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Originally Posted by daswig
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.
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You miss the point.
The constitution should really read:
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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, UNLESS, congress and the courts decide that the powers that be have it in their best interests to do so.
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Freedom of speech is myth. The first amendment is only kept afloat because there would be revolution if it were infringed upon too grievously for the general populace to handle. However, if the general populace were to be put in such a position so as to believe that they were, in fact, better off without all this freedom, the entire bill of rights might very readily become meaningless.
We have been bamboozled from the get-go. How far does your freedom of speech or assembly go onto private property, or even public property? Do you have the freedom to assemble anywhere you want? Can you say whatever you want whenever you want in a court of law without being made to suffer consequences? My constitution doesn't have a footnote on the bill of rights leading to a gigantor-sized list of exceptions. Yet there are so many exceptions. Where do they all come from? Who decides where the freedom of speech ends? My guess is, with the endorsement of the courts, congress. But wait, doesn't the constitution expressly forbid congress from making laws abridging the freedom of speech or the right to peaceably assemble?