РефератыИностранный языкFiFirst Amendment Essay Research Paper In the

First Amendment Essay Research Paper In the

First Amendment Essay, Research Paper


In the First Amendment, it is stated that: Congress shall make no law respecting


an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or


abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to


peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of


grievances. These aforementioned statements ratified by our forefathers are


commonly referred to as the freedom of expression. The freedom of expression is


not only limited to speech; it refers to all forms of exchanging ideas:


religion, press, assembly, petition, etc. In Alan M. Dershowitz’s essay,


"Shouting Fire!", he boldly claims that Justice Holmes’ analogy of


"shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater" to circulating pamphlets to


the public during wartime that contain political ideas against the draft is both


"self-deceptive or self-serving" (Dershowitz, 328). However, shouting


"Fire!" in a crowded theater does not only refer to the freedom of


speech, but to freedom of expression implied by the First Amendment. By shouting


"Fire!", an individual is implying alarm, and the indication of alarm


will ultmately cause chaos. There is no way that a shout of "Fire!" in


a crowded theater, a form of "decontextualized information" (Postman,


8), is the same as the circulation of waritme pamphlets. The idea of


"speech" is not specifically defined in the First Amendment. Due to


the absence of the authors’ intention in using the word, "speech," we


are then forced to speculate on the meaning of this nebulous word. In Webster’s


New World Dictionary, one will find the following: speech (spech) n. [* OE


sprecan, speak] 1 the act of speaking 2 the power to speak 3 that which is


spoken; utterance, remark, etc. 4 a talk given to an audience 5 the language of


certain people Let us interpret "speech" according to the definition


given by Webster’s New World Dictionary, then "speech" should only


constitute audible sound and not also the ideas that may result from the act of


speaking. According to this theory, we are then allowed to freely say anything


that please us, including the act of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded


theater. However, we can clearly see that this is not the intention of the First


Amendment from historical evidence. It does not seem that the Supreme Court and


the public view only the act of "speaking" to be protected by the


First Amendment, for it is the act of expressing ideas that concerns them. Even


Justice Holmes announced that "[t]he most stringent protection of free


speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater, and


causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from injunction against uttering


words that may have all the effect of force" (Dershowitz, 325). Which then


leads us to believe that it is the expression of ideas that leads "directly


to serious harm" (Dershowitz, 328) to the public that acts as a violation


of the First Amendment. However, each individual’s interpretation of what may


lead directly to serious harm may be different. Some individuals’


interpretations of what cause serious harm are more liberal, while others are


more conservative: I may find the circulation of pamphlets containing radical


political views to be quite detrimental to wartime effort, while others may find


that to be virtually harmless. In recognizing that the government does indeed


have the right to censor "expressions [that] may lead directly to serious


harm" (Dershowitz, 328), Dershowitz implies that there is a hidden status


quo, or norm, that individuals within an interpretive community use as a


guideline to determine what constitutes extreme disorder. It is then left up to


the Supreme Court to act as the absolute authority to set these guidelines for


the members of the interpretive community. In order for chaos to occur, there


must be people to interpret and interact with ideas that are proposed. If one


were to shout "Fire!" in an empty theater, then there would be no


chaos resulting from that action; no one would be there to interpret the shout


of "Fire!" as a potential alarm. As Justice Holmes pointed out in


Schenck v. United States, "the character of every act depends upon the


circumstances in which it is done" (Dershowitz, 325). However, it was most


unfortunate for Schenck to be imprisoned for distributing his political


pamphlets, for it was not the intention of these pamphlets to cause chaos:


"nothing in the pamphlet suggested that the draftees should use unlawful or


violent means to oppose conscription" (Dershowitz, 324). Although the


Schenck pamphlets did not directly cause chaos, it was its potential to cause


chaos that led to Schenck’s sentence, for "the Court found, that the intent


of the pamphlets’ ‘impassioned language’ was to ‘influence’ draftees to resist


the draft" (Dershowitz, 324). Instead of punishing actions that lea

d


"directly to serious harm," we see a scenario that is removed from


this direct impact. Actions that cause unnecessary panic should be punished:


"calling in a false bomb threat; dialing 911 and falsely describing an


emergency; making a loud, gun-like sound in the presence of the President;


setting off a voice-activated sprinkler system by falsely shouting ‘Fire!’"


