I mean, his 'on-air' personality is a mess, but I always sort of thought it was just a show. It's interesting to me that it turned out he really is just an absolute train-wreck of a person.
The system falls apart if it can't enforce its own rules, and if we don't see some serious perjury charges here, I think it's a very bad sign.
The message will no longer be: It's unacceptable to cheat and lie to win.
It will be: Cheat and lie better.
-- edit: I'd like to see at least two felony perjury charges against Jones. Ideally with max sentences.
The justice system is designed to find out the truth about disputed events or actions. Deliberately lying to it is a direct attack on its mission and should be considered a criminal offence.
This is almost the definition of perjury.
The crime is deceiving through lies and fraud (or bribes), speech is just the tool used to achieve that.
I was deposed to give testimony once in a dispute between two other parties and it was nerve wracking to give testimony about a few questions because it was stuff I hadn't thought about in a couple of year.
Turns out it's no big deal to lie under oath?
This is really troubling, how can we have the rule of law if lying under oath is allowed for some people?
I sat in a jury for a DUI case. Their lead witness, a narcotics cop, lied blatantly on the stand in complete opposition to his deposition.
We jurors made up our minds 10 minutes in - not guilty. But this cop? He perjured himself. And not so much as a peep from the judge.
This might be somewhat unique in that the perjury charges relate to hiding evidence as well (rather than just running counter to the evidence). And, obviously, that Alex Jones isn't a cop, so that particular fetishism of law enforcement the US operates under doesn't apply.
It has nothing to do with his perjury.
Low multiples of compensatory damages would be more accurate.
Although we all want to see our "political enemies" and indecent people everywhere punished, we have to stop calling for people to be jailed without clear crimes being committed. The whole "lock her up" for Hillary that the Trump crowd chanted disgusts me, but likewise so do people calling for Trump to be prosecuted and jailed when they cannot pin an actual crime on him.
If we turn into a nation of "show me the man, I'll show you the crime" I will bugger off to a small island somewhere. We cannot rule by mob sentiment, laws matter.
The jury got to see that he was a liar. Do you think that played no part in their decision? Do you think it will play no part in their decision on punitive damages?
Or did you mean something more like prison? The provable perjury happened, what, two days ago? Indictments like that don't happen overnight, but I hope (and maybe even trust) that it is in fact coming.
Link to one of these past perjury situations where there were no repercussions?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper
See:
https://jonathanturley.org/2013/07/03/perjury-by-permission-...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/01/19/james-clap...
https://apnews.com/article/business-33a88feb083ea35515de3c73...
Additionally, Clapper was part of the government, testifying on something the government wanted kept quiet.
* fidgeted with everything * couldn't focus * couldn't follow simple instructions * would forget about something said a short time ago * has extreme paranoia, borderline schizophrenic to me
I suppose some specific kinds of lies could be crimes, but there should be a high bar for both the type of lie told as well as the certainty that it's really a lie.
> there should be a high bar for both the type of lie told as well as the certainty that it's really a lie.
Perjury convictions are a fairly high bar. People don't generally get charged for "flimsy inconsistencies in their statements." Prosecutors, judges, and juries don't have endless time to spend on getting someone.
That disabused me of the notion of Jones as an Evil Genius. He's just an alcohol-and-attention-fueled nut.
Occam's razor holds true, though. He's just a clown with issues.
But even without strong psych knowledge you can clearly feel if this is a parody/pastiche of particular genre. Alex does not give this vibes. Feels like there is a meta-person luring the physical person into some dark stuff.
I mean those people who shared the fake "magnetic covid chip" videos without even a thought for feeding paranoid people who then die because they don't get vaccinated.
Or people who create those ridiculous "You won't believe what Barack Obama did next" as pure click bait ads just for the money, without thinking that people then believe this stuff etc.
> Reporter Jon Ronson travels to Jones' hometown in Texas, to investigate the story Jones tells about himself, and how he became who he is.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/670/beware-the-jabberwock/a...
I know a bunch of these, including some in my family. None of them are capable of amassing even the fraction of following of the nut in question.
I am not in agreement with 'just' in that sentence.
otherwise it would be like saying ' he is not a genius, he is just fat' , which doesn't really make sense.
I also used to have similar ideas about private equity - I thought they were really smart guys with a lot of money, but after working with them a bit, I think they're just guys with a lot of money.
Turns out that money insulates you from the consequences of your bad actions, who would have thought?
You take an asshat and put him under extreme stress, and the true personality comes out.
I can only imagine how working with him was. He may have gone through a bunch of lawyers, and the ones who stuck with it... who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if these people were so done with him, and done with yelling at grieving parents, that they intentionally leaked info. At some point you stop caring about whatever scraps the person is paying you.
I don't feel bad at all.
He seems to me like he is a very successful rabble rouser and promoter. He seems to have made millions of dollars per year fulfilling that role - as much as $800,000 per day:
https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/celebrity/alex-jo...
The $4.2 million verdict doesn't seem significant to him, despite his protestations to the contrary. The plaintiffs were seeking $150 million. We'll see how much the $4.2 million is increased during the punitive phase of the trial but so far it seems like a cost of doing business for him.
If he were to be charged with perjury, it might take a little while to prepare the indictment too.
I’m most shocked at his own sheer self-destructiveness. What is he going to do now? Claim the courts conspired against him?
He probably honestly thought he could bluster his way through this. He probably still thinks he can scream his way out of it.
It's literally Jerry's move in Rick and Morty, "I just kept crawling and it kept working"
But more than anything, it was this insincere apology he gave regarding sandy hook, after which he seemed to feel above the Sandy Hook’s Survivors right to confront him in a court of law. I just sort of hoped he was a better and smarter person, maybe somebody who believed some kooky things but was doing a show mostly to entertain people and didn’t mean badly. Just seeing such hateful stupidity is surprising and disappointing to me. I might be too naive.
Ah. Now think about the other people who you also think are just putting on a show... No, this isn't acting, it is being.
No. I'm really not. His entire livelihood was based on talking bullshit and selling it. I had zero expectation that he could stop while dealing with some serious real world shit like taking responsibility.
FAFO Alex.