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Democracy requires free speech. So, if you're against free speech, then you're also against Democracy.

What form of government would you prefer? The biggest modern alternate examples are China (I'm guessing you disapprove of their zero covid policy, but your comment is ambiguous), and Russia (which also seems worse than the US according to the criteria I could tease out from your comment).

So, what concrete alternative do you propose?

> Democracy requires free speech. So, if you're against free speech, then you're also against Democracy.

Why does democracy require free speech? Can I not vote for whoever I want even if I'm mute?

> So, what concrete alternative do you propose?

You get that there are many other countries in Western Europe that don't have as much free speech as the US right? You get that the lock down policies of many other Western countries seem Draconian relative to our policies right?

You get that giving me some of the most extreme examples of alternatives makes it seem like you are arguing in bad faith right?

Why do we need a brand new form of government? We didn't need a new form of government to ban saying "fire" in a theater.

> Why does democracy require free speech? Can I not vote for whoever I want even if I'm mute?

I think it would be extremely difficult for the electorate to make educated decisions about who to vote for if speech supporting a certain candidate is suppressed, for example.

Free speech and the ability to vote are deeply intertwined. Without the ability to discuss candidates and issues openly, the electorate can’t make an informed, honest choice. If one candidate or side of the debate is suppressed or censored, that in and of itself affects the outcome of an election.

It seems extremely difficult for the electorate to make educated decisions about who to vote for due to the lack of consequences for completely misleading or false statements. Is a politician's lie protected by free speech?

Yes, as should be the speech of each person who points out the politician is lying.

A prerequisite for a politician to experience consequences for lying is for people to be free to discuss the lie, persuade fellow voters that he is lying, and disseminate that fact freely.

You’re not going to prevent politicians from lying by limiting speech. You’ll achieve quite the opposite effect, actually.

Free speech doesn't mean consequence free speech. Someone aspiring to public office should be penalised for deliberately misleading voters. The imbalance of power and exposure means that the many people who correctly point out the lies and manipulation are unheard, while the perpetrator of the lies and manipulation can freely continue to lie and manipulate.

They will be penalized, by the voters, if people are allowed to discuss the politician’s actions and statements freely and make their own judgement about his fitness for office, and if they actually choose to do so.

Ask yourself why those voices of truth go unheard. Or why the politician’s lies continue without consequence. Is it not because of a lack of robust speech around the politician’s behavior?

Why doesn’t that robust speech occur? Sometimes it is suppressed. But more often, the root of the problem is that most people prefer to be lied to. Seeking and discovering the truth is hard work, and it is work that no person should outsource to a third party. Yet that is exactly what people do, when they rely on the press or media for the truth. Those organizations lie at least as frequently as the politician does.

Literally yes, because the next prompted question is 'who determines what political speech is true and therefore allowed?', which is a path fraught with dragons.

Some statements are grey areas. Some are provably true or false. If a politician continually makes provably false statements, and they're supported by a large proportion of the media, then what recourse do voters currently have to prevent this from continuing?

Edit: What I'm suggesting is that free speech is protected against retribution from the government. The elected officials should be held to a higher standard. They are the government, and should not be protected against retribution from the voters. There should be serious penalties for any elected official who continues to make provably false statements after they've been pointed out.

It is the job of voters to hold them accountable. Our politicians are a mirror of ourselves. We usually get the leaders we deserve.

If it’s not the voters who should hold these lying politicians to account, then who? Or what system would you put in place to ensure their honesty?

In the first place, this is a thought-terminating cliché. Second, nothing prevents a politician from saying one thing to the voters and then doing something completely different once in office. (Especially at the federal level where there is no recall or recourse). The only accountability provided surrounds reelection.

It’s a sad world when asking questions and seeking clarity is “thought-terminating cliché.”

My question still stands: what would you change about our current system to fix these problems?

It is the job of voters to hold them accountable. Our politicians are a mirror of ourselves. We usually get the leaders we deserve.

All 3 of these are non-substantive aphorisms that serve no discussion purpose. They are statements, bare ones at that, and do not pose a question or seek anything.

Universal recall would be some great low-hanging fruit to pick. As would algorithmic districting to deal with the gerrymandering problem so representatives are actually representative.

Those statements are substantive if you engage them in good faith, which you chose not to do. I'll elaborate for clarity.

Our lying, corrupt politicians are selected from an electorate who themselves peddle lies and falsehoods on social media, and often choose to believe convenient lies that support whatever cause they want to believe in. That's not my opinion. It's an empirical fact, which you can go verify for yourself: you don't have to spend but five minutes on Facebook or Twitter to see that it is true.

The people that complain about lying, corrupt politicians are almost always the same people that peddle lies on social media. If these people truly want less lying, corrupt politicians, then a prerequisite would be for them to not engage in that behavior themselves. As I said, our politicians mirror ourselves, and they are selected from among us. We get the leaders we deserve.

Universal recall won't solve the underlying problem. We'll cycle through lying politicians more frequently under such a system, but the incentive to lie to get elected remains unchanged.

Algorithmic districting simply punts the issue to a different group of people, who will be just as corruptable as the current set of people who draw district boundaries. Who will write the algorithm? Who will set the rules under which the algorithm operates? At least under our current system, politicians accountable to voters each term set the boundaries. How will the people writing the algorithm be held to account?

"The people that complain about lying, corrupt politicians are almost always the same people that peddle lies on social media. If these people truly want less lying, corrupt politicians, then a prerequisite would be for them to not engage in that behavior themselves. As I said, our politicians mirror ourselves, and they are selected from among us. We get the leaders we deserve."

