Freedom of speech vs Technology

Flash said:
In the 1957 case Yates v. United States, Justice John Marshall Harlan II ruled that only advocacy that constituted an "effort to instigate action" was punishable. In the 1969 case Brandenburg v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a statute that punishes mere advocacy and forbids, on pain of criminal punishment, assembly with others merely to advocate the described type of action, falls within the condemnation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Justice Louis Brandeis argued in Whitney v. California that "even advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on."

Brandenburg v. Ohio

Brandenburg, a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, made a speech at a Klan rally and was later convicted under an Ohio criminal syndicalism law. The law made illegal advocating "crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform," as well as assembling "with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doctrines of criminal syndicalism."


Did Ohio's criminal syndicalism law, prohibiting public speech that advocates various illegal activities, violate Brandenburg's right to free speech as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments?



The Court's Per Curiam opinion held that the Ohio law violated Brandenburg's right to free speech. The Court used a two-pronged test to evaluate speech acts: (1) speech can be prohibited if it is "directed at inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and (2) it is "likely to incite or produce such action." The criminal syndicalism act made illegal the advocacy and teaching of doctrines while ignoring whether or not that advocacy and teaching would actually incite imminent lawless action. The failure to make this distinction rendered the law overly broad and in violation of the Constitution.


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It is a federal crime to advocate the violent overthrow of government. And it should be.
 
BidenPresident said:
It is a federal crime to advocate the violent overthrow of government. And it should be.
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The Courts have clearly defined that to mean "only advocacy that constituted an "effort to instigate action" was punishable." Free speech means your can advocate whatever you want--it is only speech. If you take some act to conspire or commit that act then it becomes illegal.

You can't just read the law--you have to read the court decisions defining that law. Pure speech cannot be punished.
 
Flash said:
The Courts have clearly defined that to mean "only advocacy that constituted an "effort to instigate action" was punishable." Free speech means your can advocate whatever you want--it is only speech. If you take some act to conspire or commit that act then it becomes illegal.

You can't just read the law--you have to read the court decisions defining that law. Pure speech cannot be punished.
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You are wrong on the law.
 
BidenPresident said:
You are wrong on the law.
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Court decisions have altered the meaning of the law's application.

"In a per curiam opinion, the Court unanimously overturned Whitney and expressly articulated a rule first hinted at in Dennis, Yates, Noto, and companion cases: it is unconstitutional, as per the First Amendment, criminally to punish a speaker for abstract advocacy of illegal conduct. For speech to fall outside the ambit of First Amendment protection, the speaker’s advocacy must be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce imminent lawless action.”

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/890/advocacy-of-illegal-conduct
 
Flash said:
Court decisions have altered the meaning of the law's application.

"In a per curiam opinion, the Court unanimously overturned Whitney and expressly articulated a rule first hinted at in Dennis, Yates, Noto, and companion cases: it is unconstitutional, as per the First Amendment, criminally to punish a speaker for abstract advocacy of illegal conduct. For speech to fall outside the ambit of First Amendment protection, the speaker’s advocacy must be “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce imminent lawless action.”

https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/890/advocacy-of-illegal-conduct
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still a federal crime
 
RyszardKuklinski said:
Germany helped create Soviets.

Conceptualized by Kosher Israel Gelphand.

Germany in WW1 sent the train of Bolsheviks to Russia in 1917..

Half of them were Jews on that train.
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And Hitler helped create the state of israel. Nobody's perfect. As for Germany sending Lenin to Russia, they just wanted to bring down the Tsarist government. Who they were at war against. Who could have guessed what jewish filth they were unleashing on the world.
 
RyszardKuklinski said:
It's ONLY commonplace in Western European societies to cry about racism by their own so much.

It only gets worse by the year.

My opinion of Western Europeans is poor.

They seem to be very ambitious but a little on the slow side.
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Instead of insulting them, try changing their minds.
 
BidenPresident said:
still a federal crime
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Yes, a federal crime if the person's advocacy is directed toward inciting or producing imminent lawless action.

If we are sitting around talking and I say I advocate the violence overthrow of the U. S. government and take no action to implement it or incite others, it is not a crime. If I urge you to take up arms to overthrow the government and you just laugh at me and obviously have no intention to do so, it is not a crime.

