[jay-barronville]

Hard agree. I’m always trying to get my fellow young Americans to understand this and it seems to go right over their heads a lot of times. My parents lived through multiple oppressive dictatorships before emigrating to America. Once I understood everything that they and their families experienced (e.g., family members being kidnapped, disappeared, and eventually murdered simply due their political views), I gained a much deeper appreciation for our Constitution (in particular, our Bill of Rights).

Nowadays, watching how easy it is to get folks to give in to censorship and tyranny for psychological “safety” scares me sometimes (especially when it’s all due to politics).

No matter what someone’s views are (and how offensive I may find them to be), I’ll never ever advocate for their censorship, because I understand where that can lead. Today, it’s your opponent; tomorrow, it’s you.

[whimsicalism]

liberalism is passé nowadays, but it will see a resurgence akin to the “hard times make hard people, hard people make good times” cycle

[SamoyedFurFluff]

I actually don’t know if I agree with the last part. A chunk of the Rwandan genocide was a radio station instigating and advocating for the mass slaughter of a people. Atrocities in Myanmar also were originally advocated for in Facebook. On more personal levels, domestic abuse is also psychological torture and the wearing down of a person with words and it should be in someone’s right to file a restraining order to stop being contacted by their abuser even if the abuser doesn’t perform physical violence.

That is to say I broadly agree with the notion that speech should be relatively unfettered, but I do believe there must be exceptions for speech that actively aims to fetter people. We must limit speech that advocates limiting the freedoms of people to live as independent and equal citizens.

[jay-barronville]

> That is to say I broadly agree with the notion that speech should be relatively unfettered, but I do believe there must be exceptions for speech that actively aims to fetter people. We must limit speech that advocates limiting the freedoms of people to live as independent and equal citizens.

While absolute free speech remains unattainable in practice due to inevitable societal boundaries, it should serve as an aspirational ideal toward which we continually strive, minimizing deviations rather than expanding them. Speech restrictions often and quickly devolve into subjectivity, fostering environments where only dominant ideologies prevail.

So, of course, by all means, restrict speech that harms children, incites violence, etc., but be very careful to not open that door too widely.

[foxglacier]

That's a huge leap from directly instigating genocide that actually happened to "We must limit speech that advocates limiting the freedoms of people to live as independent and equal citizens." which is severe censorship of all sorts of political ideas, including ones which we already enact and most people agree with. There's a lot of widely-accepted government-enforced inequality (foreigners, prisoners, convicts, children, inherited rights, etc.) which just shows how overly broad the restrictions you say we must impose are. Even yourself saying that could be interpreted as a violation of your own rule! You also advocated for restraining orders! You're your own enemy. Your opinion could really benefit from some back and forth with other people to refine it into something more sensible. Hopefully I'm contributing a little to that.