Why is it called "free speech" if it costs $$$millions in beefed up security as a result ??

[diva77]

Free speech needs to be redefined. The internet wasn't around when the 1st amendment was written. With the internet, you have instantaneous capability to spread incendiary statements. This should NOT be allowed!!!

Now taxpayers will pay millions to protect the courthouse in Miami due to incendiary speech.



ETA: I was making a poor play on words with the thread title -- I'm sorry I failed to explain that. Also, based on responses in the thread, I want to make clear that I believe in free speech -- so I'd like to retract my above sentence "This should NOT be allowed" and replace it with a request that more money be allocated to studying and figuring out how to deal with the growing domestic terrorism being stoked by this kind of speech -- while protecting free speech.

[Blues Heron]

1. So ditch the 1st amendment because we have the Internet?

Not really following you here.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Yeah. Me neither. NT

[marble falls]

5. Me neither.

[GreenWave]

7. Nor I as well.

Grammar police.

[diva77]

9. Recent statements made by Trump and Kari Lake, for example, have endangered government officials

and their families. They were calling for violence -- starting with Trump's appearance at the Miami courthouse. This kind of free speech results in rapid organizing nationwide that would not be possible without the internet. I'm not in favor of ditching the first amendment -- but I think we have not realistically dealt with the lethal power of the internet. This combined with disinformation media such as FOX and inadequate gun laws has allowed homegrown terrorism to take hold. My OP was more of a rant expressing outrage at the huge costs of security being linked to the incendiary speech.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. I am not a lawyer, but that never stopped anyone else at DU.

Nor does it meet the test for incitement

For speech to be unprotected as “incitement,” it must be:

1) intended to cause, and
2) likely to cause
3) imminent
4) lawless action

https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/189/brandenburg-v-ohio
Show this thread

Link to tweet

Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969)

[diva77]

17. Thanks for this

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. Wonder how much J6 has to do with it? Like now

we know what MAGAts are capable of?

[diva77]

14. This is what I was thinking -- we've had previous experience with the consequences of Trump's

incendiary speech -- so now security is going to be an added concern and cost every time he has to appear at a courthouse.

[marble falls]

4. Do you want your own free speech metered ...

... some people don't understand what free speech is. Free speech is speech made without prior restraint, you can't be be sanctioned for what you might say, only for what you do say.

We have to keep our emotional reactions out of the equation because if we don't we become like them, armed balls of emotional outburst.

[TheProle]

10. More on prior restaint

&ab_channel=FoundationforIndividualRightsandExpression

[diva77]

11. We've already witnessed what Trump's speech can do and our tax dollars being allocated to beefed up

security are tangible evidence that his speech is not harmless. It seems absurd that he continues to be allowed to spread this poison unfettered.

[TheProle]

12. Free Speech tends to cut both ways

That's sort of the point of it.

[diva77]

13. At a certain point, when it repeatedly stokes terrorism, I would hope for safety to become a

priority. True, it's tricky.

[Dr. Strange]

6. This is usually covered in high school civics classes, but...

it's called free speech because it's supposed to be free from government restriction. It has nothing to do with financial costs.

[diva77]

21. I explained myself with an editional edit to the OP -- hope you have a chance to see that. Thanks

[Bettie]

8. The internet isn't as much a problem

as is the fact that these days, money is speech, so rich people have a lot more of a voice than all of the rest of us combined.

[diva77]

18. Money speech is definitely a problem too; agreed.

[WarGamer]

15. Who defines incendiary?

The same authority who can define MAGAt-speak as incendiary...

Can call Civil Rights protests "incendiary"...

Should "No Justice no Peace" be forbidden as incendiary language?


A LOT of people don't get it... when you open the door for authoritarianism that bites your opponents... the door is still open when your opponent comes for you at a later date.

[diva77]

19. All good points. I'm just mad that we seem to live in a "threatocracy" now and anyone who

defies trumpism is subject to threats, and expenditures for security are off the charts, and a lot of great people are avoiding public office because of the unmitigated dangers. It's not just Miami I was thinking of -- look at the extra security for Bragg, Willis, the impeachment teams...it's beyond acceptable.

[WarGamer]

22. I hear ya...

but the alternative is worse.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

20. There is more to Right to Free Speech under the 1st amendment..

Than sharing one's opinion.

I spent 4 years having to learn the in and outs of it. I do find it sad that many seems not to know some of the meat of it, they just have a ruff idea.

This of course goes back to the lack of Civics being taught in schools.
Civics needs to be started in elementary school and get more heavy as the grades go up. That way we have citizens that understand the laws of the land and less likely to fall for groups like Qanon.