[bbanyc]

Before the Miller test, standards for "obscenity" were arbitrary and varied greatly from place to place. A magazine that printed an excerpt from James Joyce's Ulysses was banned as obscene, while a few years later the book as a whole was allowed to be published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Book_Call...

Many of us like to think of the First Amendment as broadly protecting the right to say whatever you want, dating back to its enactment over 200 years ago, but that interpretation is much newer.

[philipkglass]

This is why I prefer literal textualism to originalism. The plain text of the First Amendment is a much more absolute affirmation of liberty than you would guess from observing the subsequent law-making of the founders and their contemporaries, e.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts#Sediti...

[throwawaymobule]

I like this test case, and the results of the ruling. (about works needing to be considered in full)

Especially the part about the book being more obscene than the justices could imagine.