Book excerpt: Modern Power and Free Speech explores the complicated relationship between the First Amendment and culturally disempowered groups within the United States. By focusing on hate speech, Internet pornography, and political dissent, Chris Demaske analyzes First Amendment discourse and doctrine, and questions the role of the concept of the autonomous individual. Demaske asserts that the presupposed equality of so-called autonomous individuals does not exist and goes on to show how these specious claims to equality only serve to further silence those marginalized members of American society. Combining legal analysis. First Amendment theory, feminist theory, and political theory, Demaske addresses the inadequacies of current free