The Language Used by Chiplinsky, Essay Example

The language used by Chiplinsky should be subject to government regulation. Chapter 378 of the public laws of new Hemisphere clearly defines that utterances that are abusive or incisive in nature cannot be taken as part of the freedom of expression act. The court was justified to rule out that neither provocation nor the truth of Cheplinsky’s words could be used as a defense for his act. In my strong point of view, Cheplinsky wanted to pass a particular message to the public. The method he employed to pass this message is obstructive. He caused uproar in a public place to the level of interfering with the officer’s work.  He had the right to pass his message in other forms of media through the required procedure which would have even delivered the message to many people.  The intention was not to pass his message but to abuse because, after all, only a few passers-by got to hear his utterances. He, therefore, deserves to be punished for reckless, abusive and ignorant way of passing his message.

Fighting words should be protected by the First Amendment but the amendment should clearly distinguish between fighting words and abusive verbal exchange. This is because the amendment, though it allows fighting words, abusiveverbal exchange between people can cause a fight, thus, breaking the law. The decision to reverse Lewis’s Judgment was based on classifying the type of utterances. This was not a clever step to make since the same amendment has not categorized utterances as whether they can inflict injury or not. Utterances, as long as they are provoking,may cause fighting.  Judgment of a case involving exchange of words can be very difficult in court unless the amendment clearly defines the nature of the words used as ‘fighting words.