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What I would say is that while gov has a role to protect people's physical safety, what else do you believe is a legitimate role in protecting people from? Is i

What I would say is that while gov has a role to protect people's physical safety, what else do you believe is a legitimate role in protecting people from? Is it government's responsibility to care for your emotions? Do you think gov should cover our ears from mean words? Burn books that say things that you disagree with? Who decides what is disagreeable? Me? You? Trump? Eric Schmidt? In a way, speech is already a very effective democratic institution. The more decentralized and the more participants, the more democratic. But if this voice is transferred from the people to the gov, the more power is handed from the people to the elites, and most likely the faster we will devolve into authoritarianism.

zaphirplane 9y ago
There are cults, groups and generally evil people who gain memeber ship thru words - brain washing - those groups then cause physical harm, waiting for the harm to happen doesn't sound like protecting society While I appreciate your view I don't know where you live or who you are and I bet there is a group of people out there that hates you, and you would have a different view on freedom to publish the on google / Facebook when they target you
- wallace_f 9y ago
  To your first paragraph: Take another issue, like marijuana or alcohol prohibition. I don't have to personally be into those to say that it's not a legitimate role of government to tell me whether I can use them. Also here, you can find that some will die every year because of them, and make the same argument you made: that government should jump ahead and not allow it. If they dont, then they aren't protecting society, so your argument goes. Unfortunately here it's clear that life is far from perfect, but the moral question to ask is how can we make the best of it for all people? Should we ban everything because a few die: cars, sugar--what about swimming pools? Back flips? You see, I don't think this argument you made logically leads us to a very good world. Government can't protect us from everything. At some point we have to rely on faith in humanity. Not to mention with every power handed over from the people is given into the hands of government's propensity for corruption... So while I don't approve of every group that will use free speech same as I dont use marijuana or have a swimming pool, but I don't think it's a legitimate role of government to regulate any of that. In other words, I think more people will suffer w/o free speech than w/ it, but no solution will be perfect. Ok, however your second paragrapah is really concerning me.

zaphirplane 9y ago

There are cults, groups and generally evil people who gain memeber ship thru words - brain washing - those groups then cause physical harm, waiting for the harm to happen doesn't sound like protecting society While I appreciate your view I don't know where you live or who you are and I bet there is a group of people out there that hates you, and you would have a different view on freedom to publish the on google / Facebook when they target you

wallace_f 9y ago
To your first paragraph: Take another issue, like marijuana or alcohol prohibition. I don't have to personally be into those to say that it's not a legitimate role of government to tell me whether I can use them. Also here, you can find that some will die every year because of them, and make the same argument you made: that government should jump ahead and not allow it. If they dont, then they aren't protecting society, so your argument goes. Unfortunately here it's clear that life is far from perfect, but the moral question to ask is how can we make the best of it for all people? Should we ban everything because a few die: cars, sugar--what about swimming pools? Back flips? You see, I don't think this argument you made logically leads us to a very good world. Government can't protect us from everything. At some point we have to rely on faith in humanity. Not to mention with every power handed over from the people is given into the hands of government's propensity for corruption... So while I don't approve of every group that will use free speech same as I dont use marijuana or have a swimming pool, but I don't think it's a legitimate role of government to regulate any of that. In other words, I think more people will suffer w/o free speech than w/ it, but no solution will be perfect. Ok, however your second paragrapah is really concerning me.