This is a grown man who should understand that words are vital to defining who an individual is and will be, one cannot simply arrange them into death threats because it's "therapeutic" or "cathartic." I insist, one cannot fix anger and grief with violent thoughts, much less with violence. The First Amendment should never be held as an absolute. In the Elonis v. United States, I argue that the Supreme Court must end the repression set by Elonis to put an end to these apparently "harmless" death threats. .
During its first examination of the limits of free speech on social media, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether violent images and threatening language posted on Facebook and other social media constitute as a true threat to others or simply the protected rants of someone filled with what one advocate called "digital courage." (Washington Post) Elonis argues that the postings, which included the lyrics of songs by the contemporary rapper Eminem, were free speech – supposedly they're attempts to deal with the pain of his personal problems and not specific threats to harm anyone. .
Consider the following lyrics written by Elonis himself, brought to life five months after his wife left him: "If I only knew then what I know now. I would have smothered your ass with a pillow. Dumped your body in the back seat. Dropped you off in Toad Creek and made it look like a rape and murder." (Blazelon) The test of obscenity was established in Roth v. United States, a landmark case that redefined the Constitutional test for determining what constitutes obscene material unprotected by the First Amendment. Obscenity was thus defined in the following terms: "[W]hether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant them of the martial taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.
