[orf]

Try and not get so heated in future discussions.

The courts, and a jury of peers, decide what is and is not considered hate speech. In the USA the courts have decided that calling for imminent harm on someone (racially motivated or otherwise) is illegal.

Therefore the USA doesn’t have free speech and you live in a totalitarian police state nightmare?

[rscoots]

Lol what did I say that was ‘heated’? Your first reply to me was a defense of street violence against me.

Threatening violence is a whole different topic and these laws encompass a lot more than “imminent violence” so not sure why you’ve brought that up.

Whoever makes the legal decision, I hope you have a good lawyer because the police should be knocking on your families’ door abt your racist post soon now. Cheers, I’m about to get rate limited by HN so might not reply.

[orf]

> Threatening violence is a whole different topic

The conclusion to which can be summed up as: Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.

[rscoots]

Threats are prosecuted as intent to commit another crime, not ‘u said a naughty word.’ That’s why slogans such as “kill all men” would never lead to legal conviction in the US (they might in the UK!)

More importantly, the laws in this article are not about threats. Myself nor any freedom of conscious supporters I know of would claim verbal intent to commit a crime should be protected from legal consequence.

So unless you can name any, this is not only off topic but also a straw man.

[orf]

So in conclusion you agree that freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences, and the USA law also agrees - “Yelling fire in a crowded theatre” etc.

Which is the point of discussion you started when you said “it does precisely mean there are never any legal consequences for saying anything”.

[rscoots]

It is legal in the US to yell fire in a crowded theater. It is not legal to intentionally create a false emergency situation, verbally or otherwise.

Similar to threats, it’s not the speech that is illegal but the intent to commit a crime. Like any other criminal trial, your words can be used against you.

Not sure what more you’d mean when you say “freedom from consequences” (or how this relates to the article) but youre arguing against a point no one is attempting to make it seems. None of what you’ve mentioned is what’s meant by ‘freedom of speech’.

[orf]

> It is legal in the US to yell fire in a crowded theater. It is not legal to intentionally create a false emergency situation, verbally or otherwise.

Thus one could conclude, and stay with me here because this is complex, that the freedom to yell fire in a crowded theater does not… prevent you from facing legal consequences for yelling fire in a crowded theater.

You could take this understanding and you could reduce it down a snappy, easy to digest form: Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences.

[erik_seaberg]

“Fire in a crowded theater” was a metaphor for protesting the draft during a war. We absolutely should have the right to do that, and we do; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States was wrongly decided and substantially overturned.