion; or (3) substantially true. Because we agree with each
of the District Court’s conclusions, we will affirm.”
Since that defeat, Jankowicz has focused on more anti-Trump retaliation (as has NPR), like her American Sunlight project, which launched the Trump Censorship Dashboard, etc. Here is Janko’s comment on her court loss: https://www.thewayfinder.net/p/the-justice-system-isnt-meeting-the
Sincere apology for length of post. Won’t do it again. today.
Lin,
Good point about the “reasonable reader,” when the reader is inundated with clearly biased MSM, or gets their news from Fakebook. All the more reason why Independent media is so important and gaining subscribers and viewers while MSM is on the decline.
And the so called opinions you get from here, is somehow unbiased? Disgustingly direct sure, so is it with scum, like yourself, wouldn’t know a fact if it bit you in the proverbial.
Are the sites your always visit are unbiased right?
You are a fool to think you know truth when you read it.
The ‘mono-politic’ argument fails because it treats the reasonable reader as a passive victim of brainwashing rather than a discerning citizen.
Legally, the ‘reasonable reader’ is presumed to have contextual awareness. If 90% of media leans one way, a reasonable person isn’t blinded by it; they become inherently skeptical of it. Courts have consistently ruled that readers can distinguish between editorial bias (which is protected) and factual defamation (which is not).
The Jankowicz v. Fox News victory actually disproves the monopoly theory. If a ‘singular ideology’ truly controlled the legal and communicative apparatus, a ‘lone canoe’ would have been sunk. Instead, the Third Circuit—including Biden appointees—upheld the law over political narrative.
Ultimately, treating ‘ideological influence’ like an antitrust violation would require a Government Truth Bureau to ‘balance’ the scales. The First Amendment exists precisely to prevent the state from deciding which ideas have ‘too much’ market share, leaving that choice to the reader’s own common sense.
I regret that my comment went right over your head.
Dear George/X: Here is a message expressly created for you and your level of comprehension:
https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/10/10/where-americans-turn-for-election-news/
Therefore, I hope that you can see how media bias/manipulated or omitted facts/subliminal presentation/selection of news stories/DOMINANCE of one political ideology over another in the conveyance of information, etc.—all can affect and significantly influence the general public and in particular, voter perception and response.
Is that better? I sincerely hope so. (P.S. I hope you see the error in your first and second paras.)
yours truly and thanks anyway, lin.
oh, and BTW, here is PEW’s review of the ‘reasonable reader’ -“who is is presumed [by you, X] to have contextual awareness.” You said, “If 90% of media leans one way, a reasonable person isn’t blinded by it; they become inherently skeptical of it.”
https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2024/10/10/accuracy-of-election-news/pj_2024-10-10_2024-election-news_4-06/
In other words, George, according to this study, MORE THAN HALF of the average “reasonable” readers/viewers/voters FIND IT DIFFICULT TO DISCERN THE TRUTH in what they are reading or seeing in the news.
Lin, pointing to a Pew Research study about where people get their news doesn’t prove your legal point—it actually undermines it.
You are confusing sociological influence with legal definition. The ‘reasonable reader’ in a defamation suit is a specific legal standard, not a demographic average of ‘gullible voters.’ The law presumes the reader is capable of discerning between a news report and an ideological slant. If the court adopted your logic—that readers are merely helpless products of ‘dominance and subliminal messaging’—we would have to toss out the First Amendment entirely to protect people from their own lack of critical thinking.
Furthermore, the very Pew study you cited shows a massive fragmentation in news sources. If there were a true ‘mono-politic’ monopoly, we wouldn’t see the rise of independent platforms and the deep skepticism toward legacy media that the study actually highlights.
The Jankowicz ruling stands because the law cares about objective facts, not ‘voter perception.’ You’re arguing that the audience is too weak to handle bias; the Bill of Rights argues that the government is too dangerous to ‘fix’ it for them. Is that clear enough, or did the legal distinction go over your head?”
Just get rid of defamation law entirely, and let free markets sort it out.
Lin is worried about left wing media Bias,
You are back carping your typical nonsense that the left has dominated various institutions naturally – because it is what people want.
But the FACT is that the MSM is dying. Maybe the billionaires buying outlets at bargain basement prices can profit by turning that arround.
It is their money, it is their gamble, if they succeed – they profit, if they fail, they lose.
While I radically disagree with you regarding academia – the only Remedy I ask for is to get Government OUT of education.
Lets see if the far left bias of academia can survive without massive govenrment subsidies of education.
Lets find out if you are truly right – that the colleges we have are what most people really want – lets see that when it is their own money they are paying.
This is one of the many places I part company with the MAGA right.
The right and left are both universally into the use of AntiTrust law to punish the giants they fear.
I am not affraid of Google or CNN – those of you on the left should not be affraid of Larry Ellison or Elon Musk.
Ultimately absent government regulation and subsidies – we get what people want.
Government intervention in the economy – by either the right or the left is ALWAYS to give people what those in power want for them, not what they choose themselves.
Lin;
There is lots of data that shows that the ideological bias of the media effects voting.
The answer is more voices in the media. Fox came into existance because there was a large market for news without the mild left wing bias of the 60’s and 70’s.
If you are proposing Government intervention my response is a HARD NO!
Frankly, I mostly agree with X’s reply – though X’s logical impairment is dangerous even when he is right. Quite often he gets principles correct and then mis-applies them to get his own ideological result at odds with the principles he offers.
Regardless, I am not concerned about media bias – we are seeing the free market very effectively punish the MSM – while we are in a shift in how we consume news, the damage is primarily in the leftwing nut MSM, and that is because people do not trust it.
When presented with a menu of choices – most people eventually make good choices most of the time. Things do not go off the rails because 70% of the media is only repeating one view. They go off the rails when 100% of the media presents a single view. That is very dangerous – even when that view is mostly correct.
Regardless, the answer is freedom and free markets – not government. I am not sure what you are proposing. I found most of X’s points correct.
But as always with left wing nuts there was an undercurrent of “And Government should step in”.
Separately both you and X seem to be leaning towards something like anti-trust interventions – even if you have different objectives in those interventions.
PLEASE NO!
