Quick: Flush FOX as Needed — It's a Long Way to the Cesspool

Not Hard to Dispute This

I have worked on this for some time ... see what you think:

Historically in U.S. law, (1) “the bad tendency principle” was a test used that permitted restriction of freedom of speech by government if it is believed that a form of speech has a sole tendency to incite or cause illegal activity.  

It was formulated in Patterson v. Colorado in 1907. However, it was seemingly overturned with the (2) “clear and present danger principle” used in the landmark case Schenck v. United States in 1919, as introduced and stated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr..

Then eight months after that in Abrams v. United States in 1919, the Court again used the bad tendency test to uphold the conviction of a Russian immigrant who published and distributed leaflets calling for a general strike and otherwise advocated revolutionary, anarchist, and socialist views. Holmes dissented in Abrams explaining how the clear and present danger test should be employed to overturn Abrams' conviction.

The arrival of the bad tendency test resulted in a string of politically incorrect rulings such as Whitney v. California in 1927, where a woman was convicted simply because of her association with the Communist Party. The court ruled unanimously that although she had not committed any crimes, her relationship with the Communists represented a bad tendency and thus was unprotected. The “bad tendency” test was finally overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969, and was replaced by the (3) “imminent lawless action” test or standard.

Imminent lawless action is the current standard used by the USSC that was established by them in the Brandenburg v. Ohio case in 1969. It defines the limits of freedom of speech.

Brandenburg clarified what constituted a clear and present danger(the standard established by Schenck but then overruled in Whitney, which had held that speech that merely advocated violence could be made illegal.

Under the imminent lawless action test, speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely. While the precise meaning of “imminent” may be ambiguous in some cases, the court provided later clarification in Hess v. Indiana in 1973.

Somewhere in all this lies the solution to the FOX problem as I see it. FOX has for a very long time in all their broadcasts work against the country - i.e., they undermine the basic fabric of country. I’m not a lawyer, but boy, it makes perfect sense to me that FOX with those apparent goals are in most cases truly “designed and laced with (1) bad tendencies that pose a (2) clear and present danger that is (3) imminent.” 

There I combined all three into one… How’s that? (smile).