From: robert@informix.com (Robert Coleman)
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.censorship,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Hate speech okay, Supreme Court says
Date: 22 Jul 92 20:08:37 GMT
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:

>In article <ATAYLOR.92Jul21092147@gauss.nmsu.edu> ataylor@nmsu.edu (Nosy) writes:
>>
>>	Once again, Nilges displays his howling ignorance of the
>>	concept of "prior restraint". It is NOT illegal to shout
>>	"fire" in a crowded theater, however if there is no fire
>>	and the act of shouting causes injuries and/or damages,
>>	the shouter may be held liable for the act. 

>Prior restraint has nothing to do with it.  It is a reduction to
>absurdity to argue, as the SC did in the Viktora decision, that any act
>that may remotely be construed as speech must receive First Amendment
>protection, just as its corollary,  that any LAW which addresses what
>the SC is pleased to call "content" must receive First Amendment
>censure, is absurd.  

	Saying it doesn't make it so, Ed.  Laws try to provide demarcated
structures that *do* cover cases taken to absurdity.  For instance, a rapist
might argue that he was only a quarter of the way in, or an eight, or a
sixteenth, or a 10th of a millimeter.  To the law, it's still rape.  Should
it not be so?

Brandeis was not arguing for or against prior restraint of
>idiots like you, who might, or might not, shout "fire" in a theater
>which may, or may not, be in flames, or who might, or might not, shout
>"theater" in a crowded "fire."  Or whatever.  Prior restraint has
>nothing to with it.  Got it?  Get it.

	Sure it does.  You are attempting to prevent a crime, battery, by
making a form of speech, cross-burning, illegal.  The crime hasn't been
committed, yet you wish to punish the burners.  Prior restraint.

>>	Nilges argues in favor, metaphorically speaking, of 
>>	slapping duct tape over the mouths of theater-goers who
>>	*might* shout "fire".

>Oh bull shit.  I merely quoted Brandeis in support of Fish and the
>constitution of our more sensible neighbors to the north: Brandeis was
>stating the obvious: "there's no such thing as free speech and it's a
>good thing too."  

	Wrongo.  There's no such thing as freedom of action; you can, however,
say anything you want to in the appropriate public forum.

>>	Nonsense; the act of crossburning on someone else's
>>	property is still quite illegal in several different ways
>>	including but not limited to "criminal trespass".

>If the St Paul law was unConstitutional because in some strange way it
>addressed the "content" of a "speech act", and (stare the 1988 decisis
>re the Revolutionary Communist Party's flag burning) almost any act is
>therefore speech, then I hereby state that the way I speak about the
>idiot injustice of our economic system is, I knock over convenience
>stores.  A la Thelma 'n Louise.  Whaddya mean there's a law against
>armed robbery?  You is unjustly addressing my speech act based on its
>content, which I claim necessarily includes emptying the cash drawer.
>So all you people git yo ass down on the floor.

	Nah.  An act is also an act, and can be dealt with as an act
irregardless of the message.  Robbing convenience stores is illegal even if 
your message has to do with disliking smurfs, and it's illegal for reasons
having nothing to do with "speech".  You can, however, burn all the smurf dolls
you want to, even in a public forum (unless, of course, you're violating an
anti-pollution law, in which case you'd best find another way of destroying
the dolls!)

>In other words, you talk of slippery slopes; but there's a positive
>Vail, CO, between the actual Viktora decision and extending First
>Amendment protection to any behavior whatsoever.  I'm a performance
>artist or snuff filmmaker.  Laws against murder prohibit may favorite
>form of speech.  Laws against insider trading directly address my
>freedom of speech.  Any crime involves some text since we are textual
>beings.

	Again, there are valid reasons entirely disconnected from your message
against murder.  There are valid reasons entirely disconnected from their
message for prosecuting folks who burn crosses on other people's lawns.
It's the direction of laws against *speech* that is illegal, not direction of
laws against actions that contain speech.  Making cross-burning illegal as part
of an environmental law against smoke pollution is legal.  Making cross-burning
illegal because we don't like the message inherent isn't.

>>	Perhaps Nilges could show exactly how the S.C. decision
>>	voids *any* of those laws?

>Done!

	Undone.

Robert C.
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