Also, Europe has been torn apart for centuries by religious, ethnic, or nationalistic hatred. The current laws reflect that. And communities that had to endure such hatred in the past will not be easily convinced that free speech is always a good thing.

Few states have ever pretended that speech should be absolutely free. The U.S. draws the line at speech that incites the imminent and likely violation of the law[1]. Canada only guarantees free speech within "reasonable limits"[2]. It's still worth fighting against governments natural desire for control to ensure "reasonable" speech remains as free as possible.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Can...

It's difficult to imagine anything more democratic than free speech.

It looks good on paper and then in the real world people go "those guys that look different than you, they're the cause of all your problems and we should kill them/let us set up camps to kill them so you don't have to see it."

That's what history has shown again and again.

If you give free speech to people and groups who's express goal is to take away the power and speech of others they unironically will...

The paradox of tolerance isn't some other world hypothetical it has been demonstrated again and again.

This is the classic choice of liberty vs. security. Each has its pros and cons. Free speech may be abused, but that's the risk of freedom. And, in my mind at least, true freedom of speech is a necessary ingredient of authentic democracy. This is how I see it...

> boomer panty raid

> "coup"

Come on, man.

Yeah it’s not like they killed a cop and dragged an enemy flag through the senate

It's not like, because they didn't, as far as we know. It's unclear how that cop died, there wasn't any official statement.

To people who are downvoting, the NYT story was made up: https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/feb/22/what-we-know-...

> it’s not like they killed a cop

Correct, it doesn't seem like they did; the NYT story was debunked.

> dragged an enemy flag through the senate

The rebel flag isn't an "enemy flag" any more than the Republic of Texas flag. It's a historical curiosity that has some function as a completely detached cultural signifier.

You are pathologically hyperbolic.

Wrong and wrong, try again.

They killed a cop? Wow, I only read NYT's retraction of the story, if there was an update on the retraction then it missed my radar. Can you point me to a link from NYT claiming that rioters killed a cop?