This survey of the American culture wars, from the mid-20th century on. For the spiritual and religious undercurrents, see User:Jaredscribe/Christian revivalism.
Free Speech
edit1st ammendment does not protect obscenity, fighting words, incitement to violence, libel, or slander.
- Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957) *. Obscenity is defined as material that "to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest".
- 1977 National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, high court defends free speech for Nazis, rules swastika, etc. is not incitement.
- 1996 Communications Decency Act, immunity for hosts and ISPs section 230. "Indecency" provision struck down by high court in Reno v. ACLU
- 1998 Child Online Protection Act, 2002 Children's Internet Protection Act
- 2002 Ashcroft vs. ACLU, Ashcroft vs. Free Speech Coalition
- 2021 NetChoice LLC v. Paxton re: Texas House Bill 20, and NetChoice LLC v. Moody re Florida S.B. 7072, leads to circuit split, pending supremes.
1964-65 Free Speech Movement starts at UC Berkeley.
Statues Will Fall
editList of Confederate monuments; Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials
See also: Iconoclasm, Byzantine Iconoclasm
Sexuality and Gender
editList of sex-related court cases in the United States
Defense of Marriage Act allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. Acts provisions declared unconstitutional or rendered unenforceable by United States v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which means the law itself has been practically overturned.
Philosophers Kathleen Stock, Peter Boghossian.
Some lesbians say they are increasingly being pressured and coerced into accepting trans women as dating and sexual partners - and upon refusal, accused of transphobia, shunned and even threatened for speaking out. Several have spoken to the BBC, along with trans women who are concerned about the issue too.[1]
(Mis)Education
editAllan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
An Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology
Life and Death
editQualified Immunity of police from prosecution
pro-life plaintiff Sandra Cano (Mary Doe) misrepresented in Doe v. Bolton (1973) by lawyer Margie Pitts Hames
s:Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (draft opinion)
For the first 185 years after the adoption of the Constitution, each State was permitted to address this issue (abortion) in accordance with the views of its citizens. Then, in 1973, this Court decided Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113.
Roe was "not constitutional law" at all and gave almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."[2]
30 States prohibited abortion at the time, and this decision effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single State.[3] As Justice Byron White aptly put it in his dissent, the decision was an exercise in "raw judicial power".
Eventually, in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), the Court revisited Roe, but the members of the Court split three ways. Two Justices expressed no desire to change Roe in any way.[4] Four others wanted to overrule the decision in its entirety.[5] And the three remaining Justices, who jointly signed the controlling opinion, took a third position.[6] Their opinion did not endorse Roe's reasoning, and it even hinted that one or more of its authors might have "reservations" about whether the Constitution protects a right to abortion.[7] But the opinion concluded that stare decisis, which calls for prior decisions to be followed in most instances, required adherence to what it called Roe0's "central holding"—that a State may not constitutionally protect fetal life before "viability"—even if that holding was wrong.[8] Anything less, the opinion claimed, would undermine respect for this Court and the rule of law.
Racial Justice
editMore White Humility, less White Fragility
Intersectionality, Kimberle Crenshaw
Law and Anarchy
editAnarchy, State, and Utopia, by Robert Nozick, advocating a Minarchist night-watchman state? Entitlement theory of distributive justice.
Mob "Justice" & Cancelation
editSocial norms are changing, often for the better, according to Anne Applebaum. But retribution for transgressions often lacks due process and leaves no room for forgiveness. Resulting in illiberal spaces with tight social conformity enforced through peer pressure.[9]
Public Health vs Coercive Government
editFreedom vs Surveillance
editConsumer Protection, Anti-trust enforcement, Big Tech
editEconomic Justice
editMichael Sandel, in his 2020 book The Tyranny of Merit. makes a case for overhauling western neo-liberalism. Elite institutions including the Ivy League and Wall Street have corrupted our virtue, according to Sandel, and our sense of who deserves power.[10] Criticizes John Rawls' Theory of Justice, saying that taking the original position is impossible.
Bibliography
editReferences
edit- ^ Lowbridge, Caroline (26 October 2021). "'We're being pressured into sex by some trans women'". BBC.
- ^ http://www.wdl.org/en/item/Q6238047/, The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 Yale L. J. 920, 926, 947 (1973) (Ely).
- ^ http://www.wdl.org/en/item/Q4994314/, Foreword: Toward A Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law, 87 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 2 (1973) (Tribe).
- ^ See 505 U. S., at 911 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 922 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part).
- ^ See 505 U. S., at 944 (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part); id., at 979 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part).
- ^ See 505 U. S., at 843 (plurality opinion of O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.).
- ^ 505 U. S., at 853.
- ^ 505 U. S., at 860 (plurality opinion).
- ^ Applebaum, Anne (October 2021). "The New Puritans". The Atlantic Monthly.
- ^ "Michael Sandel: Why the elites don't deserve their status". UnHerd. Retrieved 2022-05-24.