The Price of Lying

 

Rudy Giuliani has been court-ordered to pay $148 million to Ruby Freeman and Wandreya Moss in their defamation case against him. He was the only witness on his behalf and there are two important points to make:

He lied about them and admitted it. 

He provided no proof of any kind that backed up the stories he spread about them, and actually withheld requested discovery documentation. 

These women were threatened and their lives were severely disrupted by the lies Giuliani told. A quick perusal of rightwing social media features a lot of "whataboutism": "But what about what these women did?" Because they don't get the point:

The women didn't do anything. They were counting ballots--of course you move them. They want to believe Giuliani's lies and so, the lie persists for them. THAT's what's worth $148 million. Once their reputations were destroyed by a lie, there is no getting things back to how they were before. 

Because Giuliani is reprehensible, he wants to claim he was shafted by the court: 

Giuliani was unrepentant after the ruling, telling reporters outside the courthouse, “The absurdity of the number underscores the absurdity of the entire proceeding,” and adding falsely that “I have not been allowed to offer one single piece of evidence in defense, of which I have a lot.”

Of course, that's untrue: he was sanctioned for NOT TURNING OVER anything. He always had shit. And if he felt like the court was not letting him be "heard" he could turn his troves of information over to the media. Which he has had plenty of time to do.  And can't. Nothing's stopping him but the lack of information that supports him in any way.

Of course, the rightwing noise machine isn't going to let a little thing like honesty or common sense get in the way. Get a load of this Tweet from Charlie Kirk, hopeless berk:

He writes: "Free speech has a cost. Alex Jones: $1 billion. Tucker Carlson and FOX: $787.5 million. Rudy Giuliani: $148 million for wanting to ensure fair elections. Are you next?"

(I threw some periods in there to make sentences of this stupidity.) This isn't about "free speech"--it's about expensive lying that has ruined people's lives. It had nothing to do with wanting fair elections: the election was fine, Trump just lost. And these people lied about it. 

And the "Are you next?" is just trying to frighten people and personalize it for them. You, a regular person, might want fair elections and might pass along something that you don't know for a fact to be true. You're not getting sued. Nobody knows you! If you are a big-time news network, or a social media personality with a huge following, or a former (or current) elected official: people take you seriously and your words have much more impact. 

Look at the list. Alex Jones--lied. The families weren't crisis actors, the dead children were real and people were harassed. Tucker Carlson and FOX News--lied. The machines did not flip votes to Biden. Rudy Giuliani--lied. The point is the lying by people who did not care about the consequences of their lies and assumed there would be none. 

Freeman and Moss most certainly have had other figures besides Giuliani lie about them--the biggest fish to fry strikes me as being one Donald J. Trump. 

And I would like to see it.