"Free speech" is about the government suppressing your speech. If private individuals find your speech odious, they are perfectly within their rights to shun and ignore you.
> In your mind, are your political cohorts always going to wield the power to cancel or can you imagine a world in which the far right wing holds that power and persecutes you and yours for your views based on the same arguments you make above?
I'm already standing in a culture that "cancels" me.
For example, a bunch of people hooked up to a well-funded political propaganda apparatus believe that a global pandemic is "a liberal hoax" against the backdrop of 140,000 dead and a global economy in shambles.
A pandemic isn't up for debate--it's a fact.
So, these people get exactly what they want at my expense and I'm just supposed to take it in the name of "free speech"?
What is MY recourse? Where is MY justice?
Yeah, I'm not happy about "cancel culture", but right now it's the only damn thing sticking up for me that is actually effective.
Feel free to suggest what I should be doing instead.
No it's not.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." -- United Nation Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19 https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
At least you're open about your opposition to free speech. That's something I guess... In your mind, are your political cohorts always going to wield the power to cancel or can you imagine a world in which the far right wing holds that power and persecutes you and yours for your views based on the same arguments you make above? In the latter case, do you think you would hold to your views on free speech? Why or why not?