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Im on my way to a barbecue right now so dont have time to add much in the way of commentary but a federal has just hand down an injunction barring the white house from working with social media organizations to censor specific content. A rulling that the Washington Post describes as dangerous and violating long standing norms. Happy Fourth of July all ;-)
The comments on that article are truly mind-numbing partisanship.
I guess those kinds of people will have to work doubly hard to fortify the next election.
Ah yes:
And much more of the same. And lots of quoting Schenck v. US, which hasn't been good law since 1969. Full-throated defense of government censorship of social media, along with a bunch of vitriol towards Republicans for daring to oppose it.
I always assume that anyone unironically quoting Schenck agrees with its conclusion that distributing anti-draft pamphlets is akin to shouting fire in a crowded theater. Which seems like a downright fascist perspective, but what do I know?
Most of them probably have no idea about the case beyond "fire in a crowded theater" and "clear and present danger". But someone did mention the case by name, and as far as I can tell given the limitations of the Post's execrable (technically) comment section, nobody pointed out it's no longer good law since Brandenburg v. Ohio.
And I'm sure they'd agree that distributing anti-draft pamphlets about the Vietnam War or the Gulf Wars (yeah, I know, there wasn't a draft) would be fine but it's absolute treason and not protected to do so about WWII or the Ukranian War (again, I know there isn't a draft in the US).
I mean, with the current Supreme Court, who’s to say Brandenburg v. Ohio isn’t next on the chopping block? Brandenburg is just one of a laundry list of cases from that time period which changed longstanding precedent. Those cases are being rolled back one by one as we speak.
It's pretty obvious that Brandenburg isn't on the chopping block, and it doesn't make sense to imply that it is just because "the Court is changing precedent", when most of the precedents that are being changed are of the opposite political valence as Brandenburg, and often of the opposite legal conclusions given that this Court is clearly committed to an expansive view of speech rights.
Frankly everyone whines about the sanctity of precedent when, and only when, it suits them to do so, so I'm never swayed by appeals to stare decisis. The precedents overturned in Lawrence and Obergefell were a hell of a lot older than the ones overturned in Dobbs and SFFA.
And in SFFA, it’s hard to say there was a large overturning of prior case law. Bakke was a mess; Grutter was very uncomfortable with the idea and clearly positioned the holding as currently permissible but not permissible in perpetuity. It was if anything a natural outgrowth of Grutter taking into account reality post Grutter.
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The idea is that a left-wing court has carte blanche to overturn precedent because that is their philosophy. A subsequent right-wing court is then bound to that precedent because that is THEIR philosophy. Works until Thomas gets cranky, I guess.
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