On Wed, 12 Sep 2001, Tim May wrote:
lawyers point out to me that such prior restraints will never fly. Well, how has the First Amendment stopped the government from restricting what I can say about medicine, what abortion advice I can give, the "dirty words" I choose to use, the supposedly libelous and slanderous things I can say, etc.? Granted, these are not cases of prior restraint, but of actions taken after the fact, via criminal and civil actions. Not much difference so far as I can see.)
Lotta differences here which I know you're aware of, but don't seem to choose to remember at the moment. In the first place, prior restraint does have its after-the-fact-restraint analog in the "chilling effect" doctrine--not it's not absolute, as prior restraint law almost is, but it usually goes to accomplish the same purpose. Obscenity is not protected speech, so the 1A's irrelevant there, as far as the courts go and as far as your argument goes, because you're arguing about what the law might do. The same is true of libel and slander, if you can find any such thing under today's prevailing 1a jurisprudence. They're pretty few and far between torts in the last thirty years. Your examples about drugs and abortion are not examles of prohibited speech but of compelled speech, which is another subject altogether, though one which I would agree has its constitutional issues as well, but not the ones you have in mind above: Unless you advocate a right to commit fraud under the First Amendment, which I have not previously heard you do. There will be a repressive response by some--Trent Lott is already trashing civil liberties, I shit you not, as of today, as having to take a second place to security needs in ths "war"--but the thing to do is resist this kind of chuck-headed thinking with the First Amendment. And the Fifth, and the Fourth. They usually work, so give them a chance first. MacN