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Comment by polotics | Hacker News Reader

Comparable damage? Can you imagine your young daughter one days goes to school, never comes back because she bled to death in a corridor there, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up and are a fake? One thing I really don't understand about the US of A is, while it is abominously violent, still, a pork like Alex Jones hasn't been physically attacked by anyone. It's like there's a complete split in society somehow. In my books comparable damage would be everything and all money he owns, plus any he will, minus maybe $9 per day. Couldn't the jury have voted for such a verdict, why does it have to be an amount, why not an "everything"?

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Crossing into nationalistic flamewar is one of the worst things you could add to this, and resorting to violent rhetoric of your own is not ok.

Please don't do these things on HN, regardless of how strong the provocation is. It just makes everything worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Isn’t that what it will amount to? He’ll declare bankruptcy and everything he’s got will go to settling some fraction of these lawsuits.

He was just on his live show telling viewers to send money without worry: nothing they sent now would ever go to these families because he is declaring bankruptcy.

Whatever bankruptcy judge he ends up before might not be amused by such antics.

> He’ll declare bankruptcy

Sure, but debts from frauds and willful and malicious harms, includong associated punitive damages, are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

I was not aware of this. Do you have a source?

11 USC § 523(a) generally, and for willful or malicious injury specifically 11 USC § 523(a)(6).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/11/523

Bankruptcy doesn't allow you to hide money. The families are added to the list of creditors seeking relief and the judge will order them accordingly. The families are likely to be the top creditor and will get every penny from his estate.

I’m not suggesting he can hide money. He gives up everything he has of bankruptcy date, and then starts fresh with a new company and the same followers and same advertisers paying him to lead those followers.

Now, suppose that he tries to hide some assets to not pay what he owes. In this case he can be on the hook even after bankruptcy

I think his greatest asset is his personality and following, and he’ll be able to monetize that post-bankruptcy. The longer he drags out the court cases, the longer he delays that, so hopefully he just gets on with him and pays out everything he has.

> Can you imagine your young daughter one days goes to school, never comes back because she bled to death in a corridor there, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up and are a fake?

Sure, we have a scenario in three parts:

1. Your daughter goes to school.

2. She bleeds to death in a corridor.

3. You get attacked by strangers claiming you are a phony.

Don't you think the damage occurs in step 2? What did Alex Jones have to do with that?

Can you imagine meeting an alien who reveals to you a better way of life, founding a religion according to his teachings, attracting followers, and then for years you get attacked by strangers claiming you made it all up? What would they owe you?

> Don't you think the damage occurs in step 2? What did Alex Jones have to do with that?

Damage occurred in both steps 2 & 3, but as you point out, Alex Jones had nothing to do with step 2, so this case is about step 3.

That's not a conclusion you can reach by reading this comment thread. People are falling over themselves to point out that these families lost their children. Why?

> People are falling over themselves to point out that these families lost their children. Why?

Because that's what Alex Jones targeted to abuse these people. He didn't kill their children, but he did take people whose children were killed, and lie about that fact in order to attack these people for money.

You forgot maybe the most horrible of all this. You create a website and through ads and sells you make a ton of money out of it.

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