1st amendment is explicitly restricting government, I don't think it is codifying some real situation of tolerance in society that once occured into law. There

1st amendment is explicitly restricting government, I don't think it is codifying some real situation of tolerance in society that once occured into law. There may have never been such universal tolerance in U.S., maybe there was an idea of it. Your examples are not good - HN is private website, 1st amendment was passed by a small group of elites, maybe with good intentions, but hardly because of tolerant society. I agree with you on the argument "paradox of tolerance" - it talks about an extreme situation that mostly does not happen, as a reason for general policy. This argument seems often misused as a reason to come down hard on any speech that is objectionable to some group. More sane policy would be to adopt a default of free speech, be tolerant, and only then decide on exceptions on case by case basis, like about promoting Nazism in Europe. I don't think promoting Nazism should be protected the same way other free speech is, because of the concrete example of tragic consequences we have where it lead and the cost whole world had to pay.