[brummm]

Coming from Europe, this obsession with "free speech" that Americans have is kind of weird to me. How is that more important to you than affordable education and healthcare and reasonable gun policies where every crazy person cannot have 10 guns at home? And I am not trying to be insulting here, I just really cannot understand this.

In Germany, human dignity is the highest good and free speech ends where it would impede human dignity. Hence, there is good reason to ban Nazi salutes and symbols.

[gameman144]

I can't speak for others, but for me freedom of speech is the absolute highest right, and the other rights are (for the most part) either subservient to it, or directly supporting it.

The First Amendment grants freedom of speech.

The Second Amendment is useful because it lets you defend yourself against powers that try to forcibly take away that right to speech.

The Third Amendment and Fourth Amendment are useful because they keep the military from moving in (to your property) to intimidate or hinder your speech, or to drum up other charges or steal your property to punish you for your speech.

The Fifth Amendment is useful to keep you out of a Kafka-esque nightmare where you're not officially breaking speech laws, but the government punishes you via an unfair judicial system.

Etc. for the remaining Bill of Rights.

The reason that I personally value this freedom so highly isn't that others should be able to speak, it's that I should have the right to hear whatever I want that others have to say.

If I want to go listen to speeches by a neo-nazi fringe group to understand what drives them, I cherish that right and would begrudge any system that says I'm not allowed to. How can one expect to understand the world of they're not even allowed to hear the words or observe the true personal expression of those they disagree with most strongly?

Likewise, in America the skepticism of government is pretty deep-seated, so I have no faith that granting a government body regulatory rights over some speech which I don't like wouldn't soon snowball into government using those same rights against speech I do like. Better to never grant such decision-making to the government in the first place.

This is just my personal take, so take with many grains of salt, but thought it might be helpful in explaining some of the underpinning American ethos (since I know that stuff can be hard to translate cross-culture)

[RandomLensman]

How does freedom of speech transform into a right to hear? Are there no age restrictions, for example, on access to certain entertainment, art, venues etc.?

[gameman144]

For speech itself, I'm indeed of the opinion that there should be no restrictions to accessing it. That is not to say that there can't or shouldn't be age restrictions on access to specific locations, or activities (or to expression which is not speech).

For instance, if a speech is given at a bar, it's fine to keep me out if I'm underage. I should be allowed to access any recordings or transcripts of the speech, however.

Again, none of this is held as gospel, and I think reasonable people can disagree here.

[KIFulgore]

Having an absolute shit-show for a healthcare and education system falls under "not perfect". I'll freely admit a good many Americans (even most) would be better off living in Europe. But there are many of us that just can't accept not being able to express whatever we like. "Human dignity" is an admirable goal, but the extent and reach of that is subject to whomever is in power.

[glogla]

Yeah, it is curious that when self-recognized free speech advocates talk, they are not focusing on their right to run your own newspaper or criticize your own government but on the "right" to hurt someone with words and symbols.

[jdrc]

how is free speech related to healthcare and gun policies though?

Banning free speech to improve healthcare is , at best, a cargo cult practice

[brummm]

It's not related directly. However, the parent comment to mine talked about choosing the US because "Freedom of speech is of the highest priority for me". My comment was that I don't get this at all. I would value other things way higher and hence I asked about it.

[jdrc]

Some people don't like a comfortable sterile life