| Like you, I don't think it's an entirely trivial issue to figure out what should or shouldn't be defended. An article that tremendously helped me shape my thinking on this is "Tolerance is not a moral precept"[1] In a nutshell - tolerance is a mutual agreement, and the protections of tolerance only apply to those who would uphold those protections. If you deliberately step outside these bounds - "gay people are evil" clearly doesn't tolerate gay people - you have lost the right to be tolerated. I disagree with the ACLU on protecting neo-nazis on those grounds. They have positioned themselves outside of civil society, with the deliberate goal of destroying that society. Does that mean we should restrict neo nazi speech? I honestly don't know. I do believe we shouldn't protect it, and I do believe we should shun people who subscribe to those ideas, but does that mean we should make it illegal? It's a very tough question. It's not what I'm arguing, either. But I am arguing that Sam disingenuously conflates two things, and to make it more interesting would like to get rid of speech that harms his business interest while he's OK with speech that has provably caused physical harm over and over. He's unhappy with his ethics being questioned, and dresses it up in a free speech argument. That is what I dislike about this. [1] https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1... |