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Originally Posted by filtherton
My point was the the freedom of speech certainly isn't absolute, and only exists as long as it is convenient for the powers that be. Given that the powers that be have succesfully bamboozled at least part of the populace into happily trading in their hard earned freedom for a quickfix of psuedosecurity, let's check back on our precious freedom of speech twenty years from now, and see where it is.
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In your "fire in a crowded theater" bit, you left out one very important word..."falsely". If there is in fact a fire in the theater, you certainly CAN yell "FIRE!" and it be legal.
Your argument is basically "I can't legally lie so that I can steal things or hurt people, so I'm not "free" to say what I want." Prohibitions against fraud isn't an infringement upon the First Amendment, and it never has been. Neither are credible threats seen as protected speech. If that's being "bamboozled", then we've been "bamboozled" from the get-go, since such conduct has indeed been illegal since the founding of the Republic.