FREE SPEECH AND OFFENSIVE EXPRESSION

In: Social philosophy & policy, Band 21, Heft 2, S. 81-103

Abstract

Free speech has historically been viewed as a special and preferred
democratic value in the United States, by the public as well as by the
legislatures and courts. In 1937, Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote in
Palko v. Connecticut that protection of speech is a
"fundamental" liberty due to America's history,
political and legal, and he recognized its importance, saying,
"[F]reedom of thought and speech" is "the
matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of
freedom." It is likely notable that in the Bill of Rights free
speech is protected in the First Amendment rather than
later.