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I'm always amused by the "fire in a crowded theatre" argument, mostly because most of the people who use it don't seem to know that it originated as an analogy
by yew 14y ago
I'm always amused by the "fire in a crowded theatre" argument, mostly because most of the people who use it don't seem to know that it originated as an analogy justifying the prosecution of protesting the draft during World War I.
War protests obvious aren't of any real value, after all. They just endanger the public . . .
- jamesaguilar 14y agoAn analogy doesn't automatically become bad just because it was once used to support a bad policy. :)
- yew 14y agoIt does become suspect if the underlying logic is the same, though. I might call "clear and present danger" ethically problematic, but it was hardly unjustified.
- jamesaguilar 14y agoNot really. I could say that talking about kittens is like yelling fire in a crowded theater. The fire-in-a-crowded-theater argument is not diminished because I did a bad job of lining up reality with the analogy. The problem comes in when people are allowed to say, X is like ..., without X actually being like that.
- yew 14y agoI doubt the general public and the Supreme Court would accept your logic for a span of almost fifty years, whereas they don't seem to have had much of a problem with Justice Holmes'. I think that tells us quite a lot about how human psychology tends to work in these cases, though your opinion may differ. I suspect time will tell which of us is the more accurate, though I wish it wouldn't.
- jlgreco 14y agoThe Superior Orders defense did not automatically become a bad defense just because a certain unsavory bunch of people decided to use it. ...but let us be honest. It did.