by mrandish | 2025-05-11 22:11:09+00:00
> So you want it to be legal to stand in a public square in Germany and yell that Hitler did nothing wrong

Yes.

> but you don't personally want to do that.

No.

> Why don't you want to?

Because I think Hitler was a dictator who committed genocide, which is the most terribly wrong there is.

> What does it say about the people who do want to do those things?

That I strongly disagree with those people? That those people are likely mentally ill, lunatics or malevolently evil?

I'm not following your reasoning here. It's like you're trying to box me into some contradictory position which just isn't there. You seem to find it unimaginable I could sincerely, passionately, and even, seethingly despise the words and sentiment behind "Hitler did nothing wrong" with every fiber of my being, yet not want to give government bureaucrats the absolute power to subjectively decide which free speech to punish. Those are not contradictory positions. In fact, they are the most consistent positions on free speech and here's why...

Hitler was only able to commit genocide because he seized the power to censor free speech first. Free speech is always the first right tyrants must suppress. That's literally why they made free speech the "First Amendment", all the other rights can be undermined without it. If the U.S. didn't have absolute free speech guarantees enshrined in our constitution and culture, if we had a "hate speech" law like the EU, I have no doubt Trump would already have hundreds or thousands of U.S. citizen students who protested Gaza in jail right now charged under that "hate speech" law. To paraphrase your question to me, here's a question for you: "So you want it be legal for Trump to put Gaza protestors in jail for hate speech?"

It's naive to believe people you agree with will always be the only ones in power. Someday someone with views you despise will be in power. Because power always attracts tyrants. Government is THE ultimate centralized power. Government has a monopoly on legally deploying lethal force against citizens. While I deeply despise what a few of my fellow citizens use their free speech rights to say, I also understand the best response to hate speech is exercising my free speech rights to protest against what they said. To point out how wrong, stupid and dangerous their words are. Taking everyone's free speech rights away based on what a few lunatics say is the most dangerous response to hate speech. I'm willing to tolerate the despicable, evil speech of a handful of lunatics because tolerating that is the price of protecting free speech for everyone.

While some well-intentioned people claim "Oh no! I only want to stop the bad speech, not reasonable protest", that's been proven impossible. The U.S. courts tried to find a way to code those good intentions into law and precedent in a way that would not also allow a racist police chief, anti-gay mayor, anti-trans governor or warmonger president to imprison someone they disagree with based on their speech. Our best legal minds tried many different approaches and compromises for over a hundred years - and failed. As awful as tolerating the speech of lunatics is, it is the least bad solution guaranteed to protect free speech from abuse by the worst few out of thousands of good police chiefs, mayors, governors and presidents. Because, eventually, a bad person will get themselves in power and bad people in power always find a way to claim protest speech against them is "hate speech." That's the day when the rest of us will all need the right to march in the streets chanting words the new government has suddenly decreed are now "hate speech." Rights are lost an inch at a time and it always starts with the most reprehensible, least sympathetic people, spouting the most offensive things - because no right-thinking, morally good person will defend the awful shit they're saying. The problem is too many right-thinking, morally good people confuse strongly rejecting "what was said" from tenaciously defending "the right to say it". I'm not willing to risk losing free speech forever to silence a few lunatics today.