“FIRE” is yelled, screamed in terror in a public theater.
People are slow to move, but the man is so emphatic, and loud, and for some reason, convincing, that people begin to stir, in the span of a few seconds behaving like an irrational mass, its energy feeding on itself as people scuffle out of their seats, pushing to the nearest exists – some going to the hall, those up front bolting outside through the doors off to the side of the screen. One is stuck, which further aggravates the excitement.
In the end, their was no fire, and the panic was calmed before it got too out of hand, but a little boy did get mildly hurt, he was knocked over and trampled. Traumatized and bruised, but locally nothing broken or permanently damaged, or worse.
Some fathers, during the midst of this, managed to calm the mob down, noting that the guy was a lunatic, and there was no smoke nor evidence of any fire whatsoever.
The crowd quickly turned on this man who had screamed, asking him why he would do that, but some of these same fathers did not hesitate. They proceeded to put the wollop on this guy that had just endangered their children – whether through some prank or delirium, there was to be a reckoning.
The man survived, but unlike the child, he had to spend some time in the emergency room. He would be fine after a few weeks, but probably wouldn’t throw a baseball the same, and I’ll leave it at that.
Afterwards, the men are brought to trial – assault is illegal except in clear cases of self defense, of which this was not… Let’s be clear: it was retribution. It was a vigilantic outburst that is not explicitly protected in my perfect government’s non aggression pact, and a trial must be had.
The men are brought before the court, where their guilt is to be decided by a jury of their peers. They plead their cases, describing the man as, though breaking no laws, a previous threat upon their children’s lives through his actions. They defend their actions of not just being a crime of passion with a desire to inflict pain, but of having the added effect of discouraging this kind of behavior in this future.
Besides, they left him alive, and prevented the carnage from getting too out of hand… After all, no lives had been lost through his actions. It could have, perhaps, gone differently.
The jury acquits all men. They were justified in this action and the jury and society at large hopes that any man would take action should such a need arise. We cannot go around attacking people, but there are times on certain special cases where it may be allowed by a jury of sound, morally just people. In this way, the slippery slope of free speech limitations which began in 1919 would not be necessary.
It is not that a crime has not been committed by the fathers, but the so acquittal isn’t precisely the right word to use, it’s a process of jury nullification that would allow this.
Fun bit of history about that, it was the the same year women were allowed the right to vote. But what was really fun about it, is the subject of the court battle by which limited speech (later becoming “hate speech”) has become a de-facto standard in our lives, in which (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47) Charles Schenck and Elizabeth Baer were convicted of the Espionage Act for posting leaflets opposing the draft!
“When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right”
We have recently began heavily bombarding Iran. There have been some discussions of a draft.
If America enacts a draft today, and people speak out against it, on say, facebook, there is legal precedent for charging them under the espionage act. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/249/47/#tab-opinion-1928047
"This is an indictment in three counts. The first charges a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917, c. 30, § 3, 40 Stat. 217, 219, by causing and attemptingPage 249 U. S. 49to cause insubordination, &c., in the military and naval forces of the United States, and to obstruct the recruiting and enlistment service of the United States, when the United States was at war with the German Empire, to-wit, that the defendants willfully conspired to have printed and circulated to men who had been called and accepted for military service under the Act of May 18, 1917, a document set forth and alleged to be calculated to cause such insubordination and obstruction. The count alleges overt acts in pursuance of the conspiracy, ending in the distribution of the document set forth. The second count alleges a conspiracy to commit an offence against the United States, to-wit, to use the mails for the transmission of matter declared to be nonmailable by Title XII, § 2 of the Act of June 15, 1917, to-wit, the above mentioned document, with an averment of the same overt acts. The third count charges an unlawful use of the mails for the transmission of the same matter and otherwise as above. The defendants were found guilty on all the counts. "