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We want to protect freedom of speech, but it is not unlimited freedom of speech. There has always been rules around defamation, slander and libel, and in Victoria, we have effective rules on racial and religious vilification.
The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
All the libel lawyers will tell you there's no libel any more, that everyone's given up.
Since neither black animosity nor the Left's falsehood of 'racial tensions' is based on the actual behavior of the vast majority of white Americans, nothing white America could do will affect either many blacks' perceptions or the leftist libel.
I've stopped caring about skeptics, but if they libel or defame me they will end up in court.
Ay - 'The Green Fool' business, the libel action over the head of it - did me a lot of damage. It destroyed the momentum.
When public men indulge themselves in abuse, when they deny others a fair trial, when they resort to innuendo and insinuation, to libel, scandal, and suspicion, then our democratic society is outraged, and democracy is baffled.
The problem is that in our country, they make it almost impossible for politicians to win anything. In England it's easier to win a libel suit.
In Britain, libel damages are small and people build them into the cost of doing business. In America, libel is very rare and much harder to prove, but the damages are enormous.
No other country in the world gives protection like that, but it is not absolute protection. People sometimes meet that high burden and win libel suits, and in those cases I think they ought to win.
