From the article:
“Not all speech is protected; there are exceptions to the First Amendment.â€
It’s true that the First Amendment has exceptions and doesn’t protect all speech. That’s an apt rebuttal if someone says “All speech is protected by the First Amendment.†But it’s not helpful in deciding whether particular speech is outside of First Amendment protection.
The unstated part of this "argument" is, "Therefore whether anything I disagree with is protected is up for grabs." It's not stated outright - that I've heard or read - but that's what this argument means. The protection of anything is dubious.
“Incitement and threats are not free speech.â€
While technically true, not everything that might colloquially be called a “threat†is outside the protection of the First Amendment. Only “true threats†are unprotected—threats conveying “a serious expression of intent to an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.†There’s some ambiguity about whether evaluating the seriousness of a threat is an objective question, or a subjective question, or both, something the Supreme Court recently failed to resolve. But most courts impose an objective test: A threat is “true†if a reasonable person hearing it would take it as a sincere expression of intent to do harm. That doesn’t cover most hyperbole and political invective.
While true, the courts have defined what an unprotected threat is. IOW, my expression of political and moral views with which a Prog disagrees is not a threat.
“Hate speech is not free speech.â€
There is an admirable growing social consensus that it’s despicable to denigrate people based on ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. But most despicable speech is protected by the First Amendment. Contrary to the popular slogan, there is no hate-speech exception to the First Amendment. Particular examples of hateful speech may satisfy the established tests for the true-threats or incitement exceptions, but they’re not unprotected just because they’re hateful.
“Stochastic terrorism is not free speech.â€
In the past few months you may have heard the term stochastic terrorism to describe speech that, according to some advocates, whips up hatred against groups and leads unbalanced people to commit violence against them, even if it doesn’t explicitly call for violence. By definition, if stochastic terrorism doesn’t call for violence, it doesn’t fall outside the First Amendment, because it’s not intended and likely to lead to imminent lawless action. It may be morally reprehensible, but, just like hate speech, it’s protected.
These are just terms "That mean what
I decide they mean and include" and are attempts to bypass established applications of the First Amendment. By the way, "stochastic terrorism" is just BS gobbledygoo to link protected free speech to unrelated crimes (like blaming Pro-Life people for abortion clinic bombings and shootings, as I have seen many do
).
Maybe
The Atlantic's article "went there", but where this article should have gone is from the foolishness of some using these arguments to the tyrannous hearts and will of those who concocted and advocated the arguments.
