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March 19, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
24:18
3234 Hulk Hogan Legdrops Gawker: Gets $115 Million Verdict in Sex Tape Trial
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I guess Hulk Hogan has only one question for Gorka.
Are you ready to crumble?
In the Hulk Hogan vs.
Gorka trial, which began on March the 7th, well...
It quickly evolved, I guess you could say evolved, could be devolved, into a battle between the First Amendment, which of course guarantees free speech and a free press, and the Fourteenth Amendment, where courts have decided or determined that a right to privacy Derives under equal protection of life, liberty, and property.
Now, of course, it's more complicated if you're a public figure and so on, but here's the scoop.
Here's all you need to know.
Nearly a decade ago, Hulk Hogan was secretly filmed having sex with Heather Clem, the wife of his best friend, shark radio host Bubba the Love Sponge.
There's your first clue that things might not go so well if your best friend yells into a microphone.
Wait, that's not right.
If your best friend is named after somebody...
Who sounds like they should be the lead in a children's movie?
That may be an issue.
Now, this sexual encounter occurred not just with Bubba's permission, Hulk Hogan's friends, but at his explicit and repeated request.
At the time of the sexual encounter, Hogan's marriage was falling apart.
And in fact, during the sexual encounter, Hulk Hogan can be heard asking, Hey, you're not like recording this, are you?
Hulk Hogan said about the sexual encounter with his best friend's wife, he said, I was depressed.
I gave up and gave in.
I felt that those people loved me.
Now, fast forward in 2012, the website Gorka received the video from an anonymous source and published an excerpt on their website without the permission of either Hulk Hogan or Heather Hogan.
Clem, I guess at this point, tastefully edited becomes a little bit of a non-starter.
The story was entitled, quote, Even for a minute, watching Hulk Hogan have sex in a canopy bed is not safe for work, but watch it anyway.
And thus the last pillar of Western civilization, and fell.
So, according to Hogan's attorney, Ken Turkle, quote, Terry Bollea is Hulk Hogan's real name, Mr. Bollea didn't create this.
He didn't consent to the video or post.
He wasn't even called before the post was put up.
The idea that in 2012, this video was sent to Gorka and they didn't have the common decency to make one call gives you all you need to know about whether they are protected by the First Amendment.
He continued to say, quote, Do you think the media can do whatever they want?
This is not about political speech.
This case is unique.
You're not going to condemn someone's right to engage in speech.
You're balancing the right to make the speech versus privacy rights.
And whether or not porn is speech, well, I guess the internet's kind of a chatty place.
Now, Gawker claimed that it had a right to post the video because it was a matter of public concern.
Okay, public consumption, not quite the same as public concern.
Now, according to Gawker attorney Michael Sullivan, quote...
We don't need the First Amendment to protect what's popular.
We need a First Amendment to protect what's controversial.
And that's sort of an old argument, and there's some validity to it that, you know, a Pepsi commercial is not likely to offend too many people, and therefore it doesn't really have a whole bunch of attacks, and therefore, you know, unpopular speech is what needs to be...
Protected under the First Amendment.
But that tends to be intellectual or evidence-based arguments that counter a popular prejudice.
You know, Galileo saying that the earth moves and the Pope saying it is fixed.
And stationary.
And that is kind of what is meant.
An argument that challenges people's general beliefs rather than, hey, here's a semi-pixelated penis going up and down in a dark room.
That's not exactly Milton's areopagitica come to life.
Now, of course, you know all of this stuff.
We did a video on this when it came out.
When the video came out, Hulk Hogan could also in other areas be heard referring to the N-word and claiming that he wouldn't mind an N-word dating his daughter as long as the N-word was a basketball player, thus I guess putting his daughter into the category of a carnival ride with a height requirement.
But this all caused the Wrestling Federation, WWE, to scrub Hulk Hogan from the website and claim he's sort of an unperson and he lost, of course, a lot of his endorsements and so on.
So his brand, the Hulk Hogan brand, which he has spent like decades building up, became not just worthless, but in fact a negative.
