I like what you said here with one exception, I would replace the word "run" with "ruin". This legal force and plunder the state has is why I favor a non-state society.
It's ironic that those in power expect to have the same, if not MORE rights, than those whose rights they deny respect for. I believe this applies to all public "servants", and to an extent, to mainstream journalists.
Remember that when a normal citizen is insulted, attacked or has their reputation ruined, for good reason or not, nobody ever truly cares. When a politician's or a journalist's reputation is attacked, and for GOOD REASON, they victimize themselves and also manage to get considerable percentages of the population to also defend them.
What I'm trying to say here is that, maybe if you're an actor or just a pop culture figure, you're gonna get far more ruined over libel, but when you're actively political, there's a clear, inverted moral order. When a politician is truthfully criticized, it's "an attack on democracy" or shrugged off with such arguments like "yeah but he did a lot of good for us!" [needs citation]. When a journalist is criticized for lying, it's an attack on press freedom.
In most nations, there are both direct and indirect mechanisms which grant State funding to media outlets, which monopolizes public opinion. Such is the case with Argentina, where most major newspapers and news channels have always been partially funded by the State, either legally or under the table. This turns journalists into semi-official priests of power; they act like PR agents for the political establishment, and there's hardly any competition among them because smaller journalists end up getting de facto censored or simply people don't believe them because they're independent or underfunded, if they even find them at all. It ends up being really easy for them to stab you with a poisoned dagger and then cry victim later.
These journalists are the ones who will whitewash politicians, or politically murder them, all depending on their interests; this is why big media outlets inevitably end up in a toxic relationship with the State whereby they end up being funded to promote what basically passes as State propaganda, and the State will continue doing so out of fear that underfunding will make any of these journalists turn on it... well, not on the State itself, but rather on whomever is running it at the time; you'll end up having whoever replaces them not committing the same mistake.
Again, I cite Argentina's case: pre-Milei, most major media outlets received government funding. Provincial and municipal outlets also did, to an extent. Independent journalist could simply not compete. In fact, some independent journalists, such as El Presto, were persecuted for criticizing State officials, even if truthfully. Milei then comes, cuts most of that funding to these outlets, and suddenly you've got the entirety of the legacy media basically scorning him and others around him whenever they can, often outright lying and then victimizing themselves when they're denounced for libel.
Milei might be just another politician in that sense, but he's not the only one who suffers from this; a lot of regular citizens too. Libel laws are basically the only tool that the common man ends up having to defend their reputation from the propaganda machine of the State, dare they go against it. As long as the State exists, I find it more dangerous not to have libel laws than to have them, personally.
Aden, thanks. Walter
You've overlooked an important legal right government agents have that the rest of us lack: the right to run the lives of other people.
I like what you said here with one exception, I would replace the word "run" with "ruin". This legal force and plunder the state has is why I favor a non-state society.
It's ironic that those in power expect to have the same, if not MORE rights, than those whose rights they deny respect for. I believe this applies to all public "servants", and to an extent, to mainstream journalists.
Remember that when a normal citizen is insulted, attacked or has their reputation ruined, for good reason or not, nobody ever truly cares. When a politician's or a journalist's reputation is attacked, and for GOOD REASON, they victimize themselves and also manage to get considerable percentages of the population to also defend them.
"Equal rights" are not compatible with the State.
What I'm trying to say here is that, maybe if you're an actor or just a pop culture figure, you're gonna get far more ruined over libel, but when you're actively political, there's a clear, inverted moral order. When a politician is truthfully criticized, it's "an attack on democracy" or shrugged off with such arguments like "yeah but he did a lot of good for us!" [needs citation]. When a journalist is criticized for lying, it's an attack on press freedom.
In most nations, there are both direct and indirect mechanisms which grant State funding to media outlets, which monopolizes public opinion. Such is the case with Argentina, where most major newspapers and news channels have always been partially funded by the State, either legally or under the table. This turns journalists into semi-official priests of power; they act like PR agents for the political establishment, and there's hardly any competition among them because smaller journalists end up getting de facto censored or simply people don't believe them because they're independent or underfunded, if they even find them at all. It ends up being really easy for them to stab you with a poisoned dagger and then cry victim later.
These journalists are the ones who will whitewash politicians, or politically murder them, all depending on their interests; this is why big media outlets inevitably end up in a toxic relationship with the State whereby they end up being funded to promote what basically passes as State propaganda, and the State will continue doing so out of fear that underfunding will make any of these journalists turn on it... well, not on the State itself, but rather on whomever is running it at the time; you'll end up having whoever replaces them not committing the same mistake.
Again, I cite Argentina's case: pre-Milei, most major media outlets received government funding. Provincial and municipal outlets also did, to an extent. Independent journalist could simply not compete. In fact, some independent journalists, such as El Presto, were persecuted for criticizing State officials, even if truthfully. Milei then comes, cuts most of that funding to these outlets, and suddenly you've got the entirety of the legacy media basically scorning him and others around him whenever they can, often outright lying and then victimizing themselves when they're denounced for libel.
Milei might be just another politician in that sense, but he's not the only one who suffers from this; a lot of regular citizens too. Libel laws are basically the only tool that the common man ends up having to defend their reputation from the propaganda machine of the State, dare they go against it. As long as the State exists, I find it more dangerous not to have libel laws than to have them, personally.