Holmes was specifically speaking of times of war AND legislation enacted by Congress limiting speech during such times. The Clear and Present Danger Doctrine has also largely been supplanted except in military environments. Here we had no war and no restrictions enacted by Congress. The fact a President restricted speech without Congressional action makes this action even more chilling. History supports as much. The fact the Dem party now supports such broad censorship with zero Congressional oversight shows how far that party has transformed from its civil rights days. Disappointed your partisanship won’t allow you to see the dangers here.
I have long compared the pandemic to war time in terms of the needs of the nation for alignment and cooperation for the safety of the nation. The country has to rally to fight a common enemy in both instances….The fact that Congress couldn’t get their head out of their butts long enough to come to terms with that and that they allowed wide scale disinformation to repeatedly jeopardize public health shows how screwed up our government really is.
I don’t agree that the clear and present danger doctrine has wholly been supplanted. Even in Brandenburg the justices acknowledge the need to limit speech which will imminently cause harm. (They reference Holmes’ fire in a crowded theater analogy) The main difference being what is considered imminent, a definition which has narrowed and narrowed.
Again, I think I’m more open to what should be considered an imminent threat to safety than what the current government considers.
I do agree with Holmes in subsequent cases that things like proposing strike dates aren’t inherent threats to public safety and shouldn’t be regulated in the same way as disinformation about pandemics or inflammatory remarks that maliciously detriment public safety.
