His belief that the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting of 2012 was a hoax perpetrated by false flag government agents for the purpose of inhibiting gun ownership in the United States goes beyond distaste. This is a man who has looked parents in the eye and declared their dead children to have never existed.

Free speech is a freedom we enjoy despite the right's continued attacks against the free press (see Republican attempts to prevent congressional interviews during Jeff Sessions' testimony to Congress earlier this week) and to portray Alex Jones as a victim in this context is outright repugnant.

Let us not forget that it was Alex Jones's right-wing website that pushed the "Pizzagate" conspiracy that led to a member of the alt-right threatening the institution with a firearm. As LaVenuta doubtless knows, speech considered to be inciting violence is not protected under the First Amendment.

This goes beyond simply portraying Alex Jones as a "bad guy." His website affords him his First Amendment rights and to give him a platform on a nationwide network is irresponsible and dangerous. The right's consistent self-victimization is hypocritical to the point of being ludicrous, and to push this narrative as an attack on the First Amendment is nothing short of outrageous.

Roth lives in Fargo.

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Letter: First Amendment rights defense of Alex Jones is outrageous - INFORUM