The legal system is exactly the opposite in establishing limits: canaries in the coal mine and the exceptions proving the rule. Not really anybody wants to be

The legal system is exactly the opposite in establishing limits: canaries in the coal mine and the exceptions proving the rule. Not really anybody wants to be "First Amendment auditors" or the guy in Warren v Brandenburg, but they forced the issue to establish/discover limits. If what was legal was simply "what is average/normal/reasonable" then that likely would mean much less freedom. You can also be influenced socially through media (etc) either direction over time to change what the definition of "reasonable" is. Remember that Barack Obama ran on the now "extreme" position (that many non-Western countries like Japan still holds) that marriage is between a man and a woman only, a little more than a decade ago. Conversely, gay marriage was "extreme"/fringe back then.