FREE SPEECH | Should lies be protected as free speech? / Banning protests

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Turd Ferguson said:
Don't you know you can't speak out about racism, bigotry and fascism. We're supposed to be tolerant of their hate, and can't speak out about it because then we're showing hate for the hate.
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so expressing hate for hate speech is hate speech ? I should not have started day drinking at 7am this morning...
 
While not exactly what OP was asking, I have been thinking about this topic lately from a different perspective.

One the best parts about our Freedom of Speech was that previously our society generally used it as a means to suss out the idiots among us.

Essentially, you have right to say and believe any damn fool thing you want, but we also have the right to think you are an idiot for any nonsensical stated belief.

So, for example, flat Earth kooks... 20 years ago somebody says that and you just looked at them with a raised brow and noted to never take anything they say seriously. Now, due to the internet, that person has an entire support system of like minded kooks and is not really "judged" the same way that society used to.

I get flat Earthers are the extreme example and most of us still think they are laugh out loud stupid. But apply that broadly to Obama birthers, 9/11 conspiracy nuts, and basically the majority of what Trump espouses and my point gains validity.

It's just fucked up that we have these amazing "truth verification systems" (aka your phone) but yet have far less truth and fact in our society than ever before. Not sure how to ever fix that or even improve that, but it has made the exercise of First Amendment rights less useful to society than previously. To be clear, though, I am not in favor of any real changes to the 1st amendment, just noting how our current social order has altered some of the underlying assumptions around it.
 
Oddball said:
While not exactly what OP was asking, I have been thinking about this topic lately from a different perspective.

One the best parts about our Freedom of Speech was that previously our society generally used it as a means to suss out the idiots among us.

Essentially, you have right to say and believe any damn fool thing you want, but we also have the right to think you are an idiot for any nonsensical stated belief.

So, for example, flat Earth kooks... 20 years ago somebody says that and you just looked at them with a raised brow and noted to never take anything they say seriously. Now, due to the internet, that person has an entire support system of like minded kooks and is not really "judged" the same way that society used to.

I get flat Earthers are the extreme example and most of us still think they are laugh out loud stupid. But apply that broadly to Obama birthers, 9/11 conspiracy nuts, and basically the majority of what Trump espouses and my point gains validity.

It's just fucked up that we have these amazing "truth verification systems" (aka your phone) but yet have far less truth and fact in our society than ever before. Not sure how to ever fix that or even improve that, but it has made the exercise of First Amendment rights less useful to society than previously. To be clear, though, I am not in favor of any real changes to the 1st amendment, just noting how our current social order has altered some of the underlying assumptions around it.
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What do you mean, changes to the First Amendment? Do you mean amendments to the constitution, or changing free speech doctrine?

The First Amendment doctrine pertaining to "content based speech" is incoherent and out of control. We had four justices recently opine (thankfully in dissent) that it was a violation of the First Amendment for the city of Austin to impose special restrictions on “off-premisesign,” defined as signs that “advertis[e] a business, person, activity, goods, products, or services not located on the site where the sign is installed, or that direc[t] persons to any location not on that site.”

That is not what the First Amendment was ever intended to be, and it makes no sense at all to say that "free speech" is an impediment to combatting visual clutter. Why would Austin distinguish between on-and off-premises signs? Gee, maybe it's because businesses need to be able to identify themselves to consumers (unless they choose for special reasons not to), but if we let anyone and everyone advertise anything in a downtown area, what we get is visual clutter that bombard people in the area.

This doctrine is rapidly swallowing all of the law of the First Amendment. It is also imperiling things like securities regulation, which according to the Supreme Court's test, would be presumptively illegal. Labeling laws. Consumer warnings. Etc. The doctrine needs to be changed, stat.
 
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