Thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses were beaten up and assaulted in the summer of 1940. When these adults refused they were beaten up, some were tardin feathered,. Some were killed, some were impaled by flag poles. About 2000 Jehovah's Witness kids were expelled from schools in 15 states for failing to say the pledge. There just wasn't a limit to how much the Supreme Court seemed willing to stick it to Jehovah's Witnesses during this period.
What if you could sue someone for calling you a racial slur? In the 90s, one country that always looked very similar to America decided to allow it, rolling back the rights to free speech in the interest of protecting victims of hate speech. Is the result a slippery slope to government tyranny, or a more harmonious society? The moral right to hate speech does not run as deep in the U.S. as most people believe. Only in the last 80 years of litigation and activism has it become protected. On this episode, we look at the story of a racial slur that led to a precedent, we take a whirlwind tour of landmark First Amendment cases, and two philosophers argue about whether morality is on the side of U.S. law. It might not be.
Guest voices include Sonny Sidhu, Tim Soutphommasane, philosopher Jeffrey Howard, and philosopher Seana Shiffrin.
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