Why we should close down Canberra

The go-to quote for the illiberal intelligentsia to justify their suppression of speech comes from US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was Holmes who wrote in 1919 that “[T]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic”. It never seemed to have challenge thinking to ask whether, in a world of trade-offs, whether it would be better to remain silent and not alert patrons that the theatre is on fire. 

Of equal challenge is the context in which this “anti-shouting” position was made. This quote is from a US Supreme Court judgement in Schenck v. United States which considered the case of Charles Schenck, who was convicted under the…