• mar_k [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    10 months ago

    Remind that free speech absolutism wasn’t America’s thing until 1969, and it took a KKK leader being criminally charged for calls of genocide for that to happen

    Clarence Brandenburg was charged by the state of Ohio for calling for a mass ethnic cleansing of black and Jewish people and SCOTUS came in to say his “rights were violated by Ohio’s statue” and that “abstract advocacy of violence cannot be punished.” Brandenburg v Ohio became landmark precedent for the most extreme interpretation of the first amendment and is the only reason previous rulings infringing on socialists and anti-war activists’ free speech were overturned