AntiTrust law is just about the worst law in the US – it never ever made sense. One of the mistakes of MAGA populism has been the embrace of antiTrust as the means to “fix” biases against the right. But AntiTrust law was born in lies – most of the so called muck rakers were just losers in the free market who sought protection or punishment of those who defeated them from government. Myriads of economic analysis of Anti-Trust over a century have found no positive benefits from antitrust actions.
Right now we see most of the monster corporations as having a strong left bias and are afraid of their impact. But we forget that NONE of those businesses are much more than 2 decades old. IN 40 years the to 10 businesses in the world will likely only include a few of those at the top today.
Monopolies only survive with the aide of government. Economist Joseph Schumpeter brought our attention to the “creative destruction” of free markets.
Innovate and you profit greatly BRIEFLY, every new idea can be copied, or improved upon. Eventually as the innovation becomes the norm and competitors swarm in, prices and profits go down and consumers get the long term benefit of innovation – not producers.
This means that no business no matter how large can just sit still. In the free market if you are sitting still you are dying.
Right now the left is ranting over billionaires buying up failed left wing MSM outlets.
That is occuring because they have failed. Had they succeeded they would not be for sale.
Those Billionaires are gambling that they can turn these outlets arround and profit greatly.
Only left wing nut idiots think that the MSM is being bought up by people who want to lose money convert it to a Trump rally.
Personally I think the MSM is dead and these billionaires are going to lose their money.
Regardless my point is that it is the interests of the consumer that dominate the free market. Government is not necessary.
If people need help determining what is disinformation – they will find that on their own, if there is value in providing such information,
people will pay for it and you can make a business out of it.
I am not worried about left wing dominance of the MSM or academia, I am worried about Government intervention.
The alternate media where increasing numbers of people get their news does not exist because of innovation or the internet.
It exists because the MSM has left people wanting. I beleive what people want that the MSM does not provide is trust.
But regardless of whether I am right – the rise of alternative media is the result of the failure of the MSM to meet peoples needs.
NOT technology.
Mornin,’ John Say;
NO, not at all. I am NOT suggesting “something like anti-trust interventions,” – I was lamenting the often lack of BALANCE in external stimuli/information that may affect—-and therefore define—what influences a “reasonable person.”
Our commenter George/X seems to have assigned a static value to what a “reasonable reader” or “reasonable person”
would interpret or understand, or do, based on such external influences. He has defined for the rest of us, what an “average reader” is and what is expected of him, (i.e., the world according to X/George). But his explanation is derived from what he removed from the Internet and AI. He is neither a lawyer nor a thinker. He is a seeker and absorber of confirmation bias and anything that will support his contrarian position du jour.
He also fails to admit that MULTIPLE studies and reports have found and/or suggested a finding of embedded BIAS in information sources such as that found in AI and Internet search engine results, in both patent and subliminal manifestations. You do not need me to expound on this or verify it.
In truth, the legal concept and standard of “reasonableness” is NOT a static concept, NOR does the understanding of what a “reasonable person” would think or do, manifest as the same across multiple communities and jurisdictions,
(-notwithstanding the basic -and static- elements needed to establish a criminal or civil wrong/offense, as conveyed by jury instruction and judicial interpretation).
Rather, “reasonableness” evolves with the times, and IS VERY MUCH INFLUENCED by societal and community input values. And THOSE values are increasingly shaped by SOCIAL MEDIA, AI summaries, media’s control of what and how selective facts and news are presented, etc. — all of which may engage in CONTENT MODERATION to effect a desired end-result (often political). Accordingly, the “reasonable person” standard evolves and adapts to AI algorithms, TikTok advice, and MSM bias across multiple platforms.
SO to conclude, if you believe that the values, mores, and morals of the “average” person out there have not evolved over time, due to the character. substance, and nature of external information that attempts to DEFINE those values, mores, and morals FOR that “average person,” then I must respectfully disagree.
I stand by what I said to George/X.
Thanks for your thoughts, JS.
A quick statement:
Ms. Kirk is 37
Palm Beach PD started investigation 2005
Epstein was tried in 2006
37 minus 2005 = 16
So as a 15 year old she started recruitment?
Devilish is the only way to describe the posting, Satanic veneration to be precise.
Dear Mr. Turley, I had not heard the accusation against Mrs. Kirk regarding Mr. Epstein. Mrs. Kirk was thrust into the spotlight by her husband’s assassination. She was hardly trained to take over such a role that was thrust upon her in such a horrid way. She has a very strong organization behind her. Her advisors will help her get through all of the hatred leashed unfairly upon her.
“She was hardly trained to take over such a role that was thrust upon her in such a horrid way. ”
I cannot disagree with your point about the manner in which the role was thrust upon her. However, I doubt that she was as unprepared as you make it seem. She is, after all, a former Miss Arizona title holder and a Miss USA contestant. That means that she had some fairly extensive PR training and experience.
Really? A beauty queen? Im sure Erica is a genius when it comes to Whirled Peas…
The point was that beauty contestants receive training and coaching on dealing with the media and its questions, including how to deal with difficulties that may be encountered. Are you contending that Erika Kirk is some kind of moron?
Oh she had a lot of preparation to take over after the hit. The more you dig the worse it looks
I also love the point regarding Europe – they are rapidly becoming lost, it may already be too late for England. Surprising to see this cropping up in Ireland (as opposed to Northern Ireland) now, too. The modern left is just awful, everywhere.
I don’t know how anyone informed can defend them, nor do I understand how at this point, anyone claiming to be conscious can be so reticent or uninformed. Not good. Go along to get along is not going to work anymore for anyone that cares about freedom.
“I don’t know how anyone informed can defend them, nor do I understand how at this point, anyone claiming to be conscious can be so reticent or uninformed. “
People are very busy earning money, bringing up kids, and caring for their parents. There isn’t that much time to learn what the government does and still have enjoyment. The government is too big and deals with so many things that should be on the state-level, many people vote for a team, not their true interests. That is one of the reasons the government should be small; people can then become engaged in the things that actually affect their lives.
