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.
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.
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“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.
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.
“[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
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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….”
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?”
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?
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.
@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.
“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.
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!