Comment by bbor
2 days ago
Pretty telling what speech on the left and the right looks like.
For the left, it's:
> Eugene Debs, for example, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the Espionage Act after he spoke at a rally for peaceful workers telling them they were “fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder”... Likewise, in 1919, Schenck v. U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a Socialist Party member after he sent anti-war leaflets to men across the country.
For the right, it's:
> It will not defend the First Amendment rights of pro-life pregnancy centers [...to trick desparate women into receiving useless propaganda instead of the medical care they were seeking] or small religious businesses [...to deny service based on rank bigotry]. It no longer defends religious freedom [...to deny adoptions to LGBT couples[1], to fire employees for receiving or abetting an abortion[2], and to perjure yourself in a senate hearing about your intention to make legal rulings on the basis of religion[3]], although it once did. And in a leaked internal memo, the ACLU takes the position that free speech denigrating “marginalized groups” should not be defended.
If you're ever in a position to write "marginalized groups" in scare-quotes, perhaps that should be a wakeup call...
P.S. It doesn't help that your links are to 1) a libertarian thinktank founded to oppose the New Deal, 2) the Heritage Foundation and 3) an opinion piece by Alan Dershowitz. The first is extremely biased, and the latter two are just plain bad-faith.
[1] https://www.lgbtmap.org/kids-pay-the-price
[2] https://laist.com/shows/take-two/heres-the-last-of-the-bills...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/feinstein-the-...
The next time somebody says the phrase "Fire in a crowded theater" to support free speech restrictions, remind them that this phrase comes from Schenck vs US (argued 1919), which was about whether you have the right to distribute antiwar pamphlets.
At issue was whether antiwar speech can constitutionally be punished as espionage, which can be a capital crime under US law, punishable by death.
Whether you're allowed to to speak in ways that Congress considers too close to 'creating a clear and present danger of a significant evil that Congress has power to prevent'. Whether you could criminalize speech deemed disloyal or detrimental to the war effort.
Woodrow Wilson was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921, and among other things, his administration dramatically expanded the precedential authority of the federal government in authoritarian directions, particularly with regards to things like surveillance and censorship. The Sedition Act of 1918 "broadened the scope of prohibited speech to include any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the U.S. government, flag, or military", and the Espionage Act of 1917 "made it illegal to interfere with the military, obstruct recruitment, or convey information that could harm the U.S. or aid its enemies. "
It took the Warren and Burger courts of the 60's/70's to reel this back in and re-establish many of the Constitutional rights you were taught about. It's unclear whether the pendulum will swing back the other way precedentially, but doubtless Trump would prefer carte blanche to target dissidents.