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- Title
Thought Control and the First Amendment.
- Authors
Beyer, Stephan V.
- Abstract
This article explores the application of the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the purported right of an individual to think social stigmatized thoughts—for example, psychotic or sexually sadistic thoughts. The state may attempts to control such thoughts either by imposing a thought-control technology on the thinker or by prohibiting the thinker from voluntarily using thought-control technology of his own. Thought-control technologies embrace antipsychotic drugs, hallucinogenic drugs, pornography, and other mind-altering devices. Two underlying models of the free speech clause are proposed—a strong model and a weak model. Despite the apparent endorsement of the strong model by the United States Supreme Court, courts in fact vacillate between the two models and are, apparently, reluctant to utilize the First Amendment as a tool to enforce any right to think wicked thoughts. This reluctance, it is proposed, may well have a religious basis in an equation of wicked thoughts with sin.
- Subjects
UNITED States; FREEDOM of speech; BRAINWASHING; CIVIL rights; PSYCHIATRIC drugs; SOCIAL stigma; PSYCHOLOGY; SOCIAL psychology; SADISM; UNITED States. Supreme Court
- Publication
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 1983, Vol 1, Issue 2, p59
- ISSN
0735-3936
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/bsl.2370010209