Trustee Christopher Murray plans an orderly wind-down of Infowars' parent company, Free Speech Systems, and a halt to efforts by Sandy Hook families to collect from Jones directly. Despite the impending shutdown, Jones anticipates continuing his broadcasting through other avenues and has hinted at the possibility of selling the company to keep his shows alive.
No one knows how long Infowars will continue broadcasting, if at all after this. One thing is for certain, what they do to Jones, they will do to others… and they have. It is absolutely fair for the victims of Sandy Hook to receive some form of compensation for the suffering inflicted on them by Jones, but it’s ludicrous to believe that $1.5B is anywhere near fair to him, nor the destruction of his living. This is an act of political persecution, and I say that as someone who is not an Infowars or conspiracy guy.
My first experience with Alex Jones came in 2007 when I was swept up in the Ron Paul revolution. Ron Paul’s media blackout by MSM outlets left his supporters no choice but to go to the only radio station that would have him on regularly for campaign updates, and that was Alex Jones’ Infowars. I’d hold the phone to my left ear doing 100 cold sales calls a day, and look forward to the afternoon when I could listen through my other ear to Jones hosting Paul.
Basil Poledouris’ Conan the Barbarian Theme thumping through the earpiece would get you excited to hear Dr. Paul talking about ending the fed, buying gold, and abolishing the Deep State before it was cool. Jones gave Paul plenty of time to air his grievances against D.C. In those days you felt like a real revolutionary, and it was common for Paulistas to think that the FBI was going to be kicking our doors down any day for daring to support the geriatric OBGYN. For some of us that went on to support Trump and find themselves in the ill-fated crowd on January 6th… that eventually did happen.
After joining the Libertarian National Committee in 2008, I spent more time reading philosophy books, and less time listening to Jones. I still loved conspiracy theories, but I had more fun debunking them. As the narratives in documentaries like Loose Change fell apart, and firearms experts like Brandon Herrera used ballistics to prove Oswald shot JFK from the book depository, and I learned the differences between ethyl mercury and methyl mercury in vaccines, Jones became less interesting to me. By 2012 I had become an associate producer at the Fox Business Network and was booking Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Julian Assange, and a dozen other libertarian heroes on Judge Nap’s show, FreedomWatch, myself. I could ask them my own indirectly in the Judge’s notes, or directly through my headset from the control room before they were on the show. I was having more fun getting into the nitty gritty of real policy, instead of obsessing over the theatrics of the political and literal butthumping going on at Bohemian Grove, which Richard Nixon himself reportedly said was “the most faggy goddamn thing you could ever imagine.” Kudos to Jones for infiltrating it.
After my stint at Fox Business, Jones took umbrage with me personally after a “Skeptics vs. Conspiracists” debate at the famous New Hampshire libertarian love festival Porcfest. I debunked many of the 9/11 inside job narratives, vaccine autism links, and chemtrails, which earned me praise for my courage in a local newspaper, but widespread condemnation amongst libertarians. The following week out of nowhere my phone started blowing up with people telling me that Alex Jones was cooking me on his program, calling me a “Justin Bieber” and “Leif Garrett” look alike, which I took to be compliments.
It was mostly a good natured ribbing by Jones, but I think I learned that day how important conspiracies are to in-groups. It’s not important to actually believe them per se, but to say you do to fit in. It’s a way for people to signal they’re a part of the group. We believe the same things. It’s strange to think but totally true that if you tell libertarians or right-wingers that commie Oliver Stone’s JFK film was not actually a documentary they’ll consider you to be on stronger drugs than they are, or part of the conspiracy itself. I thought it was all good fun doing skeptical research of people who claimed to love skeptical research. But by rejecting many of the liberty movement’s conspiracies, I was ‘signaling’ that I was an ‘outsider,’ and that was a threat to businesses like Infowars that trade in them. I understand.
I still believe in the conspiracy that global warming is a globalist plot to institute international socialism, however. Some conspiracies aren’t theories at all. The plot to kill Lincoln was a conspiracy, after all. The Gulf of Tonkin was two incidents, though; one real and one feigned. There was a real attack on US ships in Tonkin, but another attack was misreported, but still used by LBJ as cover for a troop surge in Vietnam. The war itself had actually been going on since Eisenhower.
Sadly, Sandy Hook was no feigned incident, and the parents were not crisis actors. Alex Jones did make a critical error, and his defense that he is an entertainer fell on deaf ears to a judicial system that has been wanting his scalp for a long time; not because he spreads falsehoods about WTC 7, but because his real crime in the left’s eyes is supporting Donald Trump among a litany of other wrongthink offenses. Alex Jones is persecuted not for his disinformation, but for his actual information. His brutal political attacks against elite snobs like Piers Morgan (“you’re a redcoat," Jones howled), and Hillary Clinton painted a target on his back. Sandy Hook was just the excuse they needed to finally shut him down for his successful rallying of patriotic Americans who, whether they believe in his conspiracy theories or not, rightfully see Jones as a friend in the fight against Big Government and the people whose COVID tyranny did inestimable damage to their small businesses or their children’s development. Bankrupting Jones and liquidating Infowars is about setting a Machiavellian example. Exterminate one of the biggest troublemakers, destroy his life, punish his family and friends, put his employees out of jobs so no one follows in his footsteps.
Alex Jones hasn’t killed anyone, but he’s being bankrupted in civil court as if he did. That’s not justice. That’s not restoring the lives of the children murdered at Sandy Hook. I can absolutely understand that the parents who were hurt by Alex Jones’ words may deserve some form of retribution, but it is not just for the government to treat Jones worse than how an actual killer, like OJ Simpson was treated. Destroying Alex Jones’ life won’t bring back those children from the dead. All it will do is cause more patriotic Americans who listen to Jones to confirm their biases that this government conspires and seeks to do harm to anyone who speaks out against it on a regular basis. And as for that conspiracy? I’m in agreement with the patriots who see it that way too.
