I happen to agree with you, but it’s not our opinion that determines the law, it’s the Supreme Court’s. And they have clearly and consistently held that obscenity is not protected by the first amendment, for the lifetime of the Republic.
> but it’s not our opinion that determines the law, it’s the Supreme Court’s
The Supreme Court's authority comes from the Constitution. As such, while the Court can rule that a law is unconstitutional, they have no power to permit something which the Constitution specifically prohibits the government from doing (such as infringing on the freedom of speech). All their consistency on this issue implies is they have been failing to do their job and uphold the freedom of speech as plainly written in the First Amendment for a very long time.
They also held that slavery was fine, until it wasn't. We have major problems in this country and the failures of our legal system are prime among them.
The Constitution was amended to explicitly prohibit Congress from making laws abridging the freedom of speech as well.
What's relevant is the Supreme Court reconsidering a previous decision without any change to the Constitution, but that too has happened before, e.g. Brown v. Board of Education.
We have a comment complaining about the Court reading beyond what’s written, and another complaining about them failing to do so. I’m just pointing out the inconsistency. If you want total free speech based on a plain reading of the first amendment without considering context, then there’s no reasonable way for the Court to find slavery to be unconstitutional prior to the 13th amendment.
I’m not taking a position here, just pointing out the implications of the slavery thing.
