Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I would normally agree with you, but I don't think looking at the lawsuit that its completely frivolous, I agree that the demand for compensation is ridiculous.
But you can't throw out blind accusations that's not free speech at all.
I'm not defending Wenzel or attacking Nenshi.
But there's a line that you skirt in terms of free speech and Nenshi blew right by it.
As far as the question of wasting public funds, that's under debate right now and is the most interesting part of this.
Since this was in the middle of an election campaign, and Nenshi was in effect campaigning and the comments went towards election conduct, the argument is that Nenshi was speaking as a mayoral candidate and not the mayor, and if that's what the council recognizes then this lawsuit will cost taxpayers nothing except the time that Nenshi is not on the job.
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What exactly is that line that you skirt in terms of free speech? Speaking up when you believe that one of your opponents is advocating actions that are, in your view, in violation of election law? Blind accusations? Hardly. It's an accusation based on video that we all saw, put against the elections act that we all have access to. It's about as far from blind as you could get. Ultimately, you've already decided that there's a line that Nenshi's comments have crossed. But the whole reason that we have defamation laws is to set out what those lines are. If the courts find Nenshi defamed Wenzel, his comments went too far. If the courts find that they were true and fair, then they clearly didn't go too far.
As for the public funds, it's a 'meh' issue for me. The city has an internal process that they use to determine it, and whatever conclusion that internal process comes to is fine. It's the least interesting part of the process. Though I fully expect outrage from the Sun and some commenters on here if the city decides it's covered, because people with no view of the process can claim that something wildly inappropriate was done. I strongly suspect that when it's all over, Wenzel's going to be paying those legal fees anyway.