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Free Speech Can’t Survive as an Abstraction
- bediger4000 4y agoSure it can! The USA, in particular, can vastly limit speech and it can still be free speech. The key is USA has a very legalistic set of rights: play n words in legal documents mean other than the street meaning. SCOTUS can narrow free speech due to that. I propose a few simple ways we in the USA can reign in detrimental speech. First, do what Trump wanted. "Open up" libel laws. Rid ourselves of the doctrine that someone must have proveable malice to be guilty of libel. Make truth-as-absolute-defense much narrower. Maybe require fore knowledge of absolute truth. Second, make criticism of religion something like shouting fire in a crowded theatre. This would be considered sane in the deeply christian USA. Make the criteria for both "religion" and "criticism" vague,so that like copyright infringement, expensive trials are necessary to determine facts in each individual case. Follow UK libel law. Enforce all of this randomly, yet punitively. Follow China's One Eye Open, One Eye Shut policy. This will incentivize folks to keep their mouths shut, at least with respect to their betters and rich folk. We'd still have technically free speech. It would look a lot more respectful and less adversarial, too!