Turns out there are plenty of things more worthy of fighting for than enabling fascists and terrorists to lure in vulnerable people and harass marginalized people
Turns out there are plenty of things more worthy of fighting for than enabling fascists and terrorists to lure in vulnerable people and harass marginalized people
People do not understand that free speech only applies to governments, because governments are supposed to have a monopoly on violence. Violence between citizens is illegal, however violence by the government onto the citizens is perfectly legal. The government has all the right to force you to go to prison against your will with a lot of allowed means.
There’s (mostly) no such thing between citizens. There’s stuff like self-defense but that’s pretty much it. So free speech is necessary as a governmental concept since otherwise citizens may feel the full force of the government’s wrath just for saying something the government doesn’t agree with.
But between citizens, theoretically if everyone adheres to all laws, there’s nothing really bad that one citizen can do to another. Yeah you might be shunned socially, which definitely can be incredibly bad, but it’s more easily manageable than being shot or put into a dark cell for the rest of your life.
So the “free speech” concept is not really something people should try to apply to their lives except when dealing with the government. If someone says some nasty shit, everyone else is free to start ignoring them or not letting them come into their spaces. That’s how it should be, it’s not even remotely desirable to let them continue spouting their nasty shit without consequences.
+1
“Be nice” is a very effective rule if you can only choose one. No need for anyone to start getting all philosophical or inflammatory. We request that you be nice or get the fuck out
That’s the American view of free speech from the American constitution. It’s very specific, and not universal at all. Free speech can be a philosophical concept, and it existed way before the American continent was discovered.
I was talking from the viewpoint of a European country, and I definitely know that it applies to the majority of other European countries as well. So it’s not exclusively American.