Speech is free, period. Once you try to put any restrictions on then the whole thing isn't even a slippery slope, its a frictionless cliff.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03...
The law recognizes a wide variety of restrictions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_in_the_United... for a few.
For a view that "There is no such thing as free speech" see Stanley Fish, etc.. http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-Febr...
"You can say what you want, but we tell you where to say it."
EDIT: That being said, the US still has a very high bar for freedom of speech.
As it should be. All sorts of things that don't deserve to be protected by Freedom of Speech. For example, treason often takes the form of selling out your country with information- which is just Speech after all.
(This seems in fact quite appropriate to me, because then the punishment is proportional to the extent to which the general misused the privileges given to him. If he was new to the job and they didn't show him much of anything, then they have little to complain about him breaking their trust; if he's spent ten years getting his fingers in all their data with their conditional permission, and now they realize they shouldn't have allowed him, then they have a lot to complain about.)
The case of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater can be handled similarly: Customers agree not to do that sort of thing as a condition of being allowed into the theater, and if they break that, then they are guilty of trespass. You might complain that the customers didn't agree to any such thing, and that implicit contracts are bad. Fine, then the theater can put up a sign that says "You are not allowed to falsely shout 'fire'". As a matter of fact, I have seen many fire alarms in large buildings with a sign that says something like "$NNN fine for spurious triggering of this alarm".
The point is, there is no need to count any of these situations as cases where freedom of speech breaks down. These things can be illegal without allowing any chinks into your free-speech armor; they can be punished, not because they're an illegal form of speech, but because of something else.
If we were to apply it with no exceptions, there would be NO EXCEPTIONS, and no other laws, rules or agreements would be able to overrule it.
If the U.S. military requires its generals (as a condition of their employment and their access to top-secret info) to not give away top-secret info, and it prosecutes those who break this agreement, this is clearly not Congress making any kind of law and therefore is not prohibited by the above, so in fact a perfectly strict and literal interpretation of the First Amendment would conclude that this is totally legitimate.
Not that I disagree with your premise, but an issue with this is that people like to see punishment that fits the crime - I'd expect public outrage over a misdemeanor prosecution for an infraction that may result in loss of life.
As a matter of fact, I have seen many fire alarms in large buildings with a sign that says something like "$NNN fine for spurious triggering of this alarm".
Those fines are actually due to local ordinances. As such they are an example of government imposition on individual freedom in order to protect the public, and are a bit of a counter-example to your point.
If someone got stomped to death in a stampede triggered by someone's cry of "fire", methinks the person or people who did the stomping would have a lot to answer for. You shouldn't do that even in a real fire. The only difficulty is that it may be hard to identify the culprit(s) if everyone was busy panicking about their own escape routes; and I can see how a mob, with no other targets available, might place all blame on the original "fire"-shouter.
But perhaps this "loss of life" thing is an incidental flourish, and your main point is that people, responding legitimately to a fire alarm (not stomping on people), suffer a lot of inconvenience (they drop whatever they're doing and evacuate), and the "fire"-shouter is responsible for all that and perhaps should pay for it. I agree with that. I don't see a problem with assigning a large punishment to the simple crime of trespass when the trespass has large consequences.
Suppose I gain access to a Toyota plant and press a few buttons or rearrange a few materials in such a way that a batch of several cars comes out ruined. I haven't done anything beyond simple trespassing, but I am responsible for thousands of dollars of property damage, and I can be made to pay for it, right?
So either this is a case where a trespass is a huge crime; or I can be considered responsible for massive property destruction, even though I just pressed some buttons or rearranged stuff (possibly without realizing the implications of my actions), and even though it required the actions of other people in the assembly line to completely carry out the destruction. (In the latter case, what makes me guilty and the others innocent is that I committed a crime--trespass--and they didn't.) These choices seem largely equivalent to me; the former has the drawback that you can no longer hear "trespass" and think "Oh, ah, trespass, a misdemeanor, with maximum punishment X", but perhaps this could be remedied by calling it "trespass causing major property damage". Either way, I think something similar could be made to apply to the case of a false fire alarm.
Those fines are actually due to local ordinances. As such they are an example of government imposition on individual freedom in order to protect the public, and are a bit of a counter-example to your point.
Interesting. I didn't know that. Still, couldn't you call it a form of trespass and still punish it with a fine of approximately that magnitude (see above for further discussion)?
