Thursday, May 03, 2012

Tushnet again
B. Magnitude of Harms and United States v. Stevens

1. Description
United States v. Stevens held unconstitutional a federal statute making the production of “animal snuff films” illegal.40 Defending the statute, the government argued that such films were not covered by the First Amendment based on the description of uncovered categories of speech in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire.41 According to the unanimous Court in Chaplinsky, “There are certain well defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting’ words....”42 The Chaplinsky Court continued with an explanation of why speech in these classes was not covered: because the words “are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.”43

[if the video's gone: Sarah Silverman, The Aristocrats]
Sarah Silverman gives a better defense of free speech than Mark Tushnet.
I'll end where I began

Fucking idiots.

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