This shit is hard, and complicated, and very often requires trust in things that are scary to trust or tell us things that might make us face something we don’t want to face.
That trust is being placed in the hands of people like Donald J. Trump. Let that sink in. In the US our judiciary has said that they are not the ones who should decide what is or isn’t valid speech (for the most part, some exceptions apply, yadda yadda) - that this would be left for the populace to decide. And I whole-heatedly agree with that decision.
Because guess what - if people cannot peaceably protest then the will violently protest. You’re not stopping the ideas. You’re not going to stop people from being bad. You’re just giving the government a back-door to silencing criticism.
It’s a risk. A demonstrable one at at that. This isn’t some vague “the gubmint is commin’ fer yer guns” stuff. Governments abuse their vast power to silence individuals all the time. And I don’t need to invoke Putin show show it - right now in Florida there is a government working very hard to outlaw LGBTQ ideas, books, and, yes, speech. You want those people to have a voice even if they’re a threat to those in power.
The people defining “threat” aren’t always going to be people you agree with.
Shit like libertarianism and adjecent ideologies promise easy answers and they’ve never delivered.
That’s entirely uncalled for - I’m not espousing libertarianism any more than you are by having any free speech at all.
That trust is being placed in the hands of people like Donald J. Trump. Let that sink in. In the US our judiciary has said that they are not the ones who should decide what is or isn’t valid speech (for the most part, some exceptions apply, yadda yadda) - that this would be left for the populace to decide. And I whole-heatedly agree with that decision.
Because guess what - if people cannot peaceably protest then the will violently protest. You’re not stopping the ideas. You’re not going to stop people from being bad. You’re just giving the government a back-door to silencing criticism.
It’s a risk. A demonstrable one at at that. This isn’t some vague “the gubmint is commin’ fer yer guns” stuff. Governments abuse their vast power to silence individuals all the time. And I don’t need to invoke Putin show show it - right now in Florida there is a government working very hard to outlaw LGBTQ ideas, books, and, yes, speech. You want those people to have a voice even if they’re a threat to those in power.
The people defining “threat” aren’t always going to be people you agree with.
That’s entirely uncalled for - I’m not espousing libertarianism any more than you are by having any free speech at all.