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Well put in the first few paras. All systems need discretion, which can be abused. Also it's important not to fixate on the bad, there's plenty of good. The la

Well put in the first few paras. All systems need discretion, which can be abused. Also it's important not to fixate on the bad, there's plenty of good. The last 2, gets a bit self-congratulatory. Jim crow laws (until 1965). Emmet Till didn't get much rights to free wolf-whistling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till And plenty more. "If Americans have not consistently enjoyed equal free speech [...] then that's more a knock on the US' value of equality" If you don't have 'equal free speech' then you don't have 'free speech', full stop.

gojomo 4y ago
> If you don't have 'equal free speech' then you don't have 'free speech', full stop. Not at all. Free speech is not binary. More is better, & the cultures that have consistently had more speech tolerance than elsewhere - like the US, in its formal documents & actual practices – are showing that free speech is a more central value to them.
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  This seems a bit nonsensical to be because you cannot simply just put a gauge on free speech and say that the higher the gauge is the better. If you had a country where 95% of individuals had absolute freedom of speech but 5% did not, is that more or less free than a country where 100% of people had near-absolute freedom of speech? What about when those percentages collide? When the free speech of the haves results in the suppression of the have nots? And historically the freedom in US has been in theory and not in practice what with how it's been used to hunt down perceived communists, minorities and dissidents. The best possible evidence against the idea that more == better is played out in the various sites that try to have absolute freedom of speech. The end result is that you get a large amount of people that others either do not want to associate with or get chased out by the rabid angry mass. Websites and forums form a sort of microculture that prove you need some guardrails to prevent the bus from going off the edge.
  - gojomo 4y ago
    In addition to it not being binary, it's not reducible to single dimension, where something like your question could be calculated like a formula. But yes, more free speech – in terms of being able to honestly express your opinions, without the threat of punishment by the state – is better. From any particular state of "absolute" or "near-absolute" free speech, giving some people extra freedom to speak without state punishment is an improvement. We were talking about the US, as a polity/legal-system. Private forums can and will set their own standards. But the US public-sphere, and what the government can get away with punishing, has for centuries had world-leading free-speech guarantees.
- zasdffaa 4y ago
  You've conveniently passed over the fact that free speech could be very unequal in the US, pretty good for whites, maybe not so good for others. That 'not binary' part seems to mean also between whites/non-whites, no?
  - gojomo 4y ago
    It's not binary in many dimensions. Race is a far less salient variable affecting speech, in the US, than income or education. Many of the US's most fearless speakers, often relying on our legal protections or cultural appreciation, especially with respect to criticizing the powerful, have been from categories of people that are otherwise economically disadvantaged. And, their practice of free speech, aided by the underlying high value from the culture & legal system, has helped to correct those other inequities.

gojomo 4y ago

> If you don't have 'equal free speech' then you don't have 'free speech', full stop. Not at all. Free speech is not binary. More is better, & the cultures that have consistently had more speech tolerance than elsewhere - like the US, in its formal documents & actual practices – are showing that free speech is a more central value to them.

fzeroracer 4y ago
This seems a bit nonsensical to be because you cannot simply just put a gauge on free speech and say that the higher the gauge is the better. If you had a country where 95% of individuals had absolute freedom of speech but 5% did not, is that more or less free than a country where 100% of people had near-absolute freedom of speech? What about when those percentages collide? When the free speech of the haves results in the suppression of the have nots? And historically the freedom in US has been in theory and not in practice what with how it's been used to hunt down perceived communists, minorities and dissidents. The best possible evidence against the idea that more == better is played out in the various sites that try to have absolute freedom of speech. The end result is that you get a large amount of people that others either do not want to associate with or get chased out by the rabid angry mass. Websites and forums form a sort of microculture that prove you need some guardrails to prevent the bus from going off the edge.
- gojomo 4y ago
  In addition to it not being binary, it's not reducible to single dimension, where something like your question could be calculated like a formula. But yes, more free speech – in terms of being able to honestly express your opinions, without the threat of punishment by the state – is better. From any particular state of "absolute" or "near-absolute" free speech, giving some people extra freedom to speak without state punishment is an improvement. We were talking about the US, as a polity/legal-system. Private forums can and will set their own standards. But the US public-sphere, and what the government can get away with punishing, has for centuries had world-leading free-speech guarantees.
zasdffaa 4y ago
You've conveniently passed over the fact that free speech could be very unequal in the US, pretty good for whites, maybe not so good for others. That 'not binary' part seems to mean also between whites/non-whites, no?
- gojomo 4y ago
  It's not binary in many dimensions. Race is a far less salient variable affecting speech, in the US, than income or education. Many of the US's most fearless speakers, often relying on our legal protections or cultural appreciation, especially with respect to criticizing the powerful, have been from categories of people that are otherwise economically disadvantaged. And, their practice of free speech, aided by the underlying high value from the culture & legal system, has helped to correct those other inequities.