(Dershowitz, 328). However, we do not see the same correlation to shouting


"Fire!" in a crowded theater in Schenck’s case. It was most


inappropriate for Justice Holmes to have analogized the distribution of


Schenck’s pamphlets to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, for the


act of distributing these pamphlets does not directly lead to chaos. In his


book, Amusing oOurselves to Death, Neil Postman explains why the distribution of


information in printed form requires more mental exertion than other mediums,


for: In reading, one?s responses are isolated, one?s intellect thrown back


on its own resources…To engage the written word means to follow a line of


thought, which requires considerable powers of classifying, inference-making and


reasoning. It means to uncover lies, confusions, and overgeneralizations, to


detect abuses of logic and common sense. It also means to weight ideas, to


compare and contrast assertions, to connect one generalization to another.


(Postman, 50-51) The recipients of the Schenck pamphlets were invited to


interpret the ideas that are embedded within the text, then take action upon


these ideas if they felt inclined to do so. Unlike shouting "Fire!" in


a crowded theater, the results that stem from the interpretation of the


pamphlets will be more diverse than that of hearing a shout of "Fire!"


in a crowded theater. In hearing a shout of "Fire!" in a crowded


theater, we are conditioned to run for our lives due to the potential danger it


may involve. Rarely do we hesitate and analyze the validity in the shout of


"Fire!" in a crowded theater due to the risk involved in our decision


making. The analogy of distributing the Schenck pamphlets to shouting


"Fire!" in a crowded theater is ludicrous for it is not "an


automatic stimulus to panic" (Dershowitz, 327). A shout of


"Fire!" in a crowded theater is merely a verbal alarm, and not speech,


for there is a very small amount of (if any) information being conveyed in the


making of this "clang sound": The man who shouts Fire! in a crowded


theater is neither sending a political message nor inviting his listeners to


think about what he has said and decide what to do in a rational, calculated


manner. On the contrary, the message is designed to force action without


contemplation. The message Fire! is directed not to the mind and the conscience


of the listener but, rather, to his adrenaline and his feet. It is a stimulus to


immediate action, not thoughtful reflection. (Dershowitz, 325) Our survival


instincts would cause us to run out of the crowded theater if someone were to


shout "Fire!"; this priority of self-preservation causes chaos. The


ideas embedded within the First Amendment are left open for interpretation by


its audience due to the ever changing nature of society. It is then the


different interpretations of the First Amendment that causes disagreement among


individuals in justifying their case. In the case of Schenck v. United States,


however, Justice Holmes’ analogy of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded


theater to the distribution of the political pamphlets was a poor interpretation


of the ideas behind the First Amendment. Although "not a single recipient


of the Schenck pamphlet is known to have changed his mind after reading it"


(Dershowitz, 326), Schenck was convicted because "the pamphlet created a


clear and present danger of hindering the war effort" (Dershowitz, 325). In


no way does the scenario of the Schenck pamphlet echo that of shouting


"Fire!" in a crowded theater, for it does not directly lead to


unnecessary chaos and panic. Inherent in the reading of the pamphlets involves


"a sophisticated ability to think conceptually, deductively and


sequentially; a high valuation of reason and order; an abhorrence of


contradiction; a large capacity for detachment and objectivity; and a tolerance


for delayed response" (Postman, 63). If indeed the Schenck pamphlets should


be analogized to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater, then should


the writers of the National Inquirer, Saturday Night Live, David Letterman, etc.


also be convicted for misinformation and falsely portraying public figures?


Fortunately, we are now able to realize the lunacy of Justice Holmes’


"Fire!" analogy and reassess the ideas behind the First Amendment.


41b


Dershowitx, Alan. "Shouting Fire!." The Best American Essays,


College Ed. Robert Atwan, ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998. 323-329.


Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

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