> If something is not illegal but clearly bad, it's a lesson that we should change the law.
I don't agree (at least not in general). Eg not loving your kids is clearly bad, but I don't think laws would be the right way to tackle this.
> It absolutely should not be legal to lob a completely baseless murder accusation at someone with no evidence.
You could try to make American courts change how they interpret defamation. Or you could change the defamation laws in the US. Or you could stop fiddling with defamation, and make up a new category of 'bad thing'. In the last case, you could learn from the German experience: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cble_Nachrede_(Deutschlan... (use Google translate, if necessary).
I don't agree (at least not in general). Eg not loving your kids is clearly bad, but I don't think laws would be the right way to tackle this.
> It absolutely should not be legal to lob a completely baseless murder accusation at someone with no evidence.
You could try to make American courts change how they interpret defamation. Or you could change the defamation laws in the US. Or you could stop fiddling with defamation, and make up a new category of 'bad thing'. In the last case, you could learn from the German experience: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cble_Nachrede_(Deutschlan... (use Google translate, if necessary).