With respect to free speech and, in general, freedoms within a group, it's important to realize we're dealing with two boundaries. The first is the rules the g

With respect to free speech and, in general, freedoms within a group, it's important to realize we're dealing with two boundaries. The first is the rules the group agrees on that are enforced. The second are your own personal boundaries that you choose. I think the tendency is to make the enforced rules light; we like to tip the balance in the favor of more freedom as much as possible. That said, this works best if individuals make an effort to be genuinely concerned about the interests of others in the group and therefore draw much more conservative boundaries around their own behavior. In other words, groups need lots of social restrictions on behavior to work well, but it works best when each individual has a lot of room to decide what those boundaries are. Only the egregiously bad behavior is formally addressed as a group. Sometimes people don't realize there are two boundaries going on and rationalize rude behavior under the umbrella of freedom or free speech.