Democracy works best when unhelpful fringes cannot speak. Antisemites for instance contribute nothing of substance to any democracy. Same goes for people insisting on abusing fellow humans based on their sexual orientation or skin colour. How, exactly is democracy hurt by not letting them speak publicly? Their opinions are invalid, not based on any reason (so reasoning with them is pointless), and thus their voice is suppressed, and that's actually a good thing for all those that would otherwise have to suffer harassment and abuse.
> Democracy works best when unhelpful fringes cannot speak.
People on the whole also have a poor grasp of history and struggle to grasp how different things really were in the past.
How do you imagine the civil rights movement would have worked out if unfavorable positions of the time were suppressed?
How would that work for LGBQ rights?
There is no value in suppressing bad views. Exposing them let's them be recognized for what they are. Suppressing them causes them to grow and fester in the shadows.
What people really fear is that people will not be intelligent enough to discern these bad opinions, that is an entirely different issue.
Antisemites aren't a disfavored minority, the Jews they're hating on are.
> How do you imagine the civil rights movement would have worked out if unfavorable positions of the time were suppressed?
Hating on a group of people for who they are isn't an unfavourable position that merits being protected. Or compared to a civil rights movement.
> Exposing them let's them be recognized for what they are
> What people really fear is that people will not be intelligent enough to discern these bad opinions, that is an entirely different issue.
How did that work, historically? It didn't, and still doesn't today - see Trump, Brexit, Orbán. It's not an entirely different issue, it's the same problem - not only is a group of people directly hurt by allowing those who abuse them keep doing so, but others might get impressed for whatever reason and join the hating group's ranks.
Are you saying that:
1. the majority of the population of <Western European Country X> are antisemites
or
2. antisemites aren't disfavored
because I would say that both of these are false. Few people are antisemites, and antisemites are strongly disfavored to the point of having their speech made illegal - and "punch a nazi" is a meme.
- Lenin, probably
That's fine, as long as the government doesn't declare you part of an "unhelpful fringe".
> Their opinions are invalid
I am 100% sure that you, personally, hold opinions that are considered "invalid" by a sizeable chunk of society.
That doesn't make it okay for them to shut you up.
The US really isn't the model country for democratic participation.
But are they really?
Can you really claim to be democratic when you have wholesale determined that only approved speech can be uttered? How does democracy work when some can speak and others cannot?