James and SM, both of you are putting your finger on pieces of the same problem. On the one hand, as James says, it is hard to watch whole countries sleepwalk into soft authoritarianism and still pretend this is just a policy disagreement. On the other, as S. Meyer notes, most people are running flat‑out with work, kids, and aging parents; they end up voting for a team because the scale of the modern state makes real engagement feel impossible. I don’t doubt that people are busy now, but the founding generation was not exactly living a life of leisure either; what was different was the expectation that tending to public things was part of adult life, not a hobby for when you had spare time.
Where I keep landing is that the size and reach of government and the formation of the citizen are part of one system. When the state takes over more and more of life, it becomes harder for ordinary people to see the connection between their choices and the outcomes, so they default to jersey‑color politics. At the same time, when we stop forming citizens who can think and act locally, we make it easier for a distant bureaucracy or a Brussels‑style class to run everything by default. If we care about freedom, we have to work both sides of that equation: push power down closer to where people actually live, and rebuild the habits and institutions that turn busy adults into citizens rather than just spectators.
” but the founding generation was not exactly living a life of leisure either;”
Olly, I was going to bring that up. That generation didn’t have public school systems, TV, and all the modern things that provide us with information and learning, yet they did great. The government was smaller, and the things that mattered were more on a local level, where they had greater interest. Though they faced many more threats, they were independent and free to create a country that today has so much that people are disengaged and not taking things seriously.
SM, this narrative is precisely what pushed me to write my book. We’re taught the names, dates, and events of the founding era, but almost nothing about what kind of citizen was being formed during the long period of salutary neglect. Without that context, modern Americans have no feel for why those colonists instinctively pushed back when their rights were treated as negotiable. They were British subjects, yet after 1763 their own government began to treat them as a conquered people, and a “long train of abuses” met petition after petition with indifference; at some point they faced a binary choice: live as a conquered population, or declare their independence and build a form of government they had actually been formed to sustain.
And that “feel” is exactly what I was hoping people would recover, which is why I focused so heavily on the grievances themselves; I’ve had the sense for a long time that we are quietly compiling our own list of grievances in this country and don’t even recognize it as such, because we’ve lost the habit of measuring present abuses against the standard of what a free people should tolerate.
OLLY, everything you say above is true, but we must always keep in mind that we learn by example from our parents and the people around us. Most importantly, this includes the work ethic and morality.
I know the mention of religion will horrify some on the blog, but religious institutions in the US, from the beginning, provided a standard of morality that has not been replaced.
SM, I agree entirely that example is primary. Whatever else we say about schools or media, most of us learn our basic posture toward work, truth‑telling, and responsibility by watching what our parents and the people around us actually do, not what they say they value.
The other factor, as you know, is what many parents are running into right now. Even with my own son, despite years of effort at home and in the Church, we still find him forming views he is absorbing from friends and other outside influences that run directly against what we have tried to hand on. Parents are sending their children off to college formed one way and getting them back formed in a very different way; the power of peer and institutional socialization to override family and religious formation is no longer theoretical, it is something we are watching in real time.
OLLY, I understand what you are saying. We have to teach our children not to accept what is unearned because that blinds them and leads them into the hands of corrupt people, and they become accustomed to unearned success, which leads to a loss of autonomy.
SM, good point. It also shows that purposeful formation is a journey and not a destination. Citizen formation is happening 24 hours a day for as long as we are alive; there is no neutral setting in which our habits of judgment just sit unchanged. If we are not intentionally forming people for self‑government, then that work is still being done, only by different forces and toward very different ends.
Religion is by far the greatest cause of evil and immorality in the world, and has always been so throughout history.
Look no further than what is happening right now in the Middle East.
Everything that is happening is being done in the name of religion. Both sides try to take the moral high ground, but this still does not get around the problem that religion is the root cause of what is happening. It does not matter that both sides claim a moral imperative to act. The problem is that the moral imperative that both sides claim is based on religion and nothing else.
Both sides are equally to blame.
Both sides are completely and equally wrong in their claims to a moral imperative.
Both sides are equally evil and immoral.
Anon,
You have now managed to get the American founding, federalism, the role of religion, and basic moral reasoning all upside down at once. That takes effort.
You keep talking as if the ideal system is one giant referee in the sky who “aggregates interests” for millions of passive spectators, while you sneer at the very architecture that was deliberately designed to prevent exactly that concentration of power. You call that “rational”; the framers called it the road back to the kind of centralized rule they had just bled to escape.
The same move shows up in your moral claims. You wipe out centuries of hard, concrete moral reflection by declaring “religion is the greatest cause of evil,” then wave away every real distinction in the Middle East by saying both sides are “equally evil and immoral.” That is not moral clarity, it is laziness dressed up as certainty, the posture of someone who prefers a sweeping dismissal to the work of judging particular facts and responsibilities.
You sound very sure of yourself, but stripped of the insults and big words, your position is simple: ordinary citizens are not to be trusted with real power or real judgment, so let a distant center and a few abstract slogans do the thinking for them. That is about as far from the spirit of a constitutional republic as one can get without saying out loud that you are done with self‑government altogether.
This is an astoundingly nonsensical response that is completely devoid of meaning.
My assertion is simply that all religion is evil and immoral, nothing more, nothing less.
And yet you drift off in irrelevant tangents about the founding of the republic, federalism, and whether citizens can be trusted with real power or judgment. None of that has any relevance whatsoever to what I said.
It appears that you are trapped in a mindset whereby all you are capable of thinking about is the nature of the American republic and its founding, and you try to shoehorn every argument into that framework. I am reminded of the old aphorism that when the only tool you have is a hammer, then every argument or discussion looks like a nail.
Your response is nothing more than a completely pointless irrelevancy.
In fact you seem to prove my point by inferring that one side in the Middle East does have the moral imperative in this conflict. At least that’s what I think you are saying, but the way you say it is so vague and convoluted that almost all meaning is lost.
The facts are that all religions are evil and immoral and neither side in the Middle East can claim the moral high ground.
You keep asserting that “all religion is evil and immoral” as if repetition settles the matter. An assertion is not an argument. If you want anyone to take that claim seriously, you have to do more than announce it and then declare every response “nonsensical” or “irrelevant” because it does not march in the narrow groove you have set for it.
