Fat Cheque

Evening everybody.

You might not know it, but the people in the village across the pond managed to elect an irate orangutang as their mayor, he has promised to build a shrubbery and keep the neighbours away, OK in election fever, these promises are, on the whole, meant to outline the intent of your basis for holding office, and are, nowadays, accepted as such.

However, the new mayor of Trumpton has, in fact, hoodwinked his followers.

Backing off for a bit here, the worst thing about us people is that we hate being told that we are wrong, and detest having it proven to us. so whatever your own personal views of what is going on in the big wild world, it isn't always the best thing to run up to someone and slap them in the face with the obvious error of their ways, and it certainly isn't best to hope that they will concede to your way of thinking and immediately revise their opinions (however rational you believe them to be), this I have learned the long, exasperating hard way.

My current personal campaign is trying (as nicely as possible) to point out to people, who I know, that repost untrue inflammatory stories on facebook, that fact checking the stories first, might (in some cases) make them think about reposting salacious claptrap, in an effort to uphold other people's opinions of them (in short, not to make themselves look complete dullards on a public forum).

My opinion of recent events are spelled out and I'm entitled to them, for example: I can't see how Brexit is a good thing, leaving the protection of a large club can only deflate our influence on the larger world, we are foolishly surrendering an extra layer of protection (employment rights, trade agreements, rules for industry etc) all of which we had a large influence over, in exchange for a diluted and seriously substandard version of the same, and we have to ask permission for that version instead of having it by default.

I also have trouble in understanding why Americans believe in their president, perhaps it is the wood for the trees version that they get, there is a huge contingent that seem happy to believe that anyone so blatantly corrupt, self centred and narcissistic could genuinely have the nation's interests at heart.

I also don't understand how he has managed to avoid a plethora of defamation cases.

He has tried suing for libel against an architect critic, (The critic wrote about a skyscraper proposal Donald was trying to get permission to build).

In summing up the Judge said:

Judge Weinfeld gave Trump a lesson in the First Amendment and politics: "Men in public life ... must accept as an incident of their service harsh criticism, ofttimes unfair and unjustified – at times false and defamatory – and this is particularly so when their activities or performance may ... stir deep controversy" .... "De gustibus non est disputandum, there is no disputing about tastes."[9]

Judge Weinfeld, then 84, reaffirmed the First Amendment rule that "[e]xpressions of one's opinion of another, however unreasonable, or vituperative, since they cannot be subjected to the test of truth or falsity, cannot be held libelous and are entitled to absolute immunity from liability under the First Amendment."[10]

   

OK that part obviously sunk in, but our (least) favourite corn snack paid less attention to the next bit:

Judge Weinfeld explained that opinions expressed in the form of "rhetorical hyperbole," "rigorous epithets," and "the most pejorative of terms" are protected from liability, so long as the opinions do not veer to into factual accusations, such as accusing someone of a crime, unethical conduct, or the lack of professional integrity in a manner that would be proved true or false.[11]

So he has been corrected on his Rhetorical Hyperbole (Read: outright Bollocks) and he still comes out spouting more of the same, this makes me wonder if his staff actually inform him that he has been rumbled, or do they slide it under his door on neutral coloured post-it notes with the highlighted legend "IGNORE THIS" and, in a smaller font, "at your peril".

The point is, we are not checking the truth, we are not admonishing people for veering away from it (or in some cases bending it over a chair and rodgering it senseless) and we should be, the UK had a politician (Profumo) who resigned for lying to parliament in the 1960s (plus cavorting with call girls) we have become too accepting of corruption, inconsistencies within our political systems. 

It isn't "by the people for the people" anymore, it has turned into "buy the people, fuck the people".

Whatever the eventual outcome of Brexit and Trump (which sounds like a dodgy law-firm) I hope that it doesn't involve a nuclear winter or my family and I being excluded from travelling to destinations of our choice in the twilight of my years.

Oh Yeah, KEEP FACT CHECKING