> I think something really important that doesn't get discussed very often when "free speech" comes up is that there really are categories of speech which most reasonable people expect and perhaps even prefer would not be 'protected'.
I think this gets brought up a fair amount, with both the obvious examples (yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater) and the not-so-obvious ones (whether 'hate speech' should be protected is very divisive).
A larger problem really is that many people are in a pretty binary mindset, especially about the not-so-obvious ones: Either you're a monster who has no principles, or you're a monster defending neo-nazis, without acknowledging that "allowable speech" is a constantly moving target.
Yelling "DEATH TO <X>" on a plane nowadays would almost certainly land you in prison (whereas 50 years ago maybe you would've just gotten a psych evaluation), and conversely talking about equal rights 200 years ago would've gotten you thrown in prison as a rabble-rouser inciting chaos.
Finding the acceptable level of "free speech" in a private community is something that's constantly going to be in flux, and successful communities will accept that ultimately neither group may be happy with the equilibrium: But it's still the equilibrium that maximizes happiness.
> More importantly there are categories of speech which are not put forward in good faith but are instead intended to do damage to communities that host them.
The dangerous part that you're omitting here is that "good faith" is an extremely subjective judgement. It's incredibly easy to imagine scenarios where dissenting speech = scrutinized HEAVILY for "not being in good faith".
For example, I'm pretty sure Erdogan has accused many opposition members of exactly that.
I think this gets brought up a fair amount, with both the obvious examples (yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater) and the not-so-obvious ones (whether 'hate speech' should be protected is very divisive).
A larger problem really is that many people are in a pretty binary mindset, especially about the not-so-obvious ones: Either you're a monster who has no principles, or you're a monster defending neo-nazis, without acknowledging that "allowable speech" is a constantly moving target.
Yelling "DEATH TO <X>" on a plane nowadays would almost certainly land you in prison (whereas 50 years ago maybe you would've just gotten a psych evaluation), and conversely talking about equal rights 200 years ago would've gotten you thrown in prison as a rabble-rouser inciting chaos.
Finding the acceptable level of "free speech" in a private community is something that's constantly going to be in flux, and successful communities will accept that ultimately neither group may be happy with the equilibrium: But it's still the equilibrium that maximizes happiness.
> More importantly there are categories of speech which are not put forward in good faith but are instead intended to do damage to communities that host them.
The dangerous part that you're omitting here is that "good faith" is an extremely subjective judgement. It's incredibly easy to imagine scenarios where dissenting speech = scrutinized HEAVILY for "not being in good faith".
For example, I'm pretty sure Erdogan has accused many opposition members of exactly that.