The Onion files Supreme Court amicus brief defending the right to parody
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
"...The Onion intends to continue its socially valuable role bringing the disinfectant of sunlight into the halls of power... And it would vastly prefer that sunlight not to be measured out to its writers in 15- minute increments in an exercise yard..."
"...The petition for certiorari should be granted, the rights of the people vindicated, and various historical wrongs remedied. The Onion would welcome any one of the three, particularly the first..."
Just to clarify though, the case isn't exactly about the right to parody, it's whether an officer of the government should receive qualified immunity if he/she tries to arrest someone who is clearly parodying the government's speech or website. And although the case itself is laughably "small town offended police chief overexercising his power", it's a clear test case.
> The Onion is the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered cover- age of breaking national, international, and local news events. Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1756, The Onion now enjoys a daily read- ership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human his- tory.
It starts on page 6.
It's just 17 pages long, and is very conscious about keeping the reader's attention.
Liability for slander, libel, etc. should only arise if the speaker has gone out of their way to state that their views / claims are true and should be relied upon, or if there’s another special reason why consumers should believe the speaker (eg it’s their doctor, lawyer, etc).
There was a recent case before the Supreme Court where a guy who was legally innocent was still in prison. As in the government’s position was yes he is in prison for something that isn’t illegal, but he had already used up his appeals.
One of the Justices started asking if the government was concerned about the number of appeals should this be allowed. The court cares about such things because they are effectively above the rules and could do a great deal of damage.
Alito:
Are you concerned that every federal prisoner who wants to bring a successive motion is going to claim that this falls within the traditional scope of habeas, and this would be an escape clause that would be invoked again and again and again, and all the district judges are going to have to analyze the traditional scope of habeas to see whether the claim actually falls within that?
Feigin responded that he was not concerned with overburdening the federal courts because, in his view, it is rare that a case would fall within the narrow parameters suggested by his position in Jones’ case. Feigin told Alito that Jones’ case constitutes “probably a category of one” in which “somebody is in prison for something that Congress never made a crime.” https://lawandcrime.com/supreme-court/justice-alito-concerne...
His current appeal is that under the laws at the time of his conviction, he exhausted the opportunities for appeal (back then), but then the interpretation changed after that time. So ordinarily now, he would have had the opportunity to make a claim for being not guilty under the new standard.
I liken it to (if we had to make a tech analogy), changing the version of something while a system was still in operation with a long process pipeline, and some users were stranded in limbo between 2 versions of a policy.
Reading the cert brief, I can understand why SCOTUS might want to make clear what to do in cases like this. But I imagine that the ruling might be short and clear, befitting a "correction" to a legal process that let something slip through the cracks.
If it is/does resolve it, the defendant still may be in prison, not "innocent" because this just resolves the one duplication of charges or knowing possession standard. It's not like "an innocent man is in prison for something he didn't do". Again, not that that matters to the principle.
He is considered legally innocent, that doesn’t mean he is actually innocent only that the courts are treating him as if he where innocent of this crime.
It’s the same situation as someone getting convicted of breaking a law that came into effect after they had done it. They bring a Habeas corpus appeal that says based on the facts accepted at trial and the date of the law went into effect I committed no crime rather than saying I didn’t do it.
This is the position of the Eighth Circuit and seems to be the likely eventual position of the conservative Supreme Court justices, but the government's position is actually a bit more nuanced: yes his existing conviction would no longer be upheld under more recent statutory interpretation, and he should be granted an extra appeal if he could actually demonstrate his innocence under the new interpretation, but what he did would probably still be considered illegal when all available facts on the record are considered and so he wouldn't satisfy what the government considers a reasonable threshold for an extra special appeal.
I'm 100% for parodies, but this is a nearly impossible burden for the public.
For example, if you don't have medical training, how would you go about proving a medical fact? You could spend years educating yourself and doing experiments, or like most people you could find a source that someone else recommends (a friend, Google, etc.) and choose to trust it. We don't prove the fact ourselves, we just assume that someone else before us proved it, but we can't verify their proof as we often don't have the knowledge, time or tools to do so.
Regarding slander and libel: The appellant wasn't charged with any sort of defamation. Criminal defamation has been quite thoroughly ruled unconstitutional.
In the civil context, defamation in general requires one to have knowingly made a false statement with reckless disregard of the truth. You also have to prove that it damaged you in some material way. (Intentional infliction of emotional distress is very, very difficult to prove.)
The bar is even higher if it's against a public figure or a so-called "limited-purpose public figure" adding the requirement of actual malice.
So I'd say the requirements for civil defamation are already quite strict.
(IANAL)
Bee is too hateful to be funny for me at least :(
Second, the Bee has a big pool of writers because it has a membership tier that allows pitching headlines. And their membership has grown as they’ve become a news story for things like their suspended Twitter account. So while The Onion’s parent corp was laying off staff, the Babylon Bee was growing its writers and also making more money, which let it hire more editors and producers and hire some of the headline-writing members who had proven themselves. All that led up to being able to produce a high volume of headlines and stories.
The Onion was funny for a long time after they sold out; what seems to have tanked their comedy is an editorial decision in the last few years to become more politically engaged, and to start "punching up". You can date this to the time when they ditched the absurdist persona of Biden as a washed-up drifter they'd been building up all through the Obama years.