People probably pay him to stay away.
And this, of course, he could have handed on to his kids and all of this reputation, right?
A lifetime to build up can be destroyed in a moment.
The reputation caused a lot of financial damage.
So Hulk Hogan filed suit against Gorka.
He sought $100 million in damages for, quote, emotional stress, And harm.
So this is upsetting and it has directly harmed his financial interest.
Friday, March the 18th, the six-person jury took only five hours to deliberate on and found in favor of Hulk Hogan on all counts.
Now, apparently, although every single time Hulk Hogan had spoken at all about sex, of which I believe about 98% occurs on The Howard Stern Show, they had to listen to every single time That Hulk Hogan had talked about sex.
However, they never ever did get to see the actual sex tape.
So, you know, jury duty bad enough, jury duty About porn with no porn.
I can imagine it's kind of even worse.
So this gives you an idea of what the jury thought about Gawker.
So Hogan asked for $100 million.
The jury awarded the Hulkster $115 million in compensatory damage.
So it's $55 million for economic harm and $60 million for emotional distress.
Now on Monday...
The jury will reconvene to award punitive damages related to the case.
Now, punitive damages, designed to be basically spanking aversion therapy, the punitive damages may be up to three times the $115 million in compensatory damages.
So...
That's quite a lot.
According to a Kearney Troy Slayton quote, it could be anything.
God knows what it will be.
I couldn't even start to speculate on that.
Frankly, I'm shocked at the $115 million compensatory verdict for showing a video for nine seconds.
Yeah, this was sort of one of their big defense.
Yeah, it was a grainy video.
It's nine seconds long.
So what harm could it do?
Which is sort of like, hey...
It only took me about 20 seconds to strangle that hobo.
So what harm could it really?
It's 20 seconds out of my whole life.
Why would I be in jail?
The length, as I've often told people, the length doesn't matter.
Now, a jury's monetary ward isn't in fact the last word on this rather sordid affair.
Now, of course, these awards are usually appealed and often or sometimes are often reduced by appeals courts.
Now, Gorka is expected to have to post a $50 million bond while they appeal this case.
And the funds are due about a month from when the punitive damages are decided.
Now, Gorka can appeal this bond and ask for it to be lowered.
But regardless, the company, which is valued at about $250 million US or about $12 trillion Canadian, is in fact in serious jeopardy.
This is a hole in the economic heart of the country for which its black evil orc blood may pour forever.
Law professor Samantha Barber said, quote, It's a huge damage award.
And just the idea that a celebrity has a right to privacy that outweighs freedom of the press and the public's right to know, that's a huge shift in American free press law.
It could potentially be a turning point in law.
Public's right to know.
Public's right to know.
Oh, I don't even know.
What can you say about that?
Now, Hogan's team said, quote, we're exceptionally happy with the verdict.
We think it represents a statement as to the public's disgust with the invasion of privacy disguised as journalism.
The verdict says, no more!
Now, Cork is not exactly right at the center of the mainstream media, but the mainstream media as a whole has...
Well, it's had some blows as of late.
You know, the fact that I guess I've had 160 million downloads and views might have just a teeny tiny dust mode of effect on the mainstream media.
The Newspaper Association of America has stopped compiling quarterly reports on advertising revenue because apparently if you do this when a tiger is jumping at you, it just goes right through you.
According to its annual numbers, which were released in April 2014, overall revenue for newspapers in 2013 was $37.6 billion, which was a decrease of 2.6% from 2012.
Within that total, combined print and digital ad revenue decreased by 7% to $20.7 billion, which to me is about $20.7 billion.
Too much for the sociopathic liars right at the black heart of the mainstream media.
Newspaper ad revenues are now only about a third what they were back in the year 2000 when you didn't really have many options when it came to trying to dig through the sociopathic lies of the mainstream media.
Yay!
Let's invade everyone because what bad things could ever happen?
And you know what would be great?
Bringing third world Muslims into European countries.
