- cross-posted to:
- nytimes@rss.ponder.cat
- cross-posted to:
- nytimes@rss.ponder.cat
“Neo-Nazis — their faces hidden behind red masks — roamed streets in Columbus today, carrying Nazi flags and spewing vile and racist speech against people of color and Jews,” Gov. Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio, said in a statement on X. “There is no place in this state for hate, bigotry, antisemitism or violence, and we must denounce it wherever we see it.”
The Anti-Defamation League said that the Columbus event fit a recent pattern of white supremacist incidents, hundreds of which have taken place across the country over the past 18 months.
The first Amendment does not allow you to endanger people by calling out fire in a crowded theater and it does not protect you being a Nazi threatening to murder people on the street.
It is funny you bring up “fire in a crowded theater”, that is the perfect example to prove my point.
The “fire in a crowded theater” analogy was first used by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendal Holmes, but the “fire” was actually anti-WW1 pamphlets and the “theater” was actually a public street. So the leftist handing out anti-war pamphlets was jailed.
But you’re right, the first amendment does not protect you from the ramifications of your speech. Someone yelling in a theater should be met with a disorderly conduct charge, and nazis in the streets should be met with organized antifascist violence. Death threats that pass a reasonableness standard are prosecuted as felony harassment. Death threats that do not pass this standard are protected under the first amendment.
But in my opinion, there is no crime that warrants being sent to Guantanamo. A lifetime of torture is a fate far worse than death, and there should be no room in a civilized world for such barbarism.