[oogabooga123]

> Reasonable people can come to different conclusions on what it means for speech to be "free", what counts as speech, what context around the speech matters, and what entities should get "free speech" protection.

This is why it is encoded as an absolute, so that one’s perspective on what is reasonable or not is irrelevant. If speech causes harm that person can be sued for harm in a civil case. But the government shall not make any law infringing on the right to free speech.

[ggggtez]

This ignores all the government limits and requirements on speech that exist.

Fighting words, credible threats... These topics can't just be hand waved when discussing whether the ACLU should be fighting for the rights of Nazis to spout hate. Civil lawsuits are rarely even redress as most people can't afford a lawyer to just go around sueing people, even when the cases are egregious. And I don't think anyone wants a world where the ACLU is the unofficial 4th branch of government.