[topspin]

I'm old enough to remember when conservative pundits would pose similar challenges when discussing which forms of contemporary music needed to be outlawed. So where I stand is that I've learned to associate anyone offering the fire in a crowded theater argument as another advocate of the prevailing moral panic.

[rhizome]

Well, then let's take your favorite other-example! My point is not to relitigate the "fire" standard or any individual case, but to point out that

The point of the principle of free speech is not that all speech is beneficial but that we can’t possibly trust any agency with the power to decide what is and isn’t.

those agencies already exist! So, in order to execute GP's preferences, what agencies shall be eliminated? I find that tends to focus the debate and reveal the parts that are based in reality and those that aren't.

Perhaps I should stay away from recognizable cases or be sure they aren't lightning rods, knowing that people are going to get hung up on the specific example. It's hard to do that, though.

[int_19h]

The "fire in a crowded theater" argument was created by advocates of the prevailing moral panic, in fact. The panic in question was anti-war and anti-draft propaganda by socialist parties in the USA during WW1, and the phrase originated in a Supreme Court ruling that said that it's legal for the federal government to imprison people for speaking such horrible things.

It never ceases to amaze me how common this trope remains in defense of censorship, given that it was designed as a slippery slope.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

[topspin]

> The "fire in a crowded theater" argument was created by advocates of the prevailing moral panic

I know.