First Amendment - Montana

[Xargoth6634]

Simple....
Your freedom ends where it interferes with the next persons freedom..
That makes insult automatically a no go...

So someone else has the freedom to never hear any bad words? I don't see that working out well.

[alexkeren]

"new america"

show me the arrest records of perps yelling "cracka" out a car window in 6 months
or this is one more brick in the road towards a diversitycentric failed state

If you call precedence of over 70 years, there's cases even older than the link to the New Hampshire case earlier, "new America" then you've got a point.

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how is an insult interfering with someone else's personal freedom?

It's called Assault or Public Disturbance depending on what was said. Throw in Drunk and Disorderly charges if the insulter is under the influence.

[Kraenen]

It's called Assault or Public Disturbance depending on what was said. Throw in Drunk and Disorderly charges if the insulter is under the influence.

What does that have to do with anything?

[tss]

Verbally abusing someone is a little different than passively offending someone. An adult was verbally abusing a 13 year old girl.

So he's an asshole. I'm certainly not gonna say the child should just have thick enough skin to shrug it off, but he wasn't infringing upon her rights...

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But you do have the right to not be harmed, and emotional harm exists.

Emotional harm? This is comparable to calling a spitball assault and battery. Don't devalue true emotional harm that causes actual cognitive damage just so you can compare it to name-calling.

[jakeic]

please check out jon staurt mill's essay, "On Liberty".

[Dendrek]

I don't think hate speech ever produces any real positive consequences. You might argue that groups like WBC might force others to reconsider their own bigoted points of view; but I would argue that 1) those people already had bigoted points of view because they were already exposed to hate speech of some kind from people close to them and 2) WBC and others like them promote a different kind of hate -- strong hate for them in particular, and strong hate for Christians in a more broad sense. While hate speech can sometimes have subtle indirect positive consequences, those positive consequences would be more readily achieved if the hate weren't there to begin with.

While banning hate speech does not ban hatred, it does help to stop or slow its spread. I don't think the First Amendment is without its flaws, and I would be completely ok with the First Amendment no longer providing blanket protection for hate speech. (Note: this doesn't mean all forms of "I don't like you" speech or playful harassment would suddenly become illegal in the US; individual laws would still have to be passed regarding what is and is not ok to say that would force open debate on what is and is not ok to say.)

[Stormdash]

This isn't actually a new development here -- fighting words doctrine is pretty old 1st amendment jurisprudence. From Wiki, citing the opinion -- "(the Supreme Court) held that "insulting or 'fighting words,' those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of [which] ... have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem."

Now, fighting words doctrine couldn't limit speech online or in print most likely, because you can't incite an *immediate* breach of the peace that remotely. This is more like looking a man dead in his eye and calling him every worst thing you can think of.

And, of course, it's also pretty old jurisprudence that obscenity is not protected speech, giving rise to the classic line by Justice Stewart that he doesn't know exactly what obscenity is, but "I know it when I see it".

EDIT: Both of those doctrines are actually pretty far different from ill-conceived notions of thought-crime like banning "hate speech". "Hate speech" is almost always a reference to things that are, at their core, political speech, however hostile in nature. Political speech is the highest classification of protected speech recognized in 1st Amendment jurisprudence (would be #2, except they gave religion its own clause).

[Zoranon]

Well if this gets appealed to SCOTUS, it will get overturned, Chaplinski is rather old and Roberts court has been consistently striking down regulations on free speech- see for example Snider v. Phelps.

So Montana supreme court gets is wrong yet again, but it is not as hilarious as the time when it tried to overturn Citizens United.

[Pitkanen]

First Amendment speech has been limited for a while.
"Hate Speech", "Perjury/Fraud", "Blackmail", "Noise Violations", "Verbal Assault", "Classified Information", "Gag Order", "Patient Confidentiality", "Court Procedure"

If trying to get someone to throw the first fist in this case wasn't "Hate Speech", it most likely was "Verbal Assault".

[Kujako]

That's why I just shoot people. Seems easier in the long run.

[Zechs-cenarius]

To me that seems to be a rather slippery slope. I mean you can shout things like "YOU DON'T EVEN PLAY TENNIS!" and someone can take offense to something like that. I know its a rather odd insult if you can even say that but what is to say that something like that can not be taken and twisted by a lawyer?

[Orange Joe]

Insults don't infringe on anyone's freedom.

You don't have the right to not be offended.

You are wrong. Look up slander.

[Heladys]

The first amendment is inherently limited. It's about protecting your speech against government. It's not about enshrining your unlimited right to be a fucktard in any circumstance.

[Orange Joe]

The first amendment is inherently limited. It's about protecting your speech against government. It's not about enshrining your unlimited right to be a fucktard in any circumstance.

It's nice to see at least some people understand this.

[Kujako]

The first amendment is inherently limited. It's about protecting your speech against government. It's not about enshrining your unlimited right to be a fucktard in any circumstance.

Put another way, you can say what you want but you can't force people to listen.

[Giscoicus]

Put another way, you can say what you want but you can't force people to listen.

Not remotely the same thing. People don't have to listen under any circumstance, but saying you shouldn't be able to say certain things to others is not the same. The latter is restricting a person from speaking in the first place, the former does not

[Annoying]

Simple....
Your freedom ends where it interferes with the next persons freedom..
That makes insult automatically a no go...

What? Being insulted doesn't interfere with your freedom.

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You are wrong. Look up slander.

"the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation."
Nothing to do with insults, merely lying about someone in a way that can damage them.

[Orange Joe]

"the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation."
Nothing to do with insults, merely lying about someone in a way that can damage them.

Because it isn't insulting at all to be slandered right?...........

[Mistame]

Because it isn't insulting at all to be slandered right?...........

No, not because it isn't insulting to be slandered, but because being insulted isn't necessarily slanderous. There's a pretty obvious distinction...

[Orange Joe]

No, not because it isn't insulting to be slandered, but because being insulted isn't necessarily slanderous. There's a pretty obvious distinction...

Follow the quotes from the start. Don't just make a comment on my last post.