The high price of eggs is in no way President Trump’s fault
To be fair - that is true. It’s not like he infected all the birds.
However, if you’re the president that just slapped a bunch of tariffs on neighboring countries … optics looking kinda bad ngl.
Ah, the paradox of intolerance. The all time favorite argument against free speech.
Free speech absolutism enables fascism.
No, we don’t. Ironically, YOU are the ones that enable fascism because you want to lay the foundational laws that a fascist government requires to enact fascism. This is called the “Paradox of Power” (It actually doesn’t but it sounds cool). If society is enforcing intolerance toward intolerant views, then whoever holds the power gets to define what “intolerance” is. Now, what this does in reality is that the “ruling ideology”, so to speak, can label dissenters as “intolerant” and justify their suppression, which is effectively leading to the very tyranny your principle claims to prevent.
I once heard a very good comparison in a youtube video. Imagine the government is a tank, and that tank is supposed to protect you from the evil fascists. Now, you want it to be strong so it can defend you better against them, so you slap on some more armor, some more weapons, a larger cannon, even more armor until that tank (your government) is an unbeatable killing machine that is deleting fascists left and right. Now, all is good and well - until a fascist gets into the tank. And at that point, he has all he needs, he runs the killing machine and starts enacting fascism - and the reason why he can do that is because you have build the fucking tank. That is what you’re doing with the stupid hate speech laws - and that leads me to the second point …
(drum roll)
… the slippery slope!
As you are not the one in control over the list of things we have to be intolerant against, but the people in power, it is fairly easy for them to extend the list to things they don’t like. Funny enough, the soviet union suppressed dissent under the guise of “combating fascism” in the very same way you are arguing here right now. Suddenly, mentioning historic events like tiananmen square is no longer allowed. Or things happen but you don’t hear about them, like the “Röhm-Putsch” in 1934 where hitler assassinated hundreds of people that could pose a threat to his power - the event was never reported in the news and nazis justified the suppression and framed it as “necessary to ensure stability and order”.
Remember: True tolerance means engaging with differing viewpoints, even uncomfortable ones, rather than preemptively silencing them out of fear.
It depends on the source of the consequences.
Social consequences? Completely fine, even desirable.
Legal consequences? This is where trouble starts and freedom of speech is no longer given.
Barely anyone truly believes in it. They only care when they need it.
I’ve been a free speech advocate and activist for years and I helped people that literally wanted me banned 2 months prior for the most nonsense reasons. They didnt care sbout free speech until they stepped over a line - then, free speech was the most important thing in the world.
That’s universal for all political alignments btw. It’s both fascist clowns or wannabe antifa super soldiers. Both only care about it when it’s needed.
care about freedom of speech
So did musk when he bought twitter.
Companies don’t care about your rights. They care about your money.
To be honest, I’ve had this discussion countless times at this point and I’m just tired of discussing it, especially with americans. It’s a fruitless endeavor.
Ctrl + F - “Gay”
I dislike DEI as well, but this ain’t it chief.
Ah, ye that makes sense. Kinda forgot about that aswell. Thanks for pointing it out!