> I'm not talking about hate speech laws.

You also wrote this:

> for example, Germany blasphemy laws pre-WWII, as written, actually protected Judaism

You'll have to forgive my assumption that you were referring to hate speech laws, though I'm not sure what else you would be referring to in the context of this debate. I'm sure you're also clear that the Weimar's hate speech laws protected Judaism and were used against prominent National Socialists.[1]

> > Your statement is pure speculation.

> So is yours.

No, pure speculation occurs when you invoke an alternate timeline. I've speculated based on the existent timeline and factors therein. Yours is akin to fantasy, mine is a deduction. Mine is an answer to "how did that happen?" whereas yours is a "what would happen if…?"

There's no would in my speculation.

> We got damn close here in the US with the Japanese internment. So speech suppression it clearly isn't necessary to imprison an entire ethnic group for political reasons.

Speech was suppressed during wartime. From[2]:

> The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover emergency authority to censor all news and control all communications in and out of the country.

The Supreme Court also upheld the government's right to the internment (among other things) because SCOTUS has previously and consistently ruled that things are different at wartime, which I largely disagree with, along with the internment.

Not that free speech ultimately protects anyone like a magic amulet, it simply increases the likelihood of protection. You and I will no doubt both wear a seatbelt when driving but neither of us will claim it will definitely stop us flying out of our seats, there are more conditions to consider to make that claim.

Which makes this all the more amusing to me:

> Like I said you seem to not have a particularly strong knowledge of the actual history here, hence my request for a historian who supports your position.

Well, I guess I'll have to wait for you to bring forth the materials you say you checked, and perhaps for you to find out what was actually happening during WWII in the US.

> > blood libel from

> Funny you bring that up.

The only source of possible irony relies on misconception and tribalism so we'll have to disagree on its amusing quality. I brought up the blood libel because these are the consequence of competing Abrahamic religions that took hold over large areas and disallow speech that contradicts doctrine, doctrine that includes anti-semitism. Where's the Jew hatred in groups with no religious affiliation - do you find much anti-semitism among Buddhists and Hindus?

> So you see, even with free speech you can have large groups of people believing absolute nonsense.

When did I claim otherwise? Free speech only makes discernment of truth more likely, it does not guarantee it. Rather like having the best lab with the best scientists and best practice methods for your procedures, it will not guarantee you discoveries but it increases the likelihood versus a garage with a self taught scientist who is making it up as they go along, but some discoveries may still happen there too. To think that freedom of speech is the medicine for all ill would be to engage in fallacious thinking.[3]

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-v...

[2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1597/free-speech-du...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy