Freedom of speech is that ungainly weapon rolled out in circumstances such as these. It is misdirection. Freedom of speech is a fundamental and inviolate right

Freedom of speech is that ungainly weapon rolled out in circumstances such as these. It is misdirection. Freedom of speech is a fundamental and inviolate right of the individual. If I wanted to hold the belief that people with the name tom are spawn of the devil and deserve 100 lashings every day, then, that is an inviolate right. However if I publish my thoughts in a book there is no moral or legal onus for any publisher or retailer to touch it. (Of course; if a retailer makes a habit of suppressing marginal books such as those, it will get a bad name, so social pressure might force them to be less restrictive.) I see no problem for Amazon to make either a moral or business decision not to carry this book; a book which contains unacceptable thinking to a large majority of the populace. If to carry it means negative publicity and possibly lost sales they have a duty to their shareholders to mitigate that.