> Fear is never a good guide, and leads straight to authoritarianism, every time. We need a rational approach not ever-more-emotion.
This blanket statement is silly. I also support laws against murder, theft and sexual assault because I would "fear the type of society" that would result if we didn't have those laws. This is not me making "an emotional decision", it is a rational assessment of the type of society that would result.
More to the point in this discussion, the main argument for free speech is that advocates say they would fear how government would abuse that power if they had widespread censorship capabilities. And to be clear, I 100% agree with that, which is why I said I'm not sure what the right solution is. But we have always had a tradeoff between free speech and other negative outcomes (e.g. "clear and present danger" rules, libel, etc.) Other countries that have real, intimate experience with the dangers of unfettered populism still have robust free speech generally but also have laws against specific types of falsehoods (e.g. Holocaust denialism laws in Germany).
This blanket statement is silly. I also support laws against murder, theft and sexual assault because I would "fear the type of society" that would result if we didn't have those laws. This is not me making "an emotional decision", it is a rational assessment of the type of society that would result.
More to the point in this discussion, the main argument for free speech is that advocates say they would fear how government would abuse that power if they had widespread censorship capabilities. And to be clear, I 100% agree with that, which is why I said I'm not sure what the right solution is. But we have always had a tradeoff between free speech and other negative outcomes (e.g. "clear and present danger" rules, libel, etc.) Other countries that have real, intimate experience with the dangers of unfettered populism still have robust free speech generally but also have laws against specific types of falsehoods (e.g. Holocaust denialism laws in Germany).