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Monte_RCMS
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Ridgerunner
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God gave us the gift of speech, and through that gift we express and expose our thoughts. When one unrelentingly speaks hatefully of another, it’s not unwarranted to believe it expresses what is in the heart of the speaker. One does not have to “make stuff up” when the other expresses his thoughts repeatedly and clearly.
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dvdjs
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Discerning “hate” is a subjective judgment.
Arguably, many here use the term too liberally.
It is a gift from God that they can express and expose their judgments - their thoughts about the sins of others. But the authority to judge belongs to God, who will judge us all.
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Ridgerunner
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All judgments are, of their nature, subjective. And yet, we must make them based on the evidence presented, and would not even live long without doing so. And we’re not talking about sending people to hell here, about which only God can judge. We’re talking about whether it is reasonable to believe that many on the left exhibit hate toward Trump.
And in making judgments about that, we have only their own words upon which to base it. Endlessly expressed and almost exclusively hateful speech is a powerful indicator of hatred.
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Theo520
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I’d mark that as one of Obama’s biggest faults. He had zero experience managing people and getting things done before he became president.
Obama kept incompetent staff in place long after they’d shown they were inept. The only people he fired were military officers that disagreed with his policy.
Prime example of his failure would be Kathleen Sebelius. Whether you liked ACA or not, HHS completely boffed the rollout and added delays, costs and complexity that even a marginally competent head of agency could have avoided.
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ProVobis
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And birtherism is what, loving thy neighbor?
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Ridgerunner
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Kind of depends, doesn’t it?
If someone truly believed Obama was born in some other country, or thought it reasonable to suspect it, it wouldn’t have been particularly uncharitable for him or her to express that concern in a civil way.
On the other hand, it would have been entirely possible for someone to be ugly and hateful in the expression of it. In such event, one might have wondered about the motivation. And if he or she did so over and over again, even daily and over months, and in a hateful manner every time, and just wouldn’t let it rest, then one could not be blamed for thinking it motivated by hatred of the man.
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dvdjs
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Actually it it not true, in general, that we “must” make judgments about others hearts.
Moreover, making judgments of this kind on the basis of “evidence presented” , rather than on the basis of a full picture drawn from thorough scrutiny lends itself to all kinds of bad actions.
And, specifically on this forum, we are regularly reminded to discuss issues rather than posters. So calling posters haters is not only likely to be reasoned and unnecessary, it goes against the admonitions of the moderator.
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dvdjs
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True belief is insufficient. Slanderous and libelous gossip is not justified by belief, not matter how strongly held; a strong basis in fact is required
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Ridgerunner
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Do you mean legally or morally?
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dvdjs
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If you want insgith in to the legallity there are plenty of resources. Here’s one:
eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal/liability/defamation
It does not seem that true belief is a sufficient defense.
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dvdjs
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Not if he is seeking to replace him with someone who will seek to quash ongoing investigations of Trump and company.
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J_Peterson
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Did anybody else notice that Trump actually told the truth in his phone call with Malcolm Turnbull? I was shocked myself. He said…
“I look like a dope.”
Trump speaking to Malcolm Turnbull
“I look like a dope.”
Trump speaking to Malcolm Turnbull
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Ridgerunner
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It is my understand that there are differences among jurisdictions.
In my state, the elements of libel are:
-publication (basically, “spreading it around widely”)
-of a defamatory statement (something a reasonable person would consider inherently negative as that person’s character or actions)
-that identifies the plaintiff.
-That is false
-That is published through the requisite degree of fault.
-And that damages the plaintiff’s reputation.
-And is not privileged.
Now, someone on CAF questioning where Obama was born meets few of the criteria.
-Doubtful “publication” since it’s a limited audience with no particular reason to think it would go further.
-Doubtfully “defamatory”. There is nothing inherently negative about saying a person wasn’t born in the U.S. or might not have been. “Birtherism” is simply questioning a candidate’s legal qualifications for office.
-That is false. I think we can stipulate that the “birther” assertions were false.
-The “requisite degree of fault” is plain negligence, that is, taking no effort to ascertain the truth of the matter. Alternately it can be “libel per se” requiring “malice” (that is, knowing its false but saying it anyway.)
-Doubtfully damaging to Obama, as it probably changed few or no votes.
-Almost certainly privileged. People who are intentionally public figures are generally “fair game” in any controverted, and particularly political, matter. That’s why most of the falsehoods asserted in the media against Trump (or on CAF for that matter) are not “libel”, legally. Holding political discourse to absolute certitudes is deemed violative of the right of free speech in the U.S.
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Ridgerunner
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What does this have to do with whether “birtherism” is libel, which is what we were talking about.
Not if he is seeking to replace him with someone who will seek to quash ongoing investigations of Trump and company.
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EasterJoy
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We don’t have to judge hearts. We are forbidden from doing so. We do have to judge whether a given action was intentional or unintentional, because we usually assign culpability under human justice according to seeming intention. We also have a frequent duty to judge the most likely future course of action of a person placed in a position of trust. That requires judging whether their true will, intention and capacity match their self-reported will, intention and capacity.
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Ridgerunner
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We cannot make judgements about the state of another’s soul. That is reserved to God.
We can, however, and to survive in this world, we can and often “must” make judgments about others’ “hearts” if, by “hearts” we mean motivations, intentions, and likely proclivities.
And, as mortal creatures lacking prescience or clairvoyance, we can only do that based on the objective manifestations made by that person.
In the general discussion of remarks about the president that would be understood by anyone as gratuitous insults or assertion of defamatory statements having nothing to do with policy, and/or having no real foundation, there just isn’t a more descriptive word for it than “hateful”.
Possibly someone will come up with a more nuanced descriptor that still fits.
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J_Peterson
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Define hateful.
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dvdjs
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As I said, I don;t think that this is true in general, or, especially, in the particular case of calling people haters on this forum. Not needed to “survive on this world”.
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