Edit - allow me to substantiate: a quick visit to their site has everything from anti-worker sentiment, anti-LGBT+, election conspiracies, COVID denialism, and an obvious support of right-wing talking points. Did they used to be more even keel? Sure, but they’ve changed their tone for the worse in the last few years.
hackernews is full of right wing types
I’ve already had the pleasure of off-boarding a neo-nazi from an old job, and spent a year in a country fighting both kinetically and ideologically against the dominant religious authoritarians. This is just a Saturday.
Life's much better now, albeit a little less surprising ;)
I guess I can only wonder what's it like to never put your life on the line for a selfless cause and only argue online, though. Any insights there?
keep up the good fight, it's a shame seeing the comment section in such a state. see you in another 4 months maybe
Calling people "right wing" just because they do not agree with a given narrative is one of the motors behind the polarisation of society. Just because someone acknowledges the veracity of the (small-s) science of biology and thus recognises the fact that sexually reproducing mammals like us come in two sexes [1] does not mean they are 'right wing´, they could be social democrats or communists and still realise this to be the case. Just because people see the race-baiting profiteers who make a living pushing 'critical race theory' for what they are does not make them 'right wing', there are plenty of liberals who recognise Robin diAngelo and Ibram Henry Rogers (who calls himself 'Ibram X Kendy' nowadays) for the frauds they are.
The word 'right wing' does not mean 'evil' or 'wrong' nor does 'left wing' mean 'good' or 'right'. These terms have meanings which are not at all related to 'wrong', 'right', 'good' or 'bad'. They are also rather imprecise indicators of a person's political leanings since many people do not fit neatly into a 'left' or ´right' shaped box.
[1] yes, yes, yes, except for the 0.18% who suffer from intersex conditions
being intentionally ignorant of those differences and definitions isn't making a great point.
For more on critical race theory - and critical theory from which it derives - may I suggest a visit to New Discourses' explanation of the origins and essence of this movement?
Yeah super weird, why would I bring up the most-often conflated term in right-wing discourse regarding transgender rights when you repeat their views almost verbatim? SUPER weird.
I've read the New Discourses assessment, thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, it didn't really shed light on any new topic or idea, but finding the author to be a self-professed nationalist was of little surprise.
If I may suggest some reading, pick up a copy of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. I wouldn't mind lending mine, either - I'll even cover shipping charges.
"self-professed nationalist"
Please stop throwing labels and start talking substance.
On that book suggestion I have another pointer for you to read which poses a number of questions related to the use of the "Jim Crow" moniker for explaining problems with the American justice system. You can download the PDF, no postage needed:
Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow
and as for your article, that sort of discussion is important to have (both the book which I like and your article which is well written and academic and better than I was expecting ). Talking the issue is doing CRT
The banning crowd wants to make this sort of discussion illegal in schools
My views on humour and satire are relevant so I'll give them: anything is ripe for satire and humour is in the eye and ear of the beholder. That does not mean everything makes for good satire and everything which is deemed humorous by some is good humour but it does mean the limits to humour and satire are to be set by the laws of the land, not by a self-styled thought police. The Onion is free to satirise anything they want and so is the Babylon Bee. You do not have to find their satire funny nor do you have to read or watch it, that is up to you. As long as they do not violate the law - which, at least in theory, is shaped through a democratically (or in the case of the USA a representational republic-ally - they are free to wander where they want.
People are being critical because the content they publish legitimizes lies and punches down on marginalized groups. If you enjoy that kind of content, you should feel free to go where those views are welcome; I am making it plain that it is not welcome here.
Neo-nazis should worry about losing their job. People that promote misinformation about public health should be pilloried. People who want to remove rights from women, transgender people, minorities, immigrants, etc. and treat them as anything less than human deserve social ostracization.
It's not ironic, the bee is hated because it's in favor of Big Lie conspiracies, anti trans hate, and anti gay hate.
Nobody was saying they should be illegal.
You posting pro - Bee content makes me feel unwelcome here, since it's advocating for direct harm. Again, not illegal, no real world consequences, but I don't want to be on this site anymore.
I can only hope stronger people make you uncomfortable enough to move to truth social or mastodon or something and I will be able to return to a site I used to love.
[1] ...which we're surely close to violating given the inherently political nature of this subject
critical race theory is nothing more than how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity.
They are quite separable, both logically and in practice; Kendi’s approach to antiracism is not uncontroversial even among people who accept CRT as a correct approach to analyzing the status quo.
In fact, in regard to the particular quote you see as emblematic, CRT tends to see the problem of the status quo situation of marginalized racial groups not as being a past discrimination which needs correction by present discrimination, but currently-existing structures which prevent progress which need dismantled. While Kendi’s statement isn’t logically excluded by CRT, it is far from the most natural conclusion from it. Generously, CRTs observation of the scope and breadth of subtle systemic discrimination through superficially race-neutral policies might lend support to a idea of compensatory overt discrimination as an easier stopgap while those systems are identified and dismantled, which is rather different from what Kendi articulates but similar in policy recommendation.
> treating people differently based on the color of their skin (which is a core tenet of CRT)
That’s not a tenet of CRT at all. CRT is an analytical approach to how racial inequality occurs and is preserved through law and institutional structure. While people interested in it naturally tend to have views on a desired end-state and also be interested into policy prescriptions as to how best to achieve that, those are beyond the scope of CRT.
So if every single proponent of CRT espouses support for racial discrimination, it's fair to draw the conclusion that they are inseparable.