Free Speech

I'm still extremely free-speech-negative. Paid speech or GTFO. However, wow the alleged "free" American has no idea what free speech is, holy shit. 

Liars are so stupid it's unimaginably stupid. I sort of intellectually understand how stupid they are, but nevertheless when I picture how stupid they are it's never as stupid as they actually are. So anyway, ideological turing test.

The whole point of free speech is that if you ban all "obviously" wrong speech you obviously ban a lot of important correct speech at the same time.

The speech that needs to be protected is immoral speech. Moral speech doesn't need protecting. You need free speech precisely because your morals are wrong and someone needs to tell you. You have to protect the speech that should be banned because otherwise you will inevitably ban the speech that needs protection. 

What does [sunlight is the best disinfectant] mean? It is the faith that good immoral (""immoral"" sorry I can't let that pass, even in pretense, without comment) speech will win over bad immoral* speech. That the indefensible won't be defended. Someone who bans speech necessarily admits they are afraid of that speech. "What is it like to be so weak that mere words can hurt you?" Someone who bans speech inevitably asserts that lies are convincing - or that they are speaking lies that can't defend themselves against the truth. You can tell which one it is because they refuse to talk about the subject at all, let alone commit to a profession. 

To ban speech is the height of arrogance. You assert you know the truth value of all important propositions, and have no need to be corrected.

Anyway test over let's go back to bashing free speech.

Of course that's exactly why I say there's no free speech exactly the same way there's no free lunch. [Free speech] is a moral position, not an engineering position, and like all moral positions, it is inherently immoral. A statement of intent to defect. You can't assert free speech without asserting that morality needs to be protected - but free speech is precisely the position that morality can't and shouldn't be protected. This contradiction is always resolved in favour of shackled speech. Slave speech. Fascism is worse than authority. "It's still free speech if we ban all the immoral speech, right?" Amazing. As I said earlier: the stupidity is unimaginably profound. You can't conceive of it unless you're staring right at it.

There's also the problem that speech is a kind of act. There is no sharp distinction between violent words and violent action, because to make one is to make a distinction between violent acts and violent acts. At best you can say some violence is so petty that de minimus non curat lex. Which is, again, a value judgment. How petty, exactly, is too petty? Did you want to invite the sociopathic rules-lawyers, or shall I? Gotta get that procedural outcome manipulation up ins.

What's the difference between a thoughtful but distressing critique, and a hate-filled vitriol? Epistemically speaking, the difference is consent. Sociologically speaking, you can't tell the difference in the intent of the speaker,** you can only see the difference in whether the listener intends to reject it or not. 

**(I can easily spot the intent of the speaker, but that only matters if you trust me, in other words if you have already decided my speech shouldn't be banned, in which case I can simply assert they should be banned without justification.)

Unless of course you're omniscient already and don't need anyone to speak, what with already having all important truths.

Logically the response is to ban unfree listeners, I suppose.
Which, on reflection, is kind of the obvious first solution any good-faith thinker would come up with. Only a liar or a drooling idiot would try anything else before very thoroughly ruling out the idea of banning "hate" listeners.