You are also missing why questions about the moral agency of citizens and the structure of a republic are relevant. The only way your blanket statement could be true is if religion, as such, necessarily deforms conscience and conduct in every setting. That is a very strong universal claim. It runs head‑on into the fact that religious ideas were central to many of the moral vocabularies that condemned slavery, grounded human equality, and justified treating persons as bearers of inalienable rights instead of disposable material. You can say those applications were mistaken or incomplete, but you cannot pretend they never existed.
Likewise in the present. If you want to argue that neither side in the Middle East can claim the moral high ground, make that case by reference to concrete actions and standards. Saying “all religions are evil” does not relieve you of the burden of explaining why deliberate attacks on civilians, or doctrines that deny the basic humanity of an out‑group, are morally equivalent to imperfect attempts to live under law, constrain force, or recognize the dignity of the other. Simply declaring “both sides are equally evil because religion” is not moral analysis; it is a slogan.
As for the accusation that I “only have a hammer,” you are confusing focus with incapacity. The reason the nature of the American republic keeps appearing in my comments is that the posts we are under are about the health of that republic, its institutions, and its citizens. When someone advances sweeping claims about morality, authority, or who can be trusted with power, those claims do not float in the air. They cash out in the way we form citizens and design governments. Pointing that out is not a tangent. It is connecting premises to consequences.
If you want to continue insisting that “all religion is evil and immoral,” then the next step is yours. Either supply a serious argument that can survive contact with history and with the actual moral practices of real religious people, or admit that what you have offered so far is just a personal dislike dressed up as a universal truth. Until you do that, there is no reason to treat your maxim as anything more than one more piece of rhetoric.
“Religion is by far the greatest cause of evil and immorality…”
Are these laws evil?
Do not worship idols:
Do not blaspheme:
Do not murder:
Do not steal:
Do not engage in sexual immorality:
Do not eat the limb of a living animal:
Establish courts of justice:
Yes, Anon, there are only 7 laws above. I will leave it to you to find out why only 7.
Let’s look at the twentieth century, where the leaders attempted to exclude religion.
Over 100,000,000 dead.
I belong to the former. Do you belong to the latter?
If you obey those laws, then good for you. You are probably a decent, normal, moral human being. I say probably a decent, normal, moral human being, because that is by no means a certainty. It depends on WHY you obey those laws. Normal, decent human beings are inherently moral. They do not do those things because it would be immoral if they did break those laws. However, if you obey those laws because you are afraid of eternal damnation at the hands of a god that supposedly loves you, then you are evil and immoral. You have entered into an evil and immoral relationship commonly known as sadomasochism. You supposedly love your god, and it supposedly loves you, but you are fearful of punishment if you step out of line. The very definition of sadomasochism.
Morality is an inherent quality in normal, decent and well-adjusted human beings. Morality is not something that can be imposed by force or by any other external influence. You are either moral or you are not. Normal people do not rob banks because it would be immoral to do so. If you do not rob banks simply because you are afraid of going to prison, then that is not a moral position. It is an immoral position.
The question of morality depends not on what you do or do not do, but rather on WHY you do or do not do certain things.
So which category do you fall into?
Are you inherently moral like me, or are you are sadomasochist who conforms to instructions out of fear of eternal damnation.
“Morality is an inherent quality”
It isn’t.
“Are you inherently moral like me”
Your actions demonstrate a lack of morality. How much? That remains to be seen.
The above laws are the Noahide Laws that all people should follow. There are seven. The Commandments are ten. In its most basic form, the Torah is a book of morals and principles.
I never fear God. I am moral because that is how I was raised.
If you read the Torah in context, it would teach you how to live a good life. That is it. If one is a religious Jew, he commits himself to the religious aspects of Judaism, which follow the Kosher rules and other things. There are 613 mitzvahs listed in the Torah that many Jews try to follow, but those of other religions don’t.
The mitzvahs that exist have a lot to do with helping others and being a good person. No one is forced to follow them. I should add that many of the Torah laws are incorporated into the laws of this nation. Estovir brought up aiding the stranger numerous times, and that is in the Torah.
The Bible has some harsh rules, including the death penalty, but if you read it carefully, the rules to execute make the act very difficult. In fact, when one looks historically, the Jewish Courts never or almost never used these actions. They were strong warnings.
No, one doesn’t have to be Jewish or religious to be a good person. Religion can set clear guidelines that are not changed for convenience sake.
SM, is this guy some AI bot running a baseline progressive algorithm.
If our starting point were really that “normal people are inherently moral,” none of our constitutional architecture would make any sense. In that world we would not need separation of powers, federalism, or oaths of office. We would not need a legislature to refine and check passions, or an independent judiciary to say “no” when a majority wants something unjust. We would only need a few competent process managers to carry out the wishes of the latest “normal and moral” president elected by the “normal and moral” electorate. The fact that we do have all those structures is itself an admission that this rosy picture of human nature is false.
The framers were explicit about that. Madison calls government “the greatest of all reflections on human nature” and reminds us that if men were angels, no government would be necessary, and because they are not, we must both enable government to control the governed and oblige it to control itself with “auxiliary precautions” beyond mere dependence on the people. That is why power is divided horizontally among branches, why it is divided vertically between nation and states, and why we bind officers by oath to the Constitution rather than to their own private sense of being “normal and decent.” So yes, upstream of all of this is a hard truth about human nature: we are capable of self‑government, but also prone to self‑deception, faction, and abuse of power. You can call that “flawed,” or you can use the old language of sin, but either way it is the opposite of his fantasy that normal people are inherently moral and only “abnormal” or religious people need constraint.
SM, the piece he is missing, and it is not a small one, is human nature. He talks as if “normal, decent human beings are inherently moral” and only religion corrupts them. That is a flattering story to tell about himself. It is not how human beings actually behave, and it is certainly not the anthropology that underwrites the republic we live in. The framers started from the opposite premise. Federalist 51 exists because Madison and the others did not trust any of us, religious or not, to float along on our own innate goodness. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” and since we are not, law and structure have to be built on the recognition that motives are mixed, self‑interest is real, and even decent people need both internal and external checks.
