Fraud involves intentional deception to gain something of value, usually money. One commits fraud through false statements, misrepresentation, or dishonest conduct intended to mislead or deceive. This article looks at types of fraud crimes and the criminal and civil penalties for fraud.
Fighting words are words meant to incite violence such that they may not be protected free speech under the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court first defined them in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire (1942) as words which "by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.
I’m not suggesting we go backwards. I’m concerned about the repercussions of allowing SCOTUS to set the precedent of what can and cannot be said or written by citizens or media to protect the feelings of others. That sets the precedent for a crime of opinion regarding freedom of speech.
I know it’s a harsh stance, and as an empathetic person, I hate that I can’t trust my government enough with the power to protect the vulnerable. I simply don’t trust them enough with that power.
Plenty of protected political speech involves deception with gain (especially gain of political office). Inciting violence is already against the law… and that law is a form of censorship.
I’m concerned about the repercussions of allowing SCOTUS to set the precedent of what can and cannot be said or written by citizens or media to protect the feelings of others.
And I am saying they already can do and did and you need to engage with that and not pretend there’s some magical line that cannot be crossed. Defining what is and isn’t protected speech is a complex and ever-ongoing negotiation. The links you provided are evidence of this – are evidence that I am right. There isn’t a clear categorical definition that separates the protected from unprotected – what is protected and isn’t protected is defined only by where the censorship starts.
You should be highly concerned with the repercussions of the SCOTUS’s decisions. They’re a corrupt institution that historically nearly always act as a brake on expanding civil rights. Good news for you on this subject, this SCOTUS would never let a hate speech law stand – they quite like to see vulnerable people persecuted. More good news: there basically are no hate speech laws. The only government agencies censoring political speech right now are far right conservative ones like Florida, doing the exact thing you fear. It aint progressives and it aint happening with support of progressives.
But you can’t pretend that speech isn’t speech and censorship isn’t censorship just to make your own political ideology easier to reckon. That’s just embracing censorship in a different way.
Again, many forms of censorship are uncontentious. Here we have links to two forms of censorship that are such. If there’s some new kind of censorship you find objectionable, identify it and make the case for why it is worse than its counterfactual.
That’s fair. I disagree that fraud applies to your point, because there is a transactional gain involved, but I agree that inciting violence is a limit on free speech.
The difference with hate speech, that specifically doesn’t lead to a crime like inciting violence, is that it’s ambiguous. It’s determined solely by the victim, without a tangible effect. That’s exactly the type of legislation that would lead to media censorship and control by a corrupt government.
Fraud is not deception. It’s deception with gain:
https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/fraud.html
Inciting violence is already against the law:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words
I’m not suggesting we go backwards. I’m concerned about the repercussions of allowing SCOTUS to set the precedent of what can and cannot be said or written by citizens or media to protect the feelings of others. That sets the precedent for a crime of opinion regarding freedom of speech.
I know it’s a harsh stance, and as an empathetic person, I hate that I can’t trust my government enough with the power to protect the vulnerable. I simply don’t trust them enough with that power.
Plenty of protected political speech involves deception with gain (especially gain of political office). Inciting violence is already against the law… and that law is a form of censorship.
And I am saying they already can do and did and you need to engage with that and not pretend there’s some magical line that cannot be crossed. Defining what is and isn’t protected speech is a complex and ever-ongoing negotiation. The links you provided are evidence of this – are evidence that I am right. There isn’t a clear categorical definition that separates the protected from unprotected – what is protected and isn’t protected is defined only by where the censorship starts.
You should be highly concerned with the repercussions of the SCOTUS’s decisions. They’re a corrupt institution that historically nearly always act as a brake on expanding civil rights. Good news for you on this subject, this SCOTUS would never let a hate speech law stand – they quite like to see vulnerable people persecuted. More good news: there basically are no hate speech laws. The only government agencies censoring political speech right now are far right conservative ones like Florida, doing the exact thing you fear. It aint progressives and it aint happening with support of progressives.
But you can’t pretend that speech isn’t speech and censorship isn’t censorship just to make your own political ideology easier to reckon. That’s just embracing censorship in a different way.
Again, many forms of censorship are uncontentious. Here we have links to two forms of censorship that are such. If there’s some new kind of censorship you find objectionable, identify it and make the case for why it is worse than its counterfactual.
That’s fair. I disagree that fraud applies to your point, because there is a transactional gain involved, but I agree that inciting violence is a limit on free speech.
The difference with hate speech, that specifically doesn’t lead to a crime like inciting violence, is that it’s ambiguous. It’s determined solely by the victim, without a tangible effect. That’s exactly the type of legislation that would lead to media censorship and control by a corrupt government.