[guessthejuice]

> A common argument in philosophy is that bad ideas should occur in the open - where everyone may ridicule them.

Also, so that good ideas can have their day in the sun. Lets not forget that most "good" ideas were once considered bad ideas.

List of ideas that was once considered bad.

Abolitionism. LGBT rights. Heliocentrism. Germ theory. Endless list.

The idea is that all ideas deserve discussion so that the good rises and the bad sinks.

Also, by allowing censorship when you have likeminded people in power, you also allow other people to censor in the future when power shifts.

This is just basic stuff you learn in philosophy 101. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be teaching basic principles in high school/college anymore.

People naively think that censorship keeps the bad ideas away. Most of the time, it is used to keep the good ideas away. Look at the censorship by the catholic church, soviet union, china, nazi germany, etc.

If your ideas have solid footing, you would be against censorship. It's when you can't defend your ideas that people advocate for censorship.

[maeln]

There is a big difference between ideas like LGBT/PoC/Women rights, abolitionism, ... and White Supremacy, Racism, Religious Fundamentalism, ... : One advocates for inclusion, social peace and acceptance, the other for exclusion, hate and race/religion war.

This is not something we can ignore and treat every ideas like they are the same.

In Europe, it's very common to have an exception to Free Speech when it comes to hate speech, and I never saw it being used in the "wrong" way and keep good idea away.

[guessthejuice]

> There is a big difference between ideas like LGBT/PoC/Women rights, abolitionism, ... and White Supremacy, Racism, Religious Fundamentalism, ... : One advocates for inclusion, social peace and acceptance, the other for exclusion, hate and race/religion war.

Ideas are ideas. And how do we understand the difference if one is censored? Also, there are plenty of exclusionism and hate in extremist LGBT, feminism, etc communities. It's not fair to compare extremism of one side, but not the extremism of the other side. There are feminists who believe men should be wiped out, there are lesbians who are against trans women and there are trans people who are against gay marriage. But that's not the point. The point is all ideas should be allowed to be expressed so that they can be debated, criticized, etc. It's the american way.

> In Europe, it's very common to have an exception to Free Speech when it comes to hate speech

Yes. That's why europe gave us such "wonderful" things like nazi germany, the soviet union, fascist italy, etc.

Do you know why these existed while US was immune from them? Nazi Germany censored everything they didn't like, soviet union censored everything they didn't like, fascist italy censored everything they didn't like. But we had freedom of speech. It's why the US is the symbol of freedom and not europe in the world.

You do realize that in much of western europe, if you criticize islamic fundamentalism or fundamental judaism, it's considered hate speech and you could go to prison for that right? Hell in some places in the world, criticizing religious fundamentalism is an offense worthy of the death penalty.

You sure you want to censor all hate or offensive speech? Because atheist speech and lgbt speech is the most censored speech in the world. Most of the world finds these type of speech the most hateful and offensive. Are you really advocating that we ban these speech since it offends so many?

How about we stick to principles?