The whole separation of powers and “ambition counteracting ambition” scheme presupposes that “inherent morality” is not enough to keep us from abusing power. So when Anonymous treats morality as a kind of automatic setting in “normal” people, and then declares that anyone who factors consequences, law, or (in a religious framework) divine judgment into their decisions is “evil and immoral,” he is not being profound. He is ignoring both lived experience and the very insight about human nature that the constitutional design and most serious moral traditions are built on. It is absolutely clear from his own words that he has never done any serious study of the founding principles he keeps name‑checking; he has memorized the floor plan and missed the entire moral and political architecture behind it.
OLLY
You really are a pathetic one trick pony.
Why are you drifting off into more of your absurd pseudo-intellectual waffling about the Constitution and the Founders?
I did not say, as you falsely assume, that ALL humans are inherently moral. I said that normal, decent human beings are inherently moral. Obviously, if any logical assumption is to be drawn from that statement, then you would arrive at the logical conclusion that by defining NORMAL human beings as moral, I am implicitly suggesting that there are also ABNORMAL human beings who are NOT moral. But no, you jump to a completely unfounded assertion that I am saying that ALL humans are inherently moral. And you extend this absurd interpretation into an irrelevant discussion about the Founder’s beliefs regarding whether the people can be trusted. You go down one of your rabbit holes of irrelevant waffling. I made no statements about the need for laws, secular or religious, in order to ensure that people behave appropriately, and your tangential remarks in this regard are completely pointless.
Let me try to explain my position to you again in a simplified manner so that even you can understand.
My point is that normal, decent people are inherently moral.
There are other people who are not normal and decent, and they tend to lack a moral compass to varying degrees.
Normal, people with morals do not rob banks because they know it would be immoral.
Immoral people do not rob banks because they are afraid of going to prison. That is not a moral stance.
Religious people claim morality as a consequence of their belief in a god who provides their moral beliefs. The problem is that such people are equivalent to those who are afraid to rob banks because of the threat of punishment. Religious people are afraid to behave immorally because they fear punishment from their god. That is not a moral stance. It is an immoral stance based on fear of vengeance and retribution.
@S. Meyer
Sorry, I disagree. Parents are as much up in their phones as their kids, colloquially, and literally. I maintain that few under the age of 40 are actually self-actualized adults. My wife and I see this everyday in education, not just with the kids – the parents are similarly afflicted. Many of them would be hard pressed to even tell you what the three branches of our government even are, let alone what they do. This is a reality we are all going to have to deal with, and the sooner we address it, the better.
James, I know you didn’t ask, but if I stay with my systems‑thinking hat on, I am starting to wonder whether “formation, agency, and self‑actualization” are themselves a kind of three‑legged stool, a minimal description of what a citizen in a republic has to have if we expect genuine self‑government. I keep coming back to the sense that we have sawed off the formation leg, loudly celebrate “agency,” and vaguely invoke “self‑actualization,” and then act surprised when the system collapses under the weight of citizens who were never actually prepared for the work of governing themselves.
Well James quite an astute observation. I guess the current state of disrepair we now find ourselves supports the old sayings , “too much candy rots the babies teeth”and “spare the rod spoil the child”!
I agree with your point regarding phones and the lack of proper education, though I am uncertain where our views diverge. Individual independence is constantly imperiled by Marxist ideas; they infiltrate our schools and even our places of worship because it is simply easier to take the low road.
S. Meyer. What a load of nonsensical gobbledygook, completely devoid of meaning.
You say that the government is too big and that it deals with things that should be on the state level. If “things” are dealt with at the state level, then they are still being dealt with by the government. Presumably your original assertion about the government being too big refers to the federal government, but in your vague and nonsensical statement you fail to make this clear. Your suggestion that “things” be moved to the state government simply makes the federal government smaller, but the state government bigger for no net change. All that does is make the state government “too big” in your stupid parlance.
What on earth makes you think that people vote for a team rather than their true interests? If people are too busy with their lives to attend to the details of government actions, then the most logical thing to do is to choose a team that most completely aligns with their interests. What other scenario is possible?
And then you make this astoundingly stupid statement:
“That is one of the reasons the government should be small; people can then become engaged in the things that actually affect their lives.”
If the government becomes smaller and therefore leaves “things” to be dealt with by individuals and families that would otherwise be dealt with by the government, then individuals and families would have even less time to enjoy their lives.
Your profoundly stupid and idiotic statement is nothing more than a collection of buzz words cobbled together in a completely meaningless mishmash of completely pointless and meaningless MAGA talking points, worthy of the completely deranged and nonsensical diatribes of your cult leader.
You are a nutcase, but since you made a good point, I will deal with it.
Yes, both federal and state governments are governments, but are they the same? That is where you stray from reality. Though necessary, governments are inherently bad, so we should strive for the governing body to be as close to the people as possible, permitting their autonomy to remain intact.
“If people are too busy with their lives to attend to the details of government actions, then the most logical thing to do is to choose a team that most completely aligns with their interests. What other scenario is possible?”
This statement, combined with your ideology, demonstrates that though you can write and sometimes use big words, you lack reasonable critical thinking skills.
Representing 350,000 people under the dictates of the federal government will be more poorly aligned than thousands of people following the dictates of a local community.
Now, we can have a normal discussion about how we can accomplish such goals, or we can argue about the foolishness of your specious ideas.
SM, I think the other issue we have to address is this idea that if people are too busy to follow what government is doing, then the only logical move is to pick a team that roughly aligns with their interests. There is another scenario. If you care about your right to life, liberty, and property, then the rational response is not to outsource your judgment to a team, but to reorder your priorities so that you understand what the government that regulates those very lives, liberties, and properties is actually doing. A party label can be a useful shorthand, but when it becomes a substitute for any effort to know how power is being used, you have traded self‑government for managed consent.
That is where your point about size and distance comes back in. A federal department making policy for hundreds of millions of people and a local body making policy for tens of thousands are both governments, but they are not equally close to the people they affect, and they do not offer the same opportunity for ordinary citizens to see, understand, and correct what is being done in their name. The case for pushing more authority down to states and communities is not that life becomes easy for individuals and families, but that the things they are asked to bear and attend to are closer, more intelligible, and more responsive to their choices. As Patrick Henry warned, if we care about liberty, we are supposed to guard with jealous attention the public liberty and suspect every one who approaches that jewel, not assume that the right color jersey will do that work for us.
