The Hong Kong sedition law used against Stand News journalists punishes a wide range of critical speech, while the US sedition law used against the Capitol attackers punishes violent insurrection
I believe you might have missed the important keywords like FALSELY and CREATING A PANIC as in "FALSELY shouting fire in a theatre and CREATING A PANIC" in Justice Holmes opinion, because it is not a crime to
1) shout fire in a theater when you genuinely believe there is a fire: you are not legally responsible to defer the warning to an opportune time.
2) FALSELY shout fire in a theater if the crowd didn't take your allegation of fire seriously
3) FALSELY shout fire in a theater if the crowd believe you but they didn't panic.
Let's replace
1) "falsely shouting fire in a theater" with "tricking a (a blind man) to walk off the cliff"
2) "blind man" with "crowd"
3) "creating a panic" with "plunging to death"
to build a more clear cut example:
If one tricked a blind man to walk off the cliff causing the blind man to plunge to his death, it's manslaughter which has nothing to do with speech in the context of "free speech": it's not expressing thoughts, beliefs/facts, opinion, or an art form (like comedy). It's just somebody committing common crimes through the use of communication. So far my understanding of "speech" in "free speech" are expressions of ideas (e.g. opinions), beliefs (e.g. unsubstantiated facts), observations (e.g. reporting) and thoughts (e.g. art).
We've been tricked into arguing what counts as "free speech" instead of what constitute as "speech" as in "freedom of speech"! The supreme court justices, which are indirectly political appointments with delayed effects, was abused to make laws that either create exceptions to free speech or redefining what counts as "freedom of speech". They did so with Trojan horse constructs like "protected class/category". When you start allowing a small group of people (even SCOTUS) to draw the lines over universal principles (like freedom of speech) to cherry pick what fits their agenda, the universal principle is defeated. Roth test is their attempt to draw the line.
Whoever that gets to interpret words plays God. That's why Deng XiaoPing insisted that Beijing has ultimate interpretation rights to the Hong Kong Basic Law (mini-constitution). Martin Lee could write whatever he wanted in Basic Law when he co-drafted it and ultimately it wouldn't matter because Beijing can bend the words to mean whatever they wanted.
Socialists (national or global) are all collectivists constantly stretching the interpretation of common words beyond our common sense to achieve their goals. It's called double-speak. We need to educate people to spot cheats in interpreation/narratives so even when media gets corrupted, they cannot fool us.
We should not extend the 'limitation to free speech' to curb whatever people think it's 'offensive' or unethical, even if it's through free-will democratic vote. Constitution is a mechanism to preserve certain inalienable rights (such as basic freedoms that we take it as axioms) from the mob rule (democracy) so populism doesn't turn into tyranny. Conservatives poked loopholes into the 1st Amendment through attempting to censor porn and swearwords (like FCC's 7 words you can't say on television), and now the socialists/collectivist ran with the Pandora box of 'free speech exceptions/re-definitions' and are bullying the conservatives hard with 'hate crime', 'hate speech' which they can arbitrarily stretch the line with the vague word 'hate'.
Please let me know what you think my re-framing of the problem. I think "I know it when I see it" is total bullshit as it's insidiously converting rule-OF-law into rule-OF-men: the interpretation rights is more personalized with such reasoning. Being offensive (or hurts other people's feeling) is not a crime; harming other people's life, body, property or basic freedoms are crimes.
I believe you might have missed the important keywords like FALSELY and CREATING A PANIC as in "FALSELY shouting fire in a theatre and CREATING A PANIC" in Justice Holmes opinion, because it is not a crime to
1) shout fire in a theater when you genuinely believe there is a fire: you are not legally responsible to defer the warning to an opportune time.
2) FALSELY shout fire in a theater if the crowd didn't take your allegation of fire seriously
3) FALSELY shout fire in a theater if the crowd believe you but they didn't panic.
Let's replace
1) "falsely shouting fire in a theater" with "tricking a (a blind man) to walk off the cliff"
2) "blind man" with "crowd"
3) "creating a panic" with "plunging to death"
to build a more clear cut example:
If one tricked a blind man to walk off the cliff causing the blind man to plunge to his death, it's manslaughter which has nothing to do with speech in the context of "free speech": it's not expressing thoughts, beliefs/facts, opinion, or an art form (like comedy). It's just somebody committing common crimes through the use of communication. So far my understanding of "speech" in "free speech" are expressions of ideas (e.g. opinions), beliefs (e.g. unsubstantiated facts), observations (e.g. reporting) and thoughts (e.g. art).
We've been tricked into arguing what counts as "free speech" instead of what constitute as "speech" as in "freedom of speech"! The supreme court justices, which are indirectly political appointments with delayed effects, was abused to make laws that either create exceptions to free speech or redefining what counts as "freedom of speech". They did so with Trojan horse constructs like "protected class/category". When you start allowing a small group of people (even SCOTUS) to draw the lines over universal principles (like freedom of speech) to cherry pick what fits their agenda, the universal principle is defeated. Roth test is their attempt to draw the line.
Whoever that gets to interpret words plays God. That's why Deng XiaoPing insisted that Beijing has ultimate interpretation rights to the Hong Kong Basic Law (mini-constitution). Martin Lee could write whatever he wanted in Basic Law when he co-drafted it and ultimately it wouldn't matter because Beijing can bend the words to mean whatever they wanted.
Socialists (national or global) are all collectivists constantly stretching the interpretation of common words beyond our common sense to achieve their goals. It's called double-speak. We need to educate people to spot cheats in interpreation/narratives so even when media gets corrupted, they cannot fool us.
We should not extend the 'limitation to free speech' to curb whatever people think it's 'offensive' or unethical, even if it's through free-will democratic vote. Constitution is a mechanism to preserve certain inalienable rights (such as basic freedoms that we take it as axioms) from the mob rule (democracy) so populism doesn't turn into tyranny. Conservatives poked loopholes into the 1st Amendment through attempting to censor porn and swearwords (like FCC's 7 words you can't say on television), and now the socialists/collectivist ran with the Pandora box of 'free speech exceptions/re-definitions' and are bullying the conservatives hard with 'hate crime', 'hate speech' which they can arbitrarily stretch the line with the vague word 'hate'.
Please let me know what you think my re-framing of the problem. I think "I know it when I see it" is total bullshit as it's insidiously converting rule-OF-law into rule-OF-men: the interpretation rights is more personalized with such reasoning. Being offensive (or hurts other people's feeling) is not a crime; harming other people's life, body, property or basic freedoms are crimes.