4 ms·

I think the protestors are being stupid, but if they get arrested I would like to see the ACLU help defend them. Even though I think established law would put

I think the protestors are being stupid, but if they get arrested I would like to see the ACLU help defend them. Even though I think established law would put them in the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" camp, unless the courts are willing to reverse that precedent.

kragen 7y ago
That precedent was comprehensively reversed by the 1950s.
- projektfu 7y ago
  Cool, hopefully that's the case. I'm not familiar enough with the case law to know. It's just a salient point of my high school education.
  - loeg 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr. The quote you know dates to 1919 and was a metaphor used to justify suppression of political speech during WWI. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47 It's pretty fucking shameful. https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/28/make-no-law-episode-seven-fire-in-a-crowded-theater/ https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/28/make-no-law-episode-seven... for a great podcast about it.
  - kragen 7y ago
    My deepest condolences on your high school "education".
- Thorrez 7y ago
  The case that was reversed was not about shouting fire in a crowded theater, the fire quote was just a rhetorical device. If a judge uses 2+2=4 as a rhetorical device in a decision, then the decision is later overturned, that doesn't mean 2+2!=4. So the fire quote could still remain true.
  - loeg 7y ago
    I think a charitable reading of kragen's short comment is that Schenck was reversed by the 50s, which is absolutely true. The idea of "sedition" is a restriction on constitutional first amendment speech. Yes, the "fire" quote is just a rhetorical device from Schenck. No, the "fire" quote is likely not true today. The supreme court has very narrowly defined exceptions to the first amendment since the time of Schenck (just "fighting words," which is vague and narrow enough it may not really exist either). You can yell fire in a crowded theater; it's not fighting words. It just makes you a dick. P.S., the historical context for the "fire" rhetorical device was that there had been a series of horrific theater fire mass-deaths in the early 20th century due to doors that were either locked, or opened inwards — before the era of fire safety regulation. Some deaths were due to crushing at the doors, rather than actual fire or smoke inhalation. Modern theater doors open outward and don't lock from the inside, so we don't have this particular flavor of horrific incidents in our social consciousness.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      Yeah, but I don't think projektfu was talking about sedition, so bringing up sedition didn't seem relevant to me. projektfu was just using the quote as a reference to an example type of forbidden speech. The podcast you linked to in your other comment seems to think the quote is true today (although not useful in most discussion due to being too obviously true): > It’s a rhetorical device to say the First Amendment is not absolute, which is true, but that’s not in dispute. [...] > It’s as if we were looking at an animal on the side of the road trying to decide what it is and I said not all animals are cats. Your reaction would be yes, thank you, I am aware, but the question is, what is that animal? We have the tools we need to decide what that animal is on the side of the road. With free speech those tools are a 100 years of Supreme Court cases. There are people still being crushed to death at events today, maybe not theaters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes_and_crushes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes_and_cr...
      - kragen 7y ago
        As has been made clear by subsequent comments, projektfu was just repeating words they had heard previously, without having any idea what they referred to, as Eliza or a scarlet macaw might do. It's not useful to project an intent onto their words to refer to anything in particular. Presumably projektfu is, unlike Eliza, a human with mental processes who is capable of forming intents, including intents to emit utterances that refer to objective or consensus reality; but such an enterprise requires efforts that were not made in this case, such as reading the six lines of text at the top of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_a_crowded_theater and basing their comments on them†. Moreover, I think this is true of most rhetorical devices in general, and that is part of what the podcast is criticizing. They are not attempts to collaboratively consider the evidence in order to arrive at shared conclusions informed by the knowledge of all parties; they are attempts to influence whatever conclusions may arise, by hook or by crook, to benefit the interests of the utterer, and whether either the utterances or the conclusions happen to be objectively true or false is none of the utterer's concern. I consider this contemptible, and I try to engage in it as little as I can manage. † Incidentally, this page explains that Schenck was not specifically overturned until Brandenburg in 1969 (although the Brandenburg decision doesn't mention Schenck), but the Supreme Court's progressively broader reading of the First Amendment was already protecting antiwar and anticapitalist activism by the 1950s, for example in Gibson (1946), Estep (1946), Dickinson (1953), and Yates (1957).
A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
I am personally sympathetic. My beef with my local variant is that they protested by driving around my neighborhood honking in morning and afternoon. It gets attention, but does not exactly garner support. It those terms it reminds me of BLM blocking a highway. Whatever happened to protesting where actual decision makers are?