You can't just read the law without reading the court cases shaping it's meaning (like the discussion on insurrection and rebellion laws).
 
Flash said:
Yes, a federal crime if the person's advocacy is directed toward inciting or producing imminent lawless action.

If we are sitting around talking and I say I advocate the violence overthrow of the U. S. government and take no action to implement it or incite others, it is not a crime. If I urge you to take up arms to overthrow the government and you just laugh at me and obviously have no intention to do so, it is not a crime.

You can't just read the law without reading the court cases shaping it's meaning (like the discussion on insurrection and rebellion laws).
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uh huh.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
The Fairness Doctrine did not increase freedom of speech, it restricted it, severely restricted it. Why you ask?

The Fairness Doctrine, in short, said that any media outlet--television, radio, whatever--the FCC had regulatory control over had to, by force of law, provide equal time for each side of an issue. This meant that if a radio station put a Republican on for 15 minutes, a Democrat had to be given the opportunity to have 15 minutes as well. Left, Right, Up, Down, whatever your political position was, the opposite one had to have equal time.

Now, that sounds all fair and wonderful doesn't it? Well, in reality it didn't work. Finding two opposing positions wasn't always possible. But it was possible that if a station put on some particular view then out of the woodwork would come someone claiming they needed equal time to present the opposite view--at the station's expense of course, or else (eg., a lawsuit). All of this resulted in stations simply refusing to put anyone on that was foisting an opinion as that was the only way to avoid being sued for not giving equal time.

Thus, speech was severely restricted. The reason the Fairness Doctrine was established to begin with was back in the day there were only three TV networks (well, there was PBS too, but nobody watched it). The same went for radio. In most locales there were a limited number of mostly AM stations to choose from.

By Reagan's time in office this had changed. Cable TV was widespread with now dozens, and moving towards hundreds, of channels. Radio had expanded to FM and there were often twice as many, or more choices to be had. The internet was on the horizon, and this would expand choice of venue to literally hundreds of thousands. There was now a panoply of outlets everyone could choose from. The Fairness Doctrine was obsolete. Everybody's opinion could find an outlet and those most wanted would get more exposure.

Then along came talk radio. This was a lifesaver for AM radio. Most talk radio ended up being Conservative. A few Liberal / Leftist stations tried to compete but found little audience. The Left went elsewhere for their news and information.

But the Left couldn't stand that AM talk radio for the Right existed at all. Thus, the Left and Progressives demanded a return to the Fairness Doctrine to shut Right wing talk radio down. So far, that hasn't worked. If the Fairness Doctrine were in place, and the FCC could regulate the Internet, this very board wouldn't exist simply because somebody could complain that by word count, post count, whatever measure you want to use, some side of an argument wasn't getting equal time on the board.

The Fairness Doctrine in our current world is a pile of bullshit meant to restrict speech.
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Maybe the fairness doctrine wasn't perfect. But it was better than having no fairness at all. Also, it needed to be expanded into every venue technology provided. Maybe then forums like this wouldn't be allowed to restrict free speech. If somebody has a point of view, they should be allowed to express it. I would draw the line at pornography, child porn and necrophilia. But other than that, people should be free to blast away. No matter how insulting others may find it. And even if it called for violence. After all, where would the American Revolution or the French Revolution have been without calls to violence. Were they bad things?
 
antiall said:
Instead of insulting them, try changing their minds.
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This poll is a bit outdated being 2008.

But, according to it in 2008 The UK, France & Germany were more likely to want to live near an African, a Jew or a Asian over an Eastern European.

