You CAN shout “fire” in a crowded theatre

#politics #freedom #speech #censorship

The cliché that “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre” originates in the 1917 United States Supreme Court ruling against Charles Schenck, a socialist who had issued a broadside calling for young men to refuse military conscription and was convicted under the Espionage Act. These were the circumstances under which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote the statement: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting ‘Fire!’ in a theatre and causing a panic.” Note that the word “falsely” is invariably dropped when quoted by advocates for censorship.

https://andrewdoyle.substack.com/p/you-can-shout-fire-in-a-crowded-theatre