kragen 7y ago

That precedent was comprehensively reversed by the 1950s.

projektfu 7y ago
Cool, hopefully that's the case. I'm not familiar enough with the case law to know. It's just a salient point of my high school education.
- loeg 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr. The quote you know dates to 1919 and was a metaphor used to justify suppression of political speech during WWI. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47 https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47 It's pretty fucking shameful. https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/28/make-no-law-episode-seven-fire-in-a-crowded-theater/ https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/28/make-no-law-episode-seven... for a great podcast about it.
- kragen 7y ago
  My deepest condolences on your high school "education".
Thorrez 7y ago
The case that was reversed was not about shouting fire in a crowded theater, the fire quote was just a rhetorical device. If a judge uses 2+2=4 as a rhetorical device in a decision, then the decision is later overturned, that doesn't mean 2+2!=4. So the fire quote could still remain true.
- loeg 7y ago
  I think a charitable reading of kragen's short comment is that Schenck was reversed by the 50s, which is absolutely true. The idea of "sedition" is a restriction on constitutional first amendment speech. Yes, the "fire" quote is just a rhetorical device from Schenck. No, the "fire" quote is likely not true today. The supreme court has very narrowly defined exceptions to the first amendment since the time of Schenck (just "fighting words," which is vague and narrow enough it may not really exist either). You can yell fire in a crowded theater; it's not fighting words. It just makes you a dick. P.S., the historical context for the "fire" rhetorical device was that there had been a series of horrific theater fire mass-deaths in the early 20th century due to doors that were either locked, or opened inwards — before the era of fire safety regulation. Some deaths were due to crushing at the doors, rather than actual fire or smoke inhalation. Modern theater doors open outward and don't lock from the inside, so we don't have this particular flavor of horrific incidents in our social consciousness.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    Yeah, but I don't think projektfu was talking about sedition, so bringing up sedition didn't seem relevant to me. projektfu was just using the quote as a reference to an example type of forbidden speech. The podcast you linked to in your other comment seems to think the quote is true today (although not useful in most discussion due to being too obviously true): > It’s a rhetorical device to say the First Amendment is not absolute, which is true, but that’s not in dispute. [...] > It’s as if we were looking at an animal on the side of the road trying to decide what it is and I said not all animals are cats. Your reaction would be yes, thank you, I am aware, but the question is, what is that animal? We have the tools we need to decide what that animal is on the side of the road. With free speech those tools are a 100 years of Supreme Court cases. There are people still being crushed to death at events today, maybe not theaters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes_and_crushes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes_and_cr...
    - kragen 7y ago
      As has been made clear by subsequent comments, projektfu was just repeating words they had heard previously, without having any idea what they referred to, as Eliza or a scarlet macaw might do. It's not useful to project an intent onto their words to refer to anything in particular. Presumably projektfu is, unlike Eliza, a human with mental processes who is capable of forming intents, including intents to emit utterances that refer to objective or consensus reality; but such an enterprise requires efforts that were not made in this case, such as reading the six lines of text at the top of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_in_a_crowded_theater and basing their comments on them†. Moreover, I think this is true of most rhetorical devices in general, and that is part of what the podcast is criticizing. They are not attempts to collaboratively consider the evidence in order to arrive at shared conclusions informed by the knowledge of all parties; they are attempts to influence whatever conclusions may arise, by hook or by crook, to benefit the interests of the utterer, and whether either the utterances or the conclusions happen to be objectively true or false is none of the utterer's concern. I consider this contemptible, and I try to engage in it as little as I can manage. † Incidentally, this page explains that Schenck was not specifically overturned until Brandenburg in 1969 (although the Brandenburg decision doesn't mention Schenck), but the Supreme Court's progressively broader reading of the First Amendment was already protecting antiwar and anticapitalist activism by the 1950s, for example in Gibson (1946), Estep (1946), Dickinson (1953), and Yates (1957).

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

I am personally sympathetic. My beef with my local variant is that they protested by driving around my neighborhood honking in morning and afternoon. It gets attention, but does not exactly garner support. It those terms it reminds me of BLM blocking a highway. Whatever happened to protesting where actual decision makers are?