Only because your words caused actionable harm. If you didn't intend to cause harm and there were no harmful consequences should you still be punished?
Re:Richard M. Stallman resigns
by joshuamorton on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @01:23PM
(#20997710)
Should drunk driving be legal as long as you don't crash?
Drunk driving has a reasonably high likelihood of physical harm, as does yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre.
Posting opinions about current events on a message board is not likely to cause physical harm.
Re:Richard M. Stallman resigns
by joshuamorton on Tuesday September 17, 2019 @01:56PM
(#20998126)
What Stallman did isn't illegal. So some legal standard of likelyhood of physical harm need not apply. But I dispute your claim that rape apologia by an authority figure is unlikely to cause harm.
It was the grandparent's example, not mine. Also, I dispute your characterization as "rape apologia". It's a fairly ironic description given RMS's original issue was mischaracterization of the issue in the media.
> I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic.
The "fire in a crowded theater" analogy was coined by justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Schenck v. United States.[1] Holmes used that analogy to send a Schenck to prison for protesting the draft in WWI.
I yell fire in a crowded theatre, that’s ok it wasn’t my intent to cause panic.