4 ms·
The issue isn't that speech is too free, it's that people have split into warring factions which use public debate as a battleground. Thanks to free speech, we
by karaterobot 4y ago
The issue isn't that speech is too free, it's that people have split into warring factions which use public debate as a battleground. Thanks to free speech, we can publish and read the truth, however inconvenient it is for other people. Many choose not to, and that's a catastrophic, but entirely separate problem, not solved by reducing free expression.
(I don't know how to solve it: my best advice is "everybody just chill the fuck out, please," which tells you why I'm not in a leadership position.)
The issue with controlling free speech is that, once you've done it, you have to make sure to remain in control of it at all costs. Your party cannot be allowed to lose power, and you have to make sure your enemies don't have a voice, because if they're allowed to get in control, they'll do the same thing to you. And now we've got an even bigger problem than we started with.
- bediger4000 4y agoSo the USA will just go the route we've gone with the 4th amendment (secure in person and papers against search and seizure) where we shave it so thin that in practice it doesn't exist. Even the current SCOTUS wouldn't dare to futz with 1st Amendment, but what if criticizing religions was ruled "not free speech"? What if a Republican House and Senate "open up" libel laws, where truth of some utterance or printed material isn't a valid defense, or where a highly public person doesn't have to prove actual malice? Those 2 things would be a good start towards thinly-shaved, narrowly-construed "free speech". Absolute freedom to carry any firearm your heart desires without training or responsibility, but put a lot of topics off-limits to criticism, and make it so people can be "held accountable" very easily. I like this!