I prefer the way things are run in countries like France and Germany, where people understand the value of free speech in debating politics and spreading new ideas while also recognizing that some limits are necessary (e.g. limits on speech that promotes a resurgence of nazism).
Every startup wants to be a new Facebook. Every modern society wants to be a new Sweden. Turns out that replicating successfully run communities - with their traditions, history and lifestyle - is extremely difficult, if ever possible.
The problem is, that the sentiment of "limits speech that promotes resurgence of X" is the same that dictatorships like Argentina used against the "subversives" that would promote and bring about communism.
When you allow the powerful to define "dangerous speech". Criticism of the government very quickly becomes dangerous when it's successful.
We've seen it with everything related to covid where in some countries people get arrested for "misinformation".
The slippery slope many warned about is very real, and very damaging.
That is an absolutist argument. Sure, some countries have used censorship in abusive ways, but I very specifically mentioned Germany. It was widely recognized after World War II that a resurgence of nazism would have been disastrous for Germany, and censorship was imposed to prevent the hundreds of thousands of committed nazi party members from trying to reestablish nazism. Censorship was absolutely necessary because propaganda had been so important in the rise of nazism in the first place, and because nazi ideas and the nazi world view did not simply die when Germany surrendered.
Despite very strict censorship laws related to nazi propaganda, nazi symbolism, and Holocaust denial, Germany ranks much higher than the United States in terms of press freedom and has ranked higher for many years. There is no serious argument that (modern, reunified) Germany is not a free society where people are free to criticize the government. Yes, there are limits to the ideas that are allowed to be publicly promoted or debated, because the same concerns about a resurgence of nazism remain relevant today (it has actually become worse in recent years).
The abuse of censorship laws on the part of dictatorships is not an argument against all censorship, any more than the abuse of the courts by dictatorships is an argument against the rule of law. Expansive censorship is a problem that works against the interests of a free society, but limited censorship is sometimes necessary to promote the interests of a free society.
If my argument is absolutist then your argument is authoritarian.
Mine is a safer proposition for the oppressed, for the minorities, for those not algined with the politics of the elites.
The whole argument about Nazi resurgence really falls flat when you realize that people get called Nazis for spousing wrongthink politics.
Your whole proposition is "the dangers of Nazism are too great". That's the same tactic I mentioned of "the dangers of communism" are too great.
If you want, ignore dictatorships. The slippery slope in non dictatorships is extremely damaging.
You're not gonna limit your censorship either, as you suggest in your last line. You're going to use it against your political foes to continue in or seize power.
Your motte and bailey tactics to get people to accept "some censorship for their own good" and then censor their speech that goes against your politics by calling it "Nazism" is a way bigger threat than the actual chance of "Nazi ideology". There was a time the ACLU safeguarded the right to say the most abhorrent of views the same you make sure due process is served even with the alleged most abhorrent criminals.