Meyer, your comments are nothing more than self-contradictory, wishy-washy, platitudinous nonsense, steeped in absurd MAGA dogma.
You call me a nut case and in the same breath say I make a good point. You start with a completely absurd contradiction. If I am a nut case, how can I make a good point?
You say that all governments are inherently bad, and so we should strive to keep them as close to the people as possible to keep their autonomy intact. If they are so bad, then the only logical and rational response is to keep all governments as far as away as possible. Surely that is the only possible way to keep the people’s autonomy intact.
You say that I write using “big words”. Obviously, since you have such a low intellectual capacity, you find “big words” that you do not understand, and logical arguments, to be intimidating because I can so clearly point out your fallacious thinking, and absurdly contradictory statements.
You seem to think that the federal government is some boogeyman that is completely external to the existence of the people, and is imposed on them by some malevolent outside force. You do not seem to understand that every single elected federal representative of the people is required to live in the district they represent. The federal representatives are close to the people. They live in the same towns and cities that they represent. If they fail to represent the wishes of the majority of the people they get the boot.
You seem to think that government should be more local and that this somehow will make for better representation of the people at large. This is ridiculous. The further down the chain you go from federal, to state, to county, to local, the more fragmented and partisan government will necessarily become. You simply end up with exponentially more representatives representing smaller and smaller constituencies and therefore you end up with much greater opportunities for bickering between communities, and greater difficulty in reaching a consensus. You assume that somehow if there are more representatives representing smaller constituencies that this will somehow make it easier to reach consensus. This is absurd, irrational thinking. It makes it much more difficult to reach a consensus.
The best way and most efficient way to reach a consensus agreeable to most of the people is to have a single representative who represents as large a group as possible. That representative can then listen to the concerns of a much larger group of constituents and negotiate decisions that satisfy the largest possible proportion of his constituents.
In other words the federal representative is the most efficient and effective way to arrive at consensus.
Your fundamental problem is that you unthinkingly swallow the MAGA dogma that the federal government is necessarily bad. You accept this premise and then when the government does something that you do not like or that you disagree with, you say that this evidence that the government is bad. This is completely faulty logic. All it means is that you do not like something the government did. That does not make it bad. Plenty of other people take the opposite view. Just because you do not like something does not automatically make it bad. It just means that you are wrong and others are right. But in MAGA world this is unacceptable, because you are infallible and therefore always necessarily right.
That is the fundamental problem with your absurd position.
Anonymous,
Setting rhetoric aside for a moment, it is worth remembering what problem the founders thought they were solving. They had just fought a war to free themselves from a distant, consolidated government that claimed to speak for them “efficiently” while remaining largely insulated from their day‑to‑day control. That experience left them far more wary of central power than your model of one large representative “aggregating interests” would suggest.
Their first instinct after independence was, if anything, over‑correction in the other direction. Under the Articles of Confederation the states kept almost everything and the federal head was so weak it could not reliably raise revenue, provide for common defense, or resolve disputes among the states. That arrangement was unworkable, but the answer was not, “Fine, then let us vest as much authority as possible in one national voice.” The Constitution was a deliberately negotiated middle ground: create a federal government strong enough to do a short list of enumerated tasks that truly are national, and then fence it in with structural limits, divided powers, and a presumption that everything else remains with the states and the people.
The Federalist Papers are one long attempt to sell that compromise. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay are not arguing for a unitary national manager of everyone’s “true interests”; they are trying to persuade a deeply skeptical public that a slightly strengthened federal structure will not swallow up the states, precisely because its powers are defined, shared, and checked. The very fact that ratification was such a close‑run thing in several states should tell us how intense the fear of consolidation was. These were not men looking for the most “efficient” way to reach consensus; they were men looking for the least dangerous way to make a common life possible.
So when people today talk about keeping power as close to the people as possible, or about restoring some of the balance that was lost through later developments like the Seventeenth Amendment and the steady expansion of federal reach, they are not importing some new “MAGA dogma” into an otherwise centralist constitutional order. They are echoing the core anxiety that shaped this republic from the beginning: how to have enough government to secure our rights, without so much concentration of power that those rights become subject to the preferences of a distant few.
OLLY
Your response is exactly the platitudinous rhetorical nonsense I am talking about.
Your comments exactly prove my point.
For example, you say that something was “lost” when the 17th Amendment was passed, as if some malevolent outside force denied something that the people wanted. You obviously do not like the 17th Amendment because your comment makes it plain that in your mind it somehow pushed government further away from the people. But just because you do not like it does not mean it is bad.
May I remind you that the 17th Amendment was approved by more than the required two thirds majority in the house and senate, and then 41 of the 48 states ratified the amendment. The support was overwhelming. Fifty-two of the seventy-two state legislative chambers that voted to ratify the Seventeenth Amendment did so unanimously.
Absolutely nothing was “lost” as you say. The people through their representatives overwhelming approved the amendment and the people got what they wanted.
The fact that you personally see the 17th Amendment as a loss is completely at odds with the will of the people, and completely irrelevant to the discussion.
And your reference to the concentration of power in the hands of a “distant few” is equally absurd. The “distant few” are the elected representatives of the people who are required to live among the people they represent. They are not a “distant few” imposing themselves unwantedly on people far away.
The rest of your comment is just platitudinous nonsense that makes no actual sense except in your MAGA mind.
“MAGA” is supposed to be an insult in your world; in mine it is a compliment. If you are accusing me of wanting to restore a constitutional order that is limited, federal, and accountable to actual citizens rather than to a permanent managerial class, then thank you. Say it more often. It tells readers more about your priors than it does about mine.
On the substance, labeling what I wrote “rhetorical” or “platitudinous” does not make it so. Every claim I have made in this thread can be supported with founding‑era sources: the text of the Constitution itself, the ratification debates, and the Federalist essays explaining why the structure was designed as it was. The ideas that the federal government is one of enumerated powers, that most authority was meant to remain close to the people in their states and localities, and that the people govern through representation rather than direct national plebiscites are not slogans I invented in 2026; they are the framers’ own premises, stated in their own words.
