Talk:Jehovah's Witnesses

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Chaplinsky

The "fighting-words" doctrine, for the uninitiated, was used to legitimize the Heckler's veto. Chaplinsky was preaching his variant of The Gospel when a crowd of people gathered and attacked him. Instead of arresting the law-breakers or dispersing the mob, the town cop arrested Chaplinsky. SCOTUS then went a step further and validated the mob by affirming Chaplinsky's arrest. So the poor sap, unlike Barnette, doesn't stand as an example of liberty but rather one of oppression. Fortunately in the years since that decision, and despite several opportunities, SCOTUS has consistently refused to entertain any fighting-words arguments.

"In 1942 the Supreme Court held that the government could prohibit 'fighting words' — 'those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.' The Supreme Court has been retreating from that pronouncement ever since. If the 'fighting words' doctrine survives — that's in serious doubt — it's limited to face-to-face insults likely to provoke a reasonable person to violent retaliation. The Supreme Court has rejected every opportunity to use the doctrine to support restrictions on speech.[Emphasis added] The 'which by their very utterance inflict injury' language the Supreme Court dropped in passing finds no support whatsoever in modern law — the only remaining focus is on whether the speech will provoke immediate face-to-face violence."

("How To Spot And Critique Censorship Tropes In The Media's Coverage Of Free Speech Controversies." Popehat, https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-censorship-tropes-in-the-medias-coverage-of-free-speech-controversies/. Accessed 02 Nov. 2020.)

Another good source on this issue: https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2018/01/fighting-words/

See case summary and syllabus at Oyez, https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/315us568

I would like to see a devoted article to Chaplinsky, but I fear I am not up to the challenge. I would simply copypasta and plagiarize bodily, but at least I would show good taste by citing reputable sources. Uniblab (talk) 01:38, 3 November 2020 (UTC)