That's going to be just fantastic.
Oh no, women can never lie about anything like rape or sexual assault.
Aren't they just amazing and wonderful creatures who can never do anything wrong?
Let's cover up as many crimes of the Clintons as we possibly can.
What could go wrong with that?
Let's promote these people to the very pinnacle of American politics.
Hey, do you know what an evil gremlin whispered in my ear last night about Donald Trump's Hitler-esque qualities?
Let's put it front and center.
Hey, let's let Carla Slim buy out pretty much the New York Times to make sure that the New York Times can promote as many illegal immigrants coming in from Mexico so that they can send lots of remittances back to their friends and relatives in Mexico so that they can buy Carla Slim products.
No conflict of interest there, but let's make sure that we don't.
Tell anyone except Ann Coulter who can then tell the whole world.
So the idea that the mainstream media or the media as a whole is shocked and appalled that it may be held even to the tiniest of moral standards is quite a delicious thing to see from those of us who have been observing the mainstream media and its filthy paving the way towards totalitarianism series of yellow brick road lies to hell itself!
It's a beautiful and wonderful thing to see.
Look, I've never seen this sex tape.
I'm not going to watch it.
The fappening passed me by.
I have no idea what Kim Kardashian looks like when she is younger and in her birthday suit.
But come on, people.
I mean, can we not have a shred of privacy?
He's a public figure.
So we can put a camera, a GoPro in his toilet and watch him take a dump because the public has the right to know that people who eat food also excrete things, like the mainstream media.
So, of course, look, back in 1984, there was this telescreen, right?
They could see you and you could be barked at and yelled at, but at least it didn't share Winston Smith failing to touch his toes to everyone out there.
We live in a world where you can be recorded audio, video, without your knowledge in just about any space that you are, except some magnetically shielded room on the space shuttle.
You can be recorded video, audio, anywhere that you are there.
That stuff can be posted and shared.
And should it happen to catch a particular wave, and it may not be that you're famous, you could be somebody just a private citizen, but if it happens to catch a particular viral wave, suddenly that's it.
You are known now forever as that person.
It can destroy your life.
It can destroy your career.
It can undo your marriage.
It can harm you economically.
This is a totalitarianism of the web.
Hey, look, we've invented this wonderful methodology for human beings to communicate all over the world to each other back and forth.
We have broken down the barriers.
There's Google Translate.
There's Skype.
You can get video calls pretty much for free all over the world on your Dick Tracy arsepocket supercomputer.
Isn't that wonderful?
And like all wonderful things, the arseholes swarm in and turn all of the golden gods of human achievement into shitty little statues to their own inadequacies.
We've got a World Wide Web.
We've got amazing high-definition recording.
So let's take grainy pictures of our friend having sex with our wife and then send it.
I don't know who sent it.
There was a lawsuit between Hulk Hogan and his friend.
It was settled for like $5,000.
But this is the beauty.
We've got this amazing recording audiovisual equipment.
We've got the capacity to share information.
Do we use it to share wisdom?
Do we use it to share better arguments?
Do we use it to share love and passion and philosophy and virtue?
No!
Dicks!
Pussy!
Shame!
The tearing down of all public figures.
I know, I know.
Hulk Hogan is not exactly Socrates come to life with a handlebar mustache.
I get that.
I mean...
To say that he's somewhat coarse would be a little bit of an understatement.
But nonetheless, the man has the right to have sex without it being broadcast to people.
I can't believe the things that we have to say in the 21st century.
You have the right to pick your nose without people broadcasting it all over the internet.
Ted Cruz accepted.
You have the right to take a painful post- Chicken ticker crap in your toilet without somebody posting it on the internet.
You have the right to even unwisely bang your best friend's wife while you're depressed and not have it posted on the internet.
That seems like something kind of important because there's totalitarianism like the jackboots kick in your doors and they drag you off to some gulag and put you in a sack and beat you with sticks like Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
That's the kind of totalitarianism that's Kind of obvious, kind of out there, fists coming in, jackboots, weird flags, you name it, it's all there.
