>The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the state from hauling you to court just for making some utterance And the whole point of the legislature

>The whole point of the First Amendment is to prevent the state from hauling you to court just for making some utterance And the whole point of the legislature and judiciary is to prevent passage of laws which would allow the executive branch to haul you to court for just "some utterance" - but speech is not in itself always just "an utterance". >That doesn't only threaten your own freedom, but democracy itself. Arguably, democracy is undermined through some uses of free speech which in the U.S. in particular cannot be legislated. the OP article has a whole section on this as it relates to porn or hate speech, and the arguments made therein. >is that the only way we can possibly find the truth, is by allowing ideas to compete freely This may be true of "ideas" as abstract entities, but ideas take concrete form in particular acts of speech and modes of expression - the real picture isn't a heavenly battle of ideas, it's the real effects of speech - only some of which carry an idea. Child porn or threats both carry 'ideas', or they can be imbued with the intention to carry an idea. This does not mean they should not be censored. >as much freedom of speech as possible, because if we don't, then lies will prevail. Is there empirical evidence confirming this in the context of the modern populace in the information age?