Your point about the Seventeenth Amendment is a good example of how you keep missing what I am actually saying. Yes, I understand perfectly well how ratification works. That is not in dispute. My argument is about whether it was wise to amputate one of the core safeguards of our republican system by severing the Senate from the state legislatures. The framers designed that arrangement so the states, as states, would have an institutional voice in the federal government and a shield against consolidation. Later critics of the Seventeenth warned that direct elections would erode that shield and accelerate national centralization. That is the concern I am raising.
You have not engaged any of that. You have not addressed the original allocation of powers in Article I, the role of the Senate as a protector of state interests, the framers’ explicit distrust of direct national democracy, or the philosophical reasons they split power both horizontally (separation of powers) and vertically (federalism). Instead, you wave it all away as “rhetorical nonsense” without producing a single founding source that says what you need it to say: that the Constitution was meant to authorize an open‑ended, ever‑expanding central authority and that structural limits are just MAGA “platitudes.”
So let us be clear about where things actually stand. I have offered historically grounded claims I can document from the founding era. You have offered labels and attitude. If there is any platitudinous or rhetorical nonsense in this exchange, it is not coming from the side that keeps pointing back to the original design and asking whether we are still willing to live within it. It is coming from the side that will not touch that design and settles instead for projection.
OLLY
You seem to think that your comments are high-minded intellectual commentary about the nature of government. In reality, your comments are simply a mishmash of waffling generalizations, biased personal opinions and factually wrong assertions. Your self-identification as a MAGA cultist explains all of this.
You make highbrow assertions about how wonderful and ingenious the founders were in formulating a Constitution and system of government that would be responsive to the people. Then, for instance, when the people act through their representatives to enact the 17th amendment, exactly as provided for by the Constitution, you get all in a tizzy and decry it as a big mistake. You simultaneously praise the founders for creating a system that is responsive to the people and then whine and complain when the people actually use the Constitution as intended to achieve something that the overwhelming majority approved of. The word for that is hypocrisy.
The problem is that much of your argument is based on MAGA falsehoods and propaganda and not facts. For example, you previously bemoaned the proposed “mansion taxes” in California, and I pointed out that you have absolutely no understanding of how RPTT taxes work in California, or indeed anywhere else in the US. You fundamentally misunderstand the nature of RPTT taxes in your home state and the intended purpose of the “mansion taxes”. You dismissed my criticism and brushed it off as a “misstatement of a detail”. No it wasn’t. It was a fundamental misunderstanding based on a factually false belief that was instilled in you by MAGA doctrine.
You then tried to say that California was also trying to impose a road use tax on top of the existing gas tax. Again I pointed out that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the proposal, based on a factually false belief instilled by MAGA doctrine. The proposal is to REPLACE the gas tax with a road use tax for the simple reason that there has been a huge increase in electric vehicles in California who use the roads, but completely escape the tax that is used to build and maintain those roads. California is simply trying to get ahead of the trend, that if not addressed would result in fewer and fewer vehicles paying the gas tax and the obvious loss of revenue to maintain the roads. You fundamentally misunderstand what is going on in your own state and prefer to believe the nonsensical falsehoods being spewed out by the MAGA cult about the “failed state of California”.
Everything you say about the nature of government is worthless waffling and theorizing based on hypocrisy, faulty reasoning, and factually incorrect beliefs. All this is easily explained by your membership of the MAGA cult.
You keep proving my point about the limits of your civics education.
You talk as if being able to recite the architecture of the Constitution is the same thing as understanding why it was designed that way. You can say “the people can amend through the process provided” and “if it was ratified it must reflect the popular will,” but that is eighth grade mechanics, not constitutional judgment. From the beginning there have been shelves of founding era sermons, pamphlets, debates, and essays spelling out the political and moral philosophy that structure was supposed to serve. The framers did not believe that anything that clears the formal hurdles is therefore wise, just, or consistent with the principles they were trying to secure.
Your own examples give that away. If you really think that “the people acted through the Constitution” settles the merits, you ought to be an enthusiastic defender of a robust individual right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment came out of the same ratification and amendment architecture you keep treating as a sacrament. If process guarantees wisdom, then every strong reading of the Second Amendment is beyond criticism because it reflects “what the people decided.” On the other side, if the mere fact of ratification is proof of sound judgment, why did we need the Twenty First Amendment at all. The Eighteenth Amendment was duly proposed, ratified, and enforced. It was also a policy disaster that had to be structurally defeated. That history only makes sense if you admit that constitutional mechanics and constitutional purpose are not the same thing.
The same confusion is present in the way you talk about the Seventeenth Amendment. Saying “the people used Article V to adopt direct election of senators” tells us how it happened, not whether it was a good idea to sever the Senate from the state legislatures and weaken one of the core safeguards of federalism. The framers’ own writings about why they wanted the states as states represented in the Senate, and the later debates over direct election, are about that deeper question: what kind of republic is this supposed to be and what institutional incentives does it need to survive. You treat all of that as irrelevant once you can point to a ratification date.
That is where Article III comes in. The reason we have an independent judiciary is precisely because the other branches work in the horizontal traffic of day to day power, whereas the courts are supposed to work vertically, back to the text and its original meaning, and ask whether what the political branches are doing fits the purposes that justified this framework in the first place. You seem to think naming the branches is where civics ends. In a functioning constitutional republic, that is where the serious questions begin.
If all of that sounds to you like “MAGA cultish assertions,” the remedy is simple. Prove any of it wrong. Show me where the framers said structural limits were meaningless, where Article V ratification automatically confers wisdom, where the states were never meant to have an institutional voice, or where courts were not supposed to read vertically back to original meaning. Until you can do that with actual sources instead of labels, “MAGA cult” is just your way of admitting you have no answer.
You have gone so far down a rabbit hole in trying to “analyze” the Constitution and the nature of government that you have completely lost your way. The problem is that you have contorted yourself into a pretzel to try to fit a completely bogus “analysis” of the Constitution into your preconceived biased opinions. Nothing about your so called “analysis” comes anywhere close to being a rational, dispassionate or intellectually sound argument. It is just compendium of your preconceived and biased opinions to which you attempt to affix some justification drawn from a distorted view of the Constitution.