This is false. I'm not sure where you get this idea from. The people that complain about lying, corrupt politicians are everyone. You did it in your reply. The "mirror ourselves" statement is defeatist and useless. There are honest people in the world. They are calling out lies and corruption every day. You do them the ultimate disservice to claim that they are "almost always the same people that peddle lies on social media".

Doctors, judges, witnesses in court cases and many others are held to higher standards of truthfulness than the average person. These are legally binding, and have real penalties. Why can't we hold politicians to the same standards?

If a witness in a trial is found to be lying, they can't resort to "Freedom of speech!" as a defense. They are charged with perjury. We should consider elected officials as being constantly under oath, and any dissembling should be treated as perjury.

> What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen.

I didn't downvote you and don't like if someone does it without leaving criticism. That said, I understand the objection to your reasoning very well and maybe people refrain from answering because the pitfalls of your model for speech are trivial. It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it.

And we have seen intentional lying which I believe was a great mistake in current times when information moves that fast. Because the lie will come to light at some point anyway.

> It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it.

I don't understand how you can call my issues with it trivial when I've heard this same propaganda over and over again for decades. I think the issue is that people made this propaganda their religion and are now unable to see that nuance can be used to safely reduce free speech.

You can't yell fire in a crowded fire when there is no fire can you? Why do you act like these safeguards don't already exist for other things?

The propaganda is actually the people saying there are consequences for speech and it must therefore be limited. It is a trivial observation that there are consequences but that is of course not a justification to curb it. Again, the problem with "reasonable" exceptions is that someone has to define them. Free speech means the spread of ideas, it doesn't mean you are allowed to lie if you swear an oath to a judge.

But we specifically see language policing and idea suppression in supposedly scientific institutions (hot examples: climate change, gender, wars, racism, immigration, ...).

> What I would like to know is, why it's okay for a few people to lie about the gravity of a pandemic and cost us 1M of our countrymen.

1M people died but the way your sentence is framed is that without those lies 1M people wouldn't have died. That looks like quite the intent to deceive, which makes it look like you are the liar. Why is it ok for you?

Furthermore it's quite obfuscated. Yes people lied about the pandemic(every politician lies, it's like a contest to elect the best liar). I'm willing to bet some of those lies saved lives(just by chance, who knows).

So directly in answer to your question. Speech should be free because that's how society advances, free speech is how you question the current dogma, it's how society moves forward. There's costs and benefits. Charlatan will con people. The way you deal with charlatans is by exposing them with better speech.

Banning speech is weak sauce for people that don't know how to be convincing.

> What I would like to know is, how countries just as capable as us manage to lead better lives despite not having free reign over discussions on Nazis.

I live a pretty good life as an immigrant. Can't complain. Great country, wouldn't want to be anywhere else. The country where I come from does not have "free reign over discussions on Nazis".

> I haven't really heard anyone use anything but propaganda based circular logic or slippery slope fallacies to answer why unbridled free speech is necessary.

That's an admission that you really haven't heard or considered the best argument for free speech. If you can only state arguments from one side of an issue, you haven't made up your mind, it was made for you.

Pretending the actions of the government and the actions of private entities are equivalent borders on being deliberately obtuse. There is an enormous difference between being fired because you called a coworker the n-word and having uniformed men with guns show up at your front door because you taught a dog to sieg heil.

They are not equal, but they are similar and can have similar effect. I.e. if your bank seizes your account because you dared to express wrong opinion, it's different than the government did it, and yet you'd still have no access to your money and it could ruin your life pretty thoroughly. If you get fired because you consider your medical information private and do not want to disclose it, especially when you work remotely and it's irrelevant to any job function - it's not the government that fired you. But does it make the situation much better for you?

It is more dangerous when a totalitarian government infringes your rights. That doesn't mean when a private company infringes your right it's not dangerous too. Maybe less dangerous, relatively, but still very very bad.

And, btw, a lot of seemingly "private" actions turn out to be actions performed by private actors on behest of the government, which either forces or entices, by using their gigantic powers to both break and promote business, the "private" companies to act as their agents, "voluntarily" - or else.

Yeah one of the things I really dislike is that I think a lot of people who expect "free speech should be protected on the internet" also believe "companies should have the right to refuse service to anyone"

I think those two beliefs are fundamentally at odds with each other. If you think that companies should not be allowed to moderate community content, then you must also believe that a cake maker who bakes a cake may not refuse to make a cake for a customer lol.

It's Sturgeon's law applied to arguments. 90 percent of arguments are inconsistent and short-sighted.

But, there is room for a nuanced consistent position regarding common carriers and/or monopolies having fewer freedoms than other businesses. Granted, many free speech maximalists aren't making these nuanced arguments, but some are.

90 percent of arguments going against the consensus are crap, but it's vitally important that we don't stifle dissenting arguments. The biggest problems with free speech are libel, fraud, and a woeful lack of critical thinking in the general populous. The first two can be handled with better laws. I think better critical thinking education starting in late elementary school is vital to counteract some of the ill effects of social media.

Thanks for the strawman; you know as well as I do that you can be fired for a lot less than calling your co-workers obscenities. I've seen people fired for just mouthing off about their office job while they're at the grocery store.

Also, don't tell me it's important if you're more than willing (re: you're going out of your way to defend it being taken from you) to have it taken away from you. Don't tell me I'm being obtuse if you can say that it's unimportant for one of the most valuable portions of your life.

You are being obtuse. The freedoms we are talking about are freedom from government interference. Being an asshole still means that private people and companies will treat you like an asshole.

Those countries don’t give you the freedom to get into a gunfight with a SWAT team though.

the 'slippery slope' is not a fallacy. they are real. I'm sure you'd agree if I cited some examples.

All slopes are slippery. The real question is to what degree. Some slopes are far more slick than others.