I'm more concerned that you seem to declare the importance of preserving the minimum guarantee but seem to be willing to not provide even that: that is, while protecting the right of those who do not wish to be associated with particular content the right to not be compelled to relay it, and the right not to associate with it's originator is the minimum those people are entitled to under freedom of speech, press, and association, you seem willing to abandon that.
To give one side of this more than the minimum they are entitled to, you need to give the other side less.
> WWII and the cold war wasn't won by the side that engaged in totalitarian enforcement.
WWII certainly was, because both sides did that. The Cold War was largely a production/spending competition, and it was, unsurprisingly, won by the side that had a massive production capacity lead at the outset.
> It wasn't won by the side that knew a-priori what all the right answers were and forced their citizens to only do and think the approved things.
You mean, it wasn't won by a side that actively surpress the ideology embraced by the opposing side and hounded people out of government and industry in their own country by agents of the state on mere suspicion of having some association with it, and murdered people, including democratically elected leadership, abroad for the same association? A side that shot down it's own people for protesting the way that Co dlict was being fought? I think you need to review your history a bit. And, even ignoring all that, had the side you refer to lived up to its own propaganda, it would merely have been providing all sides exactly the minimum guarantee you claim is inadequate.
What would you think if a major hotel chain decided to refuse to allow groups of black people to hold meetings at their facilities?
To give one side of this more than the minimum they are entitled to, you need to give the other side less.
This conceit that giving some people a platform is giving other people less is one of the worst half-lies which goes around nowadays. This would be like saying that a hotel chain that let black people hold meetings there was somehow diminishing the hotel for white people.
WWII certainly was, because both sides did that.
There is a stark difference of degree. German soldiers went out of their way to be captured by the side that valued human rights. Soviet soldiers killed German soldiers.
and murdered people, including democratically elected leadership, abroad for the same association?
It's true that both sides of the cold war, and even WWII had bad actors on both sides. But then to make a false equivalence of both sides is simply the height of intellectual dishonesty. There is no honest comparison between the Soviet and Western sides where the Soviets come out the human rights winners. There is no honest comparison between the Axis and Allies sides where the west doesn't come out the clear human rights winners. There is also no honest way to decouple Postmodernist, Marxist, and far left socialist thinking from totalitarianism and the degradation of individual human rights.
Both sides have bad actors, just as there are Far Left activist bad actors in the US today. Only one side says it's okay to trample on individual human rights. It's only one side where the common people can hope to hold the leadership to account for their rights.
Right, and if you are declaring to the world, that this minimum is as far as you're going to go, then thanks very much! That's useful information on what kind of person you really are, and I didn't have to pay anything!
On the other hand, if a person is able and willing to go further, and engage and show that their ideas really are better, then this impresses me much more! WWII and the cold war wasn't won by the side that engaged in totalitarian enforcement. It wasn't won by the side that knew a-priori what all the right answers were and forced their citizens to only do and think the approved things. The 20th century was won by the side that let the truth have legs. This was to the benefit of the long arc of justice. I think that it will be so again with the culture war.
Power corrupts. It doesn't just corrupt the right or just the left. Power corrupts whoever is "on top." This is precisely why Freedom of Speech is fundamental. You know how to find the good leaders? The good leaders let others speak truth to power, and the bad leaders oppress dissent. Power corrupts.