• BuckyVanBuren@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    No, the case was about protesting war.

    So, whenever you use this trope, you continue to support the idea that protesting war is criminal and protesters should be imprisoned.

    • ViciousTangerine@lemmings.world
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      1 year ago

      I don't think most people who hear the "fire in a crowded theater" line are going to think it's about protesting war. It's an example when speech can have an immediate harmful effect that seems to have a lot more relevance to the discussion of limitations on expression.

      • BuckyVanBuren@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No, it is about people fundamentally misunderstanding the case and continuing to misuse a paraphrasing of a dictum, or non-binding statement, from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Incorrectly, acting as if it was a an actually point if law.

        If used correctly, then it would be about protesting war. But people rarely understand what was said under Schenck v. United States, nor do they understand that it was overturned.

        Brandenburg v. Ohio changed the standard to which speecg speech could be prosecuted only when it posed a danger of "imminent lawless action," a formulation which is sometimes said to reflect Holmes reasoning as more fully explicated in his Abrams dissent, rather than the common law of attempts explained in Schenck.

        Fire in a theater is meaningless and useless.