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https://walterblock.substack.com/p/alex-jones-is-innocent?r=iw8dv&utm_medium=android

By Walter E. Block

              Let us stipulate that the horrid Newtown Connecticut shooting is a historical fact. Should Mr. Jones be compelled to pay one red cent to the parents and family members of the victims for denying this?

   Well, lets see. I maintain that Barack Obama was actually our first president and George Washington in now the occupant of the White House. As I see things, Christopher Columbus discovered China in 1992 and Native Americans discovered Spain in 1492. I know you’re surprised that these claims are contrary to what you learned in school, but I assure you, they are correct. Hey, I have a Ph.D. I’m therefore a know-it-all. True, my advanced degree is not in history, but a Ph.D. is a Ph.D. I have also uncovered the fact that Hitler was actually a Martian who loved Jews, and Albert Schweizer was a mass murderer. I can’t resist; I’m on a roll here.  Martin Luther King was a guard with New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (also a member of the Ku Klux Klan), and Woody Allen won an Olympic gold medal in boxing in the heavy weight division. I’m having fun here; you’re lucky I don’t pile on any more, at least not for now.

              Should I be made to pay, big bucks, for these nincompoop statements of mine? Let us say, at least arguendo, and quite possibly in reality, the feelings of many people were hurt by at least some of these frothings of the mouth of mine.

              If hurt feelings justify punitive payments, then every movie or book reviewer who wrote critically of his subject is in trouble. Right now, sports writers are casting aspersions on the Los Angeles Lakers who are doing poorly, despite having two world class players on their team. This, despite the fact that they were widely expected to at least contend for the championship. You think the members of this team are happy with all this negative publicity? When a girl refuses a dance with a boy, she hurts his feelings; when he doesn’t ask her in the first place, her feelings are hurt (whether or not she’ll afterwards accept his invitation).

              It is just plain silly to think it is justified to compel anyone to pay anyone else damages whenever the former hurts the feelings of the latter. Yet, what else it is it that Alex Jones has done other than denying a sad fact of history, to the consternation of a group of folks?

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