I've noticed many people are not aware that they can't say everything they want to.
The First Amendment:
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 peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Limits:
Obscenity, defined by the Miller test by applying contemporary community standards, is one exception. It is speech to which all of the following apply: appeals to the prurient interest, depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. (This is usually applied to more hard-core forms of pornography.)
Fighting words are words or phrases that are likely to induce the listener to get in a fight. This previously applied to words like negro, but with people getting less sensitive to words, this exception is little-used. Restrictions on hate speech have been generally overturned by the courts; such speech cannot be targeted for its content but may be targeted in other ways, if it involves speech beyond the First Amendment's protection like incitement to immediate violence or defamation.
Speech that presents imminent lawless action was originally banned under the clear and present danger test established by Schenck v. United States, but this test has since been replaced by the imminent lawless action test established in Brandenburg v. Ohio. The canonical example, enunciated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, is falsely yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. The trend since Holmes's time has been to restrict the clear and present danger exception to apply to speech which is completely apolitical in content.
Restrictions on commercial speech, defined as speech mainly in furtherance of selling a product, is subject to a lower level of scrutiny than other speech, although recently the court has taken steps to bring it closer to parity with other speech. This is why the government can ban advertisements for cigarettes and false information on corporate prospectuses (which try to sell stock in a company).
Limits placed on libel and slander have been upheld by the Supreme Court. The Court narrowed the definition of libel with the case of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell made famous in the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt.
The Government Speech Doctrine establishes that the government may censor speech when the speech is its own, leading to a number of contentious decisions on its breadth.
Legal systems stipulate limits on the freedom of speech, particularly when freedom of speech conflicts with other values or rights.
"the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
If someone is harmed (physically) because of your words then that's a violation of their rights and that is also the place where your rights of freedom of speech end.
You will notice I highlighted a portion of this selection. Many people on this site believe that they can say things like, "I kill people. I shoot gang bangers. etc." but you can not. You are in clear violation of the Constitution and we, the admins, by law have to do something about it. This site is responsible for the content on it. This is the purpose of admins along with the responsibility of trying to make this the best site possible for everyone here.
The point of all this is to educate you on what content is ok and what content is not ok. We can not allow anyone to incite violence. I can not stress this enough to people.
More Limitations:
Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (emphasis added)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/ht...1----000-.html
. They can't silence us!