It is obvious that everything you say is heavily influenced by MAGA dogma.
The evidence for that lies in your fundamental lack of knowledge and your repetition of the MAGA myth that California is a “failed state”.
I pointed out how you fundamentally misunderstand the “mansion tax” and the road use tax and the reasons for their implementation. You acknowledged the error, but brushed it off by saying that you simply misstated a detail. No you didn’t. You repeated a fundamentally false assertion that is rampant throughout the MAGA cult.
It is clear that at least on these matters of California taxation you are a stranger to the truth. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to treat anything else you say as coming from an intellectually sound mind.
Your acceptance of these MAGA myths about California taxation quite simply proves that you have an agenda, and that is the MAGA agenda. You live in California and yet you failed to make any effort to understand the issues of taxation. You simply repeated the MAGA myths.
You have no credibility whatsoever.
Anonymous, quick cleanup on my end first. You were right to catch me on two California tax points. I spoke too loosely about the “mansion tax” and the road‑use tax without being precise enough about their current structure and the stated intent that the per‑mile charge is being explored as a replacement for the gas tax as EVs grow. That is on me, and it is a useful reminder to fact‑check the mechanics before I toss an example into a thread.
None of that touches the constitutional arguments I have been making, which are straight Constitution 101 and easily verifiable. Limited and enumerated powers, separation of powers, federalism, the framers’ distrust of unchecked majorities, the structural role of the Senate before the Seventeenth Amendment, the human‑nature realism of Federalist 51: that is the floor of the discussion, not some esoteric “MAGA” theory. If you want to dismiss all of that as “high‑minded waffle,” the burden is still on you to show where those basic principles are wrong, not just to chant “cult” and point to California tax minutiae.
At this point, given how cartoonishly you repeat every progressive talking point and how brittle your logic is, I am half convinced you are actually a conservative bot planted here to bait someone into responding so those talking points can be easily dismantled. The alternative is that you sincerely believe what you are writing, which, frankly, is the more worrying option. But either way, come back when you have had a chance to find any original source material that supports your constitutional theories.
OLLY
You did not simply “speak loosely” about the California taxes. You persist in trying to brush it off as an inconsequential detail saying it is irrelevant minutiae. The way you brought up both tax issues was in the context of criticism of California as a “failed state” from which vast hordes of residents are supposedly fleeing. That is nothing more than standard MAGA dogma that is repeated on this worthless blog on a near daily basis.
It is false.
It is a MAGA lie.
It is a deliberate lie perpetuated in the MAGA cult for obvious reasons.
You undoubtedly have heard this lie being told here on this blog, and likely in other corners of the MAGAverse that you inhabit.
And you simply accepted the lie on its face without any investigation of the facts, and perpetuated the lie.
You supposedly live in California. You have an obsessive interest in how government works or fails to work, and yet you completely fail to be aware of what is going on in your own state government.
This speaks to your obvious biases as a MAGA cultist. That immediately calls into question EVERYTHING you say as most likely being biased opinion rather than intelligent, intellectual, fact based discussion.
I am reminded of Aesop’s fable, the Boy who Cried Wolf, “A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.”
And the ancient Roman doctrine of law, “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” (“false in one thing, false in everything”), which is still recognized in modern courts, where a judge can permissibly instruct a jury to distrust the evidence of a witness who has been proven to be false in one aspect of their testimony.
You have perpetuated a lie by failing to confirm the truth by independent investigation. And yet you claim to be some sort of expert in governance based on your own “investigations”. Obviously your “independent investigations” leave much to be desired.
Why should I believe ANYTHING you say about any other matters, especially your incoherent pseudo-intellectual ramblings about the Constitution and the structure of government?
“a nut case and in the same breath say I make a good point.”
The point you made, we have different layers of government. That is true. The question is, if we know how to use them appropriately and when. Obviously, you do not know that and substitute verbosity for critical thinking skills. Your thinking is upside down.
If, as you say, the question really is whether we know how to use the levels of government appropriately and when, then why don’t you answer the question? You assert that the answer to this question is important, but you completely fail to answer it.
I have answered the question with my opinion, and in response you simply say that I have no critical thinking skills.
Well, why don’t you correct me with an explanation of your opinion on the matter?
Obviously I am being rhetorical. The obvious answer is that you not only do not have a rational explanation for your position but you also lack the intellectual capacity to formulate a rational intelligent response. You simply and unthinkingly believe the MAGA dogma without question.
Simply saying that my thinking is upside down is not a rational argument. It is not a discussion. It simply means that you are the one who does not understand your own assertions and you are unable to articulate why you believe what you believe.
In fact, I am not really sure that you have ever actually asserted any reasoned thoughts of substance. You simply make assertions without explaining your reasoning, and then when challenged with a reasoned counter-argument you simply dismiss it with a cheap snarky comment. You never, ever explain or justify your beliefs with anything even remotely resembling a reasoned argument. You simply state a belief as if it is irrefutable fact and therefore completely beyond further discussion.
Lots of words, but all are empty.
350,000,000 led by one person.
a few thousand led by one person.
Which person is better suited to manage the needs of the group?
“Meyer, your comments are nothing more than self-contradictory, wishy-washy, platitudinous nonsense…”
Which comments? You choose many empty words devoid of content. That is the same as running away.
“You say that all governments are inherently bad,”
Yes, but necessary. Therefore, limit government to its basic reason for existence and use the correct form of government for the problems you wish it to solve.
“The best way and most efficient way to reach a consensus agreeable to most of the people is to have a single representative who represents as large a group as possible.”
When you go to your doctor for chest pain, do you go to the chief of the clinic or the cardiologist?
Skip using MAGA and instead use the specific policy.
The Modern Left sucks everything, everywhere, all at once. Best way to deal with them is to ignore them. When they can no longer be ignored they need to be faced without mercy.
Ignore them, you conservatives did that for 30 years and look at where you are nowadays, sucking wind, screaming at unknown persons on this site.
You old senile folks are a waste of life. Just put a bullet in your collective head.
Guess what Maggie’s hair color and comment have in common with the wind?
They all blew!