An Illustrated Guide to Self-Censorship | The Free Press
The article lengthy and it's filled with lots more illustrations and gibberish...
One day, Hypothetica’s king died, leaving the throne to his son, King Mustache. Unlike his father, King Mustache was highly sensitive to criticism. He issued a decree that made criticizing him illegal—an attempt to lay down an electrified “censorship fence” across the topic that would severely punish anyone who dared to cross it.
... do I gotta?
god it's like Slate Star Codex for infants.
And what if it fails? What if "free speech" isn't enough, and the correct idea that "oppression is bad" remains outside the window of socially acceptable thought? Is there a point where we're allowed to admit that, or are we supposed to just sit and wait for the mystical marketplace of ideas to produce good outcomes by random happenstance? And what if oppression itself consists of violence? Why is it a "better way" to politely request that the beatings be less severe?
By this understanding, your examples of gay and interracial marriage were expressly not fought for and achieved under conditions of overwhelming "free speech"! People were murdered!
Sorry I'm struggling to conceptualize what this dickhead thinks he's arguing here but it's so fucking airy fairy idealist. There's a window of acceptable opinion which is defined by the social consequences for leaving it, but also we can't have social consequences for leaving it, or else it will never change, even though it has changed in the past despite the social consequences (because people made Good Arguments that Changed Minds, don't check the history on that just accept it, no modern struggle for justice has ever involved violence). so therefore if we want the window of acceptable opinions to move in a good direction (wherever that may be) we have to eliminate the window entirely and treat the expression of all opinions as socially acceptable. Which is what Free Speech means.