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Comment by bames53 [free speech]
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zoink is in free speech
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The whole thing about shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater was coined in a court case which threw someone in prison for distributing leaflets opposing the draft. It's from a discredited case that has essentially been overturned.

Also, a clear understanding of property rights shows why there's no need for a general limitation on speech this way; in theory it should just be a contract dispute between the guy shouting 'fire' and the guy that owns the theater and who asked patrons to not shout 'fire'. Or if falsely shouting 'fire' is permitted by the owner then there's no problem at all, except that probably no one would want to patronize his theater.

On inciting a riot:

Should it be illegal, we may next inquire, to "incite to riot"? Suppose that Green exhorts a crowd: "Go! Burn! Loot! Kill!" and the mob proceeds to do just that, with Green having nothing further to do with these criminal activities. Since every man is free to adopt or not adopt any course of action he wishes, we cannot say that in some way Green determined the members of the mob to their criminal activities; we cannot make him, because of his exhortation, at all responsible for their crimes. "Inciting to riot," therefore, is a pure exercise of a man's right to speak without being thereby implicated in crime.

I recently used this same passage to explain to some alt-righters why advocacy of increased taxation or advocacy for socialism doesn't justify the violence they were advocating.

On hate speech:

In the United States, "hate speech" is an argumentative rhetorical category, not a legal one.

"Hate speech" means many things to many Americans. There's no widely accepted legal definition in American law. More importantly, as Professor Eugene Volokh explains conclusively, there is no "hate speech" exception to the First Amendment.

There's no libertarian basis for hate speech laws so in this case the law in the US matches up well with the correct position. It's unfortunate that there are countries in which peoples' rights are violated with hate speech laws.

On death threats:

The problem here isn't actually the speech. If someone intends to kill you, you're justified in stopping them whether they verbally threaten you first or not. The speech is simply evidence for why a response is defensive and therefore justified. In particular, a death threat that's not a "true threat" actually may be protected speech.

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8 years ago