And we know that, we can see it coming, we can fight it.
But there's another kind of totalitarianism, which is like, I always feel like somebody's watching me.
I mean, this is not what we want to have.
It's this idea that there are eyeballs all over the place.
Oh, you could be recorded at any time.
Oh, look, you're a little tipsy.
Oh, look, you slipped on the ice.
Oh, look, here's you pocketing some paperclips at work.
I'm going to send it to your boss.
This totalitarianism, way back in the day, and this is still true for a lot of people who are still religious, but way, way back in the day, People vividly and completely and totally believed that there was this Old Testament Alan Parsons eye in the sky that was just this giant Sauron eyeball watching you at all times, judging you.
Ah, are you getting something from your pocket or are you adjusting your nutsack?
Oh, God can know.
And this idea that you're always being watched, that you have no privacy, this eye-in-the-sky stuff that used to be very commonplace in the realm of religion.
Of course, lots of people still believe it, the whole world over.
You can turn out the lights, but God can see in the dark.
This idea of privacy and civilization is fundamentally about privacy, because in privacy we can be original.
When we are always public, It is very tough for most people to have the willpower to be original when they're forever being watched and judged in the public.
It takes stern stuff and a strong spine to be original.
Most people are too vain to be original and too susceptible to social pressures to be original.
Originality grows out of privacy, the feeling that you can create things or live a life outside of the public eye.
And of course, if you do that for long enough, you can bring your conclusions to the public eye and work to change the collective consciousness of mankind.
But privacy is originality, it's creativity, it's growth, it's progress, it's civilization as a whole.
How many people would want to live in Billy Joel's Glass House?
The album, I don't think he actually lives in one.
How many people would want to live that?
Where anybody who could drive by could see all the way through the walls of your house...
All the way into whatever you were doing.
And how would you feel if there was a little...
I read a science fiction story about this in Omni years ago.
Like a little mosquito constantly following you.
A little drone mosquito constantly following you.
Filming everything you did and broadcasting it to the entire world.
That is a kind of living hell.
That even people in solitary confinement without cameras in their prison cells do not have to experience.
Security, privacy, originality, creativity, and...
There's an old saying in the old Soviet Union that the only time you were safe to have a conversation was when you were under the covers with your wife, assuming you could trust your wife.
So this idea that we're going to push back against these digital invaders, these digital hijackers.
These people who turn paranoia into a necessary survival art form of living.
These people to whom you must always be self-conscious, always feel in a public space that all your walls are made of glass and there's no such thing as history because stuff lives forever now.
You know, there used to be a saying about the newspapers, I don't care what you say about me, just make sure you spell my name right.
Or there was a saying when I was a kid that today's news is tomorrow's Fish wrappings or birdcage liner.
I need to rip it up and it's gone.
Now, stuff lasts forever, can be shared instantaneously, and we could use that.
And that's what I try to do in this show.
We could use that to bring wisdom and virtue and passion and evidence and thought and philosophy and compassion and connection and intimacy to The world as a whole to demonstrate a higher plane of living to encourage people to crawl out of the underworlds that we're so often born into.
We could use our technology for that.
Or we could clickbait people into watching a fallen icon have sordid sex in a seamy bed with another man's wife.
We could use the technology that the genius of our species have given us to elevate the species, or we can use it to drag down icons and to basically take a long, hypercritical, unloving dump on anything that anyone might be doing and find a way to shame and humiliate and bully them.
Now, Everybody who is even remotely a public figure looks at this with significant interest.
Do I have anything that is still my own?
What that's going to mean is that anybody who then is going to step into public life in the future, if there is no privacy, is going to be some creepy sociopath who doesn't care about privacy because they have no capacity to feel shame.
This invasion of privacy, this living in the glass house, everyone can watch you at all times and you can't do anything about it.
Anyone can publish anything about you at all times.
You can't do anything about it.