Of course in those nations most Eastern Europeans are Poles.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/157082/islamophobia-understanding-anti-muslim-sentiment-west.aspx

But, at least Muslims were viewed slightly more unfavorable than Eastern Europeans.
 
antiall said:
Maybe the fairness doctrine wasn't perfect. But it was better than having no fairness at all. Also, it needed to be expanded into every venue technology provided. Maybe then forums like this wouldn't be allowed to restrict free speech. If somebody has a point of view, they should be allowed to express it. I would draw the line at pornography, child porn and necrophilia. But other than that, people should be free to blast away. No matter how insulting others may find it. And even if it called for violence. After all, where would the American Revolution or the French Revolution have been without calls to violence. Were they bad things?
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Why does speech in the public square have to be "fair" at all? So long as anyone can speak, that's fine. The fairness doctrine argues that certain commercial outlets must provide equal time even if they have to go out and find it. How fair is that? This forum is about as free as it gets. You truly have to be studious asshole to get tossed off it. There's next to no restriction on word use either. You can use all the fucking profanity you fucking please here as one example. Virtually any other forum you'd get a TOS violation for that. You can be racist, hateful, and anything else, and there are posters who certainly are here. Just about anything short of truly illegal speech (threats, porn, etc.) is allowed.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Why does speech in the public square have to be "fair" at all? So long as anyone can speak, that's fine. The fairness doctrine argues that certain commercial outlets must provide equal time even if they have to go out and find it. How fair is that? This forum is about as free as it gets. You truly have to be studious asshole to get tossed off it. There's next to no restriction on word use either. You can use all the fucking profanity you fucking please here as one example. Virtually any other forum you'd get a TOS violation for that. You can be racist, hateful, and anything else, and there are posters who certainly are here. Just about anything short of truly illegal speech (threats, porn, etc.) is allowed.
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Why do you care so much about the freedom of businneses!?

Slavery was big business was it their individual freedom to do such!?

Furthermore why should we get tolerate the shift to biases by news!?

It is ruining the USA, but come to think of it most bad things here come from too much freedom for the elite.
 
RyszardKuklinski said:
Why do you care so much about the freedom of businneses!?

Slavery was big business was it their individual freedom to do such!?

Furthermore why should we get tolerate the shift to biases by news!?

It is ruining the USA, but come to think of it most bad things here come from too much freedom for the elite.
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Because "fairness" that forces equality isn't fair. It's the argument that we should kneel to the least common denominator. It's the idea that everybody gets a trophy for participating and that those who do the most get no more than those that do the least.
That sort of fairness results not in something better, but something thoroughly mediocre. Everybody has should have an equal right to speech but that doesn't mean everybody should be equally forced to listen. If what you have to say is worth hearing somebody will listen, and even pay to listen. If not, too bad for you, you had your chance and didn't come up to snuff.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Because "fairness" that forces equality isn't fair. It's the argument that we should kneel to the least common denominator. It's the idea that everybody gets a trophy for participating and that those who do the most get no more than those that do the least.
That sort of fairness results not in something better, but something thoroughly mediocre. Everybody has should have an equal right to speech but that doesn't mean everybody should be equally forced to listen. If what you have to say is worth hearing somebody will listen, and even pay to listen. If not, too bad for you, you had your chance and didn't come up to snuff.
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I could care less about elites.

They UNFAIRLY have ruined this country.

They push media biases.
They push social media biases & censorship.
They outsourced American jobs to hostile China.
They hire illegal immigrants.

Let's not get started on the Porn Industry, the degenerate Music industry, Hollywoosd smut, he Drug dealers, the College professor biases etc.

I care not one ounce for the freedom of Unholy Sociopathic elites.

They have the frigging Chutzpah to complain.
 
antiall said:
Maybe the fairness doctrine wasn't perfect. But it was better than having no fairness at all. Also, it needed to be expanded into every venue technology provided. Maybe then forums like this wouldn't be allowed to restrict free speech. If somebody has a point of view, they should be allowed to express it. I would draw the line at pornography, child porn and necrophilia. But other than that, people should be free to blast away. No matter how insulting others may find it. And even if it called for violence. After all, where would the American Revolution or the French Revolution have been without calls to violence. Were they bad things?
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That already exists on forums like this. Most of the posts here are a reply or reaction to a previous post and I have never experienced any attempts to restrict what is said.

Who would enforce this fairness doctrine? The federal government?
 
Flash said:
That already exists on forums like this. Most of the posts here are a reply or reaction to a previous post and I have never experienced any attempts to restrict what is said.

Who would enforce this fairness doctrine? The federal government?
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The thing I find most telling is that those with the most closed minds are those that put the most people on 'ignore' at the slightest provocation. I put nobody on ignore, EVER!
 
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