>Lots of Americans like to think that as soon as you moderately curtail freedom of expression, you've crossed some threshold

You have crossed a Threshold

>and you're now North Korea.

Nice strawman you have there.....

>it's possible to have reasonable constraints on expression!

Proving you do not have or support Free Speech, you support "Reasonably Restricted Speech" which is not the same thing

See, this is exactly what I said. I didn't need to build a strawman. You did it for me.

I'm free to run down the street swinging your fists, but if I swing my fist into someone's face and break their nose, that's bad. I think we can all agree on that, right? What if I told you that swinging my fists was a form of "artistic expression", or was part of my religion? Should I be free to express myself at the expense of the rest of society?

The fact that restricting the verbal equivalent of "swinging fists into others' faces" may be a good thing doesn't mean that can be redefined as free speech, because everyone has their own idea of what these reasonable restrictions are. Free speech is free speech, even if it's in practice a bad idea.

A "spoken crime" is not a "thought crime". There's no chip in your head, you're free to think whatever you like, even if you're not necessarily free to say anything you like.

For example, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded building, offering a bribe, and threatening someone all seem like actions you could be arrested for in the USA where the only evidence is your speech (or a recording of it). Would these qualify as thought crimes to you and if so do you think there is a developed nation with free speech where they are accepted?

All people should be treated the exact same under the law

For example, I think that a country can be said to have free speech if it disallows people from promising to compensate someone in exchange for murder.

History has been pretty clear that curtailment of rights leads to government overreach and leaders using such power against people they don't like.

> But are you really gonna die on this hill?

Yep, its tasteless, but the alternative allow folks like you to edit what I read and eventually think. I rather deal with the filth then the sterile world of what is acceptable to you with only approved targets of derision and protest. Being in fear of every word uttered to be outside the bounds for some person who might hear would be the purest kind of horror.

Freedom of speech is there to protect the ugly not shine the widely accepted.

> And don't give me any of those "slippery slope" arguments.

Why not? Since that is the whole course of history. People don't lose rights overnight, it comes one drop at a time.

I don't think most people that are happy about the rule would find the particular actor or action sympathetic; you fight for free speech not because the actor is popular or sympathetic, but because you might need it when you and your actions are not popular or sympathetic.

is it because you have no counter argument?

I'm going to put on my brute hat, so I might earn some downvotes for simplicity or unpopular opinion here but I'll take a stab at it anyway:

It seems that many people often conflate what makes a right and what makes a freedom. That is, people want what they call freedom to do something, but what they mean is that they want the right to do something without penalty. Sometimes the opposite is true. As well, being free to do something doesn't mean there is no potential for incurring a penalty or tax or that you are entitled to it.

In Canada, you are free to say whatever you want. If it comes into contrast with what is socially (and subsequently legally) acceptable at the time, then you may or may not face consequences for your actions.

In Ontario you have the right to a prescribed health care plan, nobody is free to remove this from you once registered. You are free to let your card expire, at which point institutions are free to charge you appropriately[1]. It is your freedom to remain without a health card, but it's your right to obtain a new one. Just because you're free to let your free health plan expire, doesn't mean you won't necessarily face consequences for it.

This just goes back to other commenters' point, though: Canadians and Americans tend to define something like this a little differently. I also think much of the 1st world seems to be satisfied with making mistakes along the way to a more ideal solution to the issue. It's my hope that the mistakes get smaller as we go along (and the peoples' standards grow higher, so criticisms grow stronger).

[1] In my experience this has never occurred, though. Mine has expired previously, and I've never been denied or charged according to OHIP.

The Canadian constitution states that everyone "has the following fundamental freedoms [...] (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication."

I'll pose a couple of analogies to illustrate how I'm interpreting it:

If I wanted to tell my the CEO off at the company I work for in a grotesque manner, I'm entirely free to do so, but I'd likely lose my job. If he decided to fire back at me, HR would likely intervene to resolve the issue, but not before we're cordoned off to prevent further controversy. (I realize companies aren't quite analogues of countries, I'm taking a bit of a stretch for the sake of illustration).

If I picked a stranger out of a crowd and degraded him publicly, I'm free to do that as well, but I'd probably get punched. If instead of punching me, he decided to throw similar words back and a third person intervened to arbitrate and calm the situation down -- is my freedom then being imposed upon? What if the intervening individual was a police officer or a panel of people, or a body of interested people?

I see these things (like most things outside of technical fields) as far more gradient than binary, so I maintain a pretty strong bias, I know.

Same as in any other country, from Switzerland to North Korea.