{"id":345291,"date":"2018-01-25T00:19:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-24T23:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/we-dont-need-bad-laws\/"},"modified":"2018-01-25T00:19:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T23:19:44","slug":"we-dont-need-bad-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/we-dont-need-bad-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"We Don\u2019t Need Bad Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                            \t<!-- S3 Cache --><!-- S3:S3:Non-Original -->\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump said, \u201cWe are going to take a strong look at our country\u2019s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts.\u201d The president was responding to statements made in Michael Wolff\u2019s new book, \u201cFire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Our nation does not need stronger laws against libel. To the contrary, libel and slander laws should be repealed. Let\u2019s say exactly what libel and slander are. The legal profession defines libel as a published false statement that is damaging to a person\u2019s reputation. Slander is making a false spoken statement that is damaging to a person\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a question about reputation that never crosses even the sharpest legal minds. Does one\u2019s reputation belong to him? In other words, if one\u2019s reputation is what others think about him, whose property are other people\u2019s thoughts? The thoughts I have in my mind about others, and hence their reputations, belong to me.<\/p>\n<p>One major benefit from decriminalizing libel and slander would be that it would reduce the value of gossip. It would reduce the value of false statements made by others. Here\u2019s a Gallup Poll survey question: \u201cIn general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media \u2014 such as newspapers, TV and radio \u2014 when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately and fairly \u2014 a great deal, a fair amount, not very much or none at all?\u201d In 1976, 72 percent of Americans trusted the media, and today the percentage has fallen to 32. The mainstream media are so biased and dishonest that more and more Americans are using alternative news sources, which have become increasingly available&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/01\/walter-e-williams\/we-dont-need-bad-law\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump said, \u201cWe are going to take a strong look at our country\u2019s libel laws so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts.\u201d The president was responding to statements made in Michael Wolff\u2019s new book, \u201cFire and Fury: Inside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-345291","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}