[sp332]

Is there no middle ground where we can have political dissent without vicious gossip and other crap newspapers do? After writing I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents, Thomas Jefferson later noted, I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them... These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief. http://www.famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson...

[mseebach]

Read that page of quotations, the whole one. All the answers are there.

Particularly:

"Since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press confined to truth needs no other legal restraint. The public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a full hearing of all parties, and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:381

[sp332]

That quote is from 1805, the second one I posted is from 1814, after he'd had 9 years more experience with a free press. Three years after that he wrote:

"From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430

In your quote he requires "the press confined to truth". But in the above, he also claims that the press is not confined to truth. Maybe they should have, at least, that much restriction.

[mseebach]

Read the speech for context - http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres17.html - paragraphs 11-13.

Yes, there exists "laws provided by the States against false and defamatory publications", but even when not enforced, the citizens saw through it, "consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs".

[tikhonj]

There is a very large difference between deploring something and making it illegal. It's completely reasonable to simultaneously believe that something is horrible but that it should also remain legal.

Trying to regulate taste is pointless and would not end well.