Free speech absolutists like the author (and myself) don't believe that speech should be without consequence in the marketplace...only without consequence from the government. We will always make value judgments about what people say. And that's great.

What I'm particularly concerned about in the social arena is speech being disproportionately punished. If I say something that is against the consensus, by all means push back. You can even choose to not associate with me - or attend an event I'm speaking at on campus. But to prevent that speech from occurring at all via punishments like banishment or expulsion goes too far.

Let us remember that in the 1960s, speech promoting civil rights was incredibly non-consensus and "dangerous". So too was speech in favor of gay marriage during the 1980s. "Dangerous Ideas" can sometimes lead to much needed societal change. To discover the good outcomes you also near to hear the ones that really are terrible.

How is an association choosing not to associate with you any different from banishment or expulsion? Let us remember that in the 1960s, speech promoting civil rights was incredibly non-consensus and "dangerous" and resulted in banishment and expulsion for countless proponents. So too was speech in favor of gay marriage during the 1980s. I am not in favor of legislation limiting speech, I am just pointing out that the distinction you draw between what goes too far and what does not is founded in your own opinionated perceptions and not in reality.

California recently proposed a law that would allow for punishment for using the wrong pronoun for a transgender individual.

That's incredibly misleading. The bill would prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ seniors by staff in long-term care homes. The ban on intentionally misgendering was likened to the ban on smoking in the homes. [1] I'd agree that it shouldn't result in any sort of legal punishment, but it's certainly not the California government coming for your pronouns.

[1] http://www.politifact.com/california/article/2017/sep/26/cla...

> conflates free speech as social and legislative ideals

What's to conflate? Free speech as a legislative goal is primarily useful in so far as it furthers a social goal. I'm just going to quote Scott for this from now on:

>If you’re a very stupid libertarian strawman, you might ask whether that town had any anti-gay laws on the book – and, upon hearing they didn’t, say that town was “pro-gay”. If you’re not a very stupid libertarian strawman, you hopefully realize that being pro-gay isn’t about boasting how progressive your law code looks, it’s about having a society where it’s possible to be gay. Not having laws against locking up gay people is a necessary precondition, but it’s useless on its own. You only get good results if good laws are matched by good social norms.

>Likewise, the goal of being pro-free-speech isn’t to make a really liberal-sounding law code. It’s to create a society where it’s actually possible to hold dissenting opinions, where ideas really do get judged by merit rather than by who’s powerful enough to shut down whom. Having free speech laws on the books is a necessary precondition, but it’s useless in the absence of social norms that support it. If you win a million First Amendment victories in the Supreme Court, but actively work to undermine the social norms that let people say what they think in real life, you’re anti-free-speech.

http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/29/against-signal-boosting...

I mean, any legislative goal is only useful in furthering social goals. "Let people say what they think," though, is so vague a goal that it's totally useless.

The article starts with an anecdote about a man making a sexist joke and a group of women signal-boosting it to try to make him unemployable. What if he'd instead made it to a group of women at his place of employment? Would the author say it's morally wrong for him to be fired or otherwise punished for it? It's certainly possible to take that position. I don't agree with it at all, but it's at least consistent.

"But that's a localized consequence," you might say, "shaming mobs want to ruin his whole life." Sure, but now we're moving the goalposts from "let people say what they think" to "let people say what they think in specific circumstances". Actually, it's even murkier than that, because in this example the punishment varies not based on the words, but the context in which they're used!

(Let's not forget that the signal-boosting feminists are also "saying what they think".)

You might also say that the term "free speech" has always included exemptions, in which case sure, I support free speech." So in that sense, we all agree: you, the author and I all think that we as a society should generally be cool with speech, unless it's Very Bad. Maybe our definitions of Very Bad vary a bit, but we agree in principle.

But what I take umbrage with is people taking the term "free speech" — knowing it's emotionally loaded — and making the bad-faith argument that whatever behavior they like is Freedom of Speech, and behavior they don't (or, commonly, shaming the behavior they like) is Oppressive. No. They're trying to shift the norms of acceptable speech to benefit them. Which is fine, but cop to it.