>And for the sake of us all, i hope that if the case were to be brought in front of SCOTUS, they'd correctly write that

And you would be wrong, as this is the quintessential "shouting fire in a crowded theater" analogy. Free Speech is conditional, since at least 1969 when it last went to the SCOTUS. The reason it's unproductive to start from that space, is because today, the Constitution does not grant you unconditional rights. You don't have an unconditional right to own a gun either.

I mentioned "relevant caselaw" to head off comments exactly like yours.

There was a few clear SCOTUS decisions on what limits there exist on 1st amendment, and movement limits weren't in there

There are more than a few decisions that would appear to bear at least indirectly on this situation which can help us guess what the outcome would be. In particular, the "clear and present danger" standard would probably apply; since one could tie assembly to disease transmission, a highly infectious disease would seem to qualify.

Another area that speech has been restricted has been around espionage and wartime; it's clear that during wartime, our ability to speak becomes much more restricted, at least partially for security reasons. Again, the practical reason for this is that war can be an existential risk for a country, and generally, people are more than willing to give up their rights temporarily to avoid the risk of their entire nation being wiped out.

So, while I agree (to my limited knowledge; I'm just a speculating engineer) that there is no direct case law that bears on this, I do feel that my predictions on which side the SC would fall (unless the court was packed with Scalias) are reasonable.

There is little more for me to add so I think I will terminate my participation in this subthread.

>A conditional right is no right at all.

This is what you stated, and now you are agreeing that there are conditions. If you now agree that there are conditions that these rights can be applied, I believe an actual pandemic would be reasonable as a condition to the first amendment.

All rights are balanced against other rights. If your right to assemble interferes with the right of other people to not die from your actions, something has to give.

The reason that talking with you doesn't look productive is that you're behaving like a fundamentalist here. You've got a very basic understanding of one document, and you've decided that your take is the perfect truth.

People who actually devote their lives to studying and practicing the law, on the other hand, have a much more nuanced perspective. Freedom of speech is indeed a right, but it's not absolute. Courts have found "time, place, and manner" restrictions perfectly constitutional, and have for as long as America has existed: https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1023/time-place...

The problem is that you're basically countering what is well-established fact over the history of our nation. The SC has been faced with First Amendment cases before and made it pretty clear there are limitations (rights are conditional).

It seems very likely that the Supreme Court would side with "governments can restrict the movement of people during health emergencies especially if there is reasonable science supporting that". I guess we don't know unless they take up such a case.

My statements are purely practical; I've never "fought for my rights" or "lived in a place lacking them", but my ancestors did, and in ever sense, the conditions of my rights seem to be as unrestricted as is possible within a large nation that follows the rule of law.

> The first amendment has no limitations

The right to assembly has a significant explicit limitation in the text.