What this guarantees is that sensitive moral people with a conscience and a potential sense of shame will want to have nothing to do with public life.
It will keep the best people out of the public sphere and only people who will be willing to take a shit on camera will be happy to be in the public eye, which will degrade the quality of public conversations and the potential for human beings to rise and surround their history even more firmly.
It will be a shitty ceiling on all potential aspirations.
It will be the stairway that leads up to nowhere and nothingness.
So I find this kind of response fascinating.
I mean, can you imagine?
There's some lawyer at Gawker, I would imagine, who said, yeah, you should go ahead and publish this.
Where's that going to show up on this guy's resume?
And if you did watch this, look, I'm not here to nag you.
I'm not here to, you know, tut-tut you into oblivion.
Because either you can feel like a sense of shame about having pried into somebody's private life that they never wanted shared publicly.
You're either going to feel shame about this or you're not.
Now, if you're not, okay, go have a public life and Gorka can do nothing to shame you because you have no soul.
But if you do feel, if you did watch this or you do have any sense of shame about it, look, this stuff is kind of stolen from the guy.
He didn't want it published and they never asked him.
You have no right to know.
How Hulk Hogan has sex.
You have no right to know that.
It is not a matter of public interest at all.
It is a matter of petty purience and the destruction of anything that people might view in any kind of elevated way.
It is around the sordid, despoiling, Of any kind of stained glass of human achievement.
The man did achieve some things.
A lot of charisma.
When I was a kid, he was very popular.
I never followed wrestling myself, but very popular.
A lot of kids looked up to him.
A lot of kids revered him.
And the tearing down of idols is the general hobby of the inconsequential, right?
Oh, a man has achieved something.
Let us smash the cathedral of his achievement so that my nothing life doesn't stand out as empty in comparison.
So...
If you did do it, come on, let's just make a vow.
Don't do it again.
Just don't do it again.
One of the reasons why Hulk Hogan had to go to court is because people clicked on the video.
And people shared it and, oh, check this out.
There's Hulk Hogan having sex.
Come on.
Just stop doing it.
Don't go to the websites.
Boycott the people who do this kind of stuff.
People are lying about Donald Trump.
People are lying about Hillary Clinton.
People are lying about...
Whoever the mainstream media is lying about.
In other words, if there's text on a mainstream media website, I would say that pretty certainly there's a significant amount of falsehood.
Think of every single time you go...
To a story written in the mainstream media where you have expertise in the facts that they're talking about.
It could be computers or global warming.
You have some expertise in it.
How often are they actually correct?
But then you know every time that they talk about anything you know something about, they get it wrong.
But somehow you believe that everywhere else where you don't have expertise, they're magically correct.
No.
Stop going to these websites.
The mainstream media is...
In between us, it is blocking us from human communication.
Mainstream media is the babble fish, or the anti-babble fish, that the Tower of Babel, that shrapnels and fragments human speech.
We need to have clear and direct lines of communication between us to solve the significant human challenges that we're all facing as cultures, as countries, as species, and so on.
So, the mainstream media and websites like Gorker are everywhere.
Imposing themselves between us.
You know, it's like the game of whispered telephone, except all they do is give you smutty swear words and lies and falsifications.
Clarity of communication is the most essential thing that we need at the moment and the degree to which the mainstream media makes things sordid and twists and lies and the fact that one of the occupations with the greatest population of sociopaths is reporters, the fact that they are continually and consistently pulling a Iago and breaking our minds and breaking our connection and lying and twisting and prevaricating and, as I said, paving the yellow brick road towards tyranny is the degree to which we must reject the mainstream media.
I boycott.
I don't buy.
I don't consume.
I don't click.
I add block.
I do not give them one thin dime that I can possibly avoid giving them.
I suggest you do the same.
Reject, reject, reject those who are lying and twisting words and making the human condition rotten to the core.
Because that way, not just madness, but potential social disintegration lies.
We must say no so that people don't need to sue because people who publish this kind of garbage will find themselves with no clicks, no views, no money, no respect.
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