Niall Gooch on free speech and its enemies:
Free speech, like the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence, is a procedural virtue, which is why fanatics and revolutionaries hate it… Defenders of free speech are arguing not only for free speech as an abstraction, but a wider culture of honest debate, factual argument, respectful disagreement, and civilised co-existence with people who see the world very differently from us. Complaints about attacks on free speech can be seen as proxies for concerns about the maintenance of this culture, particularly in the context of the university.
So in a sense, free speech isn’t one thing. It’s many things. It’s a whole network of overlapping norms about the exchange of ideas. One thing that people commonly mean when they say “free speech” is “if I’m invited to give a talk somewhere I should be allowed to do so without intimidation, interruption or threat, and people who want to come and listen to me should be able to do so.”
Well, at some point the right is going t have to start, in a metaphorical sense, taking guns to the knife fights.
libel and slander laws are in place, no others are needed. I like the captcha. school, people do need to be educated and Bellevue which was mental hospital, where many free speech hater should be.
Some people think free speech is only for them, that others are “free” to say what they agree with.
Some people think free speech means they can say what they please, but any rebuttal is an abrogation of their rights.
Some people think they can decide, using their prejudices, what others mean, think or intend by what they say, so they are “intolerant.”
Remember when you just can’t stand intolerant people, it’s best to shut them up before they start to make sense to others.
Steyn nails it in his related article….”Because they’re bonkers, and they’re totalitarian. Which is a dangerous combination.”
Agreed Shamrock. I got a bunch of recent uni grads confused by asking them what “tolerance” meant. The first three attempts at a definition used the term “tolerant” in the definition. They all agreed (looking like relieved bobbleheads) when I offered the definition “the knowledge that other people disagree with me, and thinking that that’s OK and that they can continue to disagree with me.”
They weren’t so happy a couple of minutes later when I asked why they were intolerant of those who have a religious disagreement with gay marriage. The discussion disintegrated quickly.