@icedquinn @freemo I understand that, and regret or not, there are those insisting "freedom of speech" is "license to destroy lives with lies for money." Whichever way this thing boils over, and I'm sure it will, the only one who wins is the most brutal thug left standing, and that ain't me.

@Coyote

freespeech means different things depending onn context. Only place it is well defined is legally. In general the USA is the top example used. You get freedom to exprress any opinion, but the manner and time in which you express it can and is limited.

@Romaq

@freemo @Romaq You seem to be conflating Free Speech and the 1st Amendment.

In the most abstract sense, Free Speech is the ability for one to non-physically influence others without retribution. The 1st Amendment is very much an attempt to codify Free Speech, but the United States has purposefully chosen to limit its pursuit of the principle. It recognizes some of these influences as invalid, so it very selectively carves away at Free Speech until it’s comfortable. That is to say, the United States doesn’t have Free Speech.

For one to support Free Speech in whole, one has to go to the very extreme of the principle, morality be damned, and accept that there exists no message and no means that deserves punishment. This includes child pornography, lies, and defamation. For this reason there probably has never and will never be a person who supports Free Speech, but principles aren’t meant to be the end all be all of one’s morality.

We design principles to be guide stones in decision making. We start at the extreme and work ourselves down, carefully, so that we can make a pragmatic choice that is based on something we can explain to others. Without these guide stones, our choices become both primitive and complex like the structures that manifest in nature. We can get a feel for what they should be, but to explain it to another would be as hard as explaining why our brains are structured the way that they are.

To call out a principle above all others, as most mean when they “support” one, is to state that that principle trumps all others in a fair fight. For Free Speech, it’s not enough to say one needs to be civil or to avoid offense to break from it, one has to bring about a theater of opposing principles to even begin to think about punishing speech. It’s still an extreme position to most people, so when someone says he’s for Free Speech and falters to milquetoast arguments, those who believed him will feel cheated.

@Coyote

Uhm... wow. Pertaining to @freemo's situation, he is caught in the crossfire between one group who insists their freedom to speak includes spreading hate, lies, and misinformation to attack a group they don't like who is known for insisting their freedom to speak includes spreading hate, lies, and misinformation to attack a group *THEY* don't like.

BOTH groups insist if you don't limit speech to the speech *THEY* promote, you are obviously the enemy and subject to the spread of hate, lies, and information.

Now all that text of yours is nice, and it may be appropriate in a courtroom or civics course. But in the case of QOTO.ORG, the domain turns up an IP "not within the US" while being caught in the crossfire between two very pissed off US groups at ideological war.

And right now my "freedom of speech" concern is QOTO.ORG staying alive for me to enjoy what appears to be the most sane instance among so much ugliness and hate.

Now if you'd care to explain how to get a group insisting "freedom of speech only covers speech they will permit" to take a more rational view of reality, I'd be very interested in that. Otherwise, @legaleagle covers questions I'd have on the topic just fine in terms of US and state law as it applies to the legal topics of the day.