Sure you could get a fine for trespassing, or even imprisonment, but since it's a criminal offense it's at the discretion of the prosecuting jurisdiction rather than the establishment. On the other hand, the trespasser could probably be held civilly liable for damages by the establishment directly.
In fact, going back to the theatre example, I suppose the person who yells fire and causes a stampede could just as well be held liable for injury or wrongful death in a civil suit by the affected individuals, rather than reckless endangerment or manslaughter in a criminal court.
In the end, though, we'd also have to consider the cost and effort involved in individuals conducting civil suits vs. the convenience of having the government handle investigating and prosecuting it as a criminal offense.
Vandalism? Sabotage? You've done more than just trespass if you've interfered with anything in such a way as to cause damage (deliberately or otherwise).
I would like it to be illegal for a news organization or an advertisement to lie to or mislead the public.
If you survey 1000 doctors, and 4 say yes, you better not put "4 out of 5 doctors surveyed" in your ad.
I don't disagree with the justifications behind protecting speech, even (and especially) things that I find reprehensible. However, I think it's a bit of a lie to say that law doesn't have fine lines or distinctions.
Now with that said freedom of speech is a special law. And obviously one that cuts both ways. But a key reason why the law should largely exist untampered is that even if you say something I think is offensive, I can rely on a few things:
1) If it's absurd it will be discarded by most people.
2) If it's absurd those people it would convince, probably already believe it.
3) With freedom of speech I can argue the point prior to irreversible damage.
Now there are some cases where freedom of speech don't apply and those are generally cases where the three points above don't apply. For example, the classic of yelling "Fire" in a crowded room. Someone else yelling, "there is no fire" is not likely to be heard and even if "Fire" is seemingly absurd, most people may not discard due to potential harm. Yada yada.
But outside of cases that violate the above, the law should stand. Otherwise the consequences, shutting down opposing speech, will almost certainly be worse.
And yet the various flavors of creationism (all equally absurd by measures of science) have convinced half of the U.S. of their validity.
The issue though isn't a link between speech and action (PE coaches don't violate this although their barks usually directly create action). It's the link between speech and furthering a specific crime.
Just as if you announced "mikeryan is going to hell! the Fag!" while chainsawing live babies you're committing a crime. The expressing of your opinion is not a crime, but the fact that you're expressing your opinion doesn't exempt you from other criminal liabilities.
Once you're onto them, they become incredibly easy to ignore, or counter-troll if that's your game. Doing everything you can to piss them off, while still remaining within the bounds of the law, tends to send them scurrying to their next funeral.
no. I'm not a lawyer, yet i'm pretty sure that what WBC does wouldn't fit harassment criteria. I suppose for the harassment the specific action needs to be targeted at the person being harassed. Without specific targeting, they just express their opinion, wrong opinion at the wrong time and place, yet not illegal.
But by my reasoning, the difference would be legal precedents stating that pickets are legal (irrespective of what you use them to promote) and repeated unsolicited telephone calls are not (irrespective of what you say).
If I called you 500 times and simply said "Hello, hello, hello", that is still harassment. The WBC people apply for permits and protest on public property. What they say isn't relevant.
In general, your actions and intent are more germane than the content of your speech. That's a concept critical to free speech -- controversial or offensive is far more important to protect than typical conversation.
There is a strong argument against exercising the freedom of speech the way they do. The right to speak freely should not trump the right to stop listening. This is not the case here. Whoever attends the funeral has their right to stop listening seriously limited.
The difference is a small, but visible and under appreciated line between free speech and verbal assault.
There is situations when one fundamental right conflicts with another fundamental right. Your statement is that the fundamental right of free speech must always take precedence.
I see how fundamental right of a child for the privacy of his/her body [ note: a child can't give an informed consent to waive the right ] can be given priority over somebody else's fundamental right for free speech.
Unfortunately, in the case of fetish animal torture videos the Supreme Court took the side of the scum.
I don't think the consent argument holds water. We force children to do things without their consent all the time. We make kids go to school. Corporal punishment of children is legal in most states, both by parents and teachers. Children usually don't consent to such things, but we do it them anyway.
Sorry for nitpicking one thing out of your comment, but the "children can't consent" argument really gets to me.
There are certain activities that, by various state and local laws, require consent. Entering into a contract or getting married, for instance. A minor legally cannot consent to these things.
That doesn't extend to everything a child may do or be forced to do.