The current administration does not support free speech for everyone. It's actively punishing free speech.
You're right -- many people who claim to support free speech really mean they favor "free speech for me, not for thee." And typically these people want to be able to say controversial things without consequence. But how people respond to speech is orthogonal to whether or not we are allowed to exercise our rights to it.
The ACLU did "free speech absolutism" right back in the 90's and 00's. They defended everyone's speech, no matter the politics, no matter how socially right or wrong it was [1]. They'd step up to bat for Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Atheists, and Satanists. Your views didn't matter. Defending the rights we all share was the point. Because when someone else's rights are degraded and not defended, it means everyone's rights are up for attack.
Unfortunately the ACLU doesn't hold these same views today. They're batting for one team only.
[1] They defended Westboro Baptist Church and NAMBLA, FFS. I definitely hate both of these organizations, but free speech is free speech. By defending even the most reprehensible speech, it ensures that mine remains free regardless of how the political pendulum swings. That's how it should be, anyway.
It would be counter-intuitive if they defended the free speech of those who want to take away the free speech of others.
Part of Free Speech is that it does not matter to have it if nobody hears you, maybe because your voice is drowned out by powerful media, serving the interests of the few. Therefore we need Equal Rights to free speech for everybody, especially when it comes to elections.
The ACLU did change course noticeably and there is ample criticism for that and this resulted in their diminished influence of today. There was even bipartisan consent on that, especially regarding the first amendment.
For example if you search for the "ACLU lost its way", you will find a lot about their behavior. I think the opinion pieces are often well argued.
No it wouldn't. Part of freedom of expression is the right to express opinions of any kind. That includes the view that freedom of expression should be limited: that is a perfectly legitimate opinion.
>Therefore we need Equal Rights to free speech for everybody
Freedom of speech doesn't mean you are entitled to a publicly funded megaphone or that anyone is required to listen to you.
I understand, constitution gives you the right to speak against free speech as well. I'm just saying it wouldn't make sense for ACLU to support people who want to take away your right to free speech.
Also you're right that we can't give everybody the one hour of free speech on TV, can we?.
But it is in the interest of the country as a whole that all viewpoints are heard. But if one person can buy all TV-stations then he will have free speech and nobody else really does. If nobody can hear you because somebody else is speaking so loudly, it doesn't matter if you have free speech or not.
It used to be law that there are limits to how many millions one person or corporation can use to win elections. But seems that is no longer the case thanks to Supreme Court judges nominated by Republican presidents.
>I'm just saying it wouldn't make sense for ACLU to support people who want to take away your right to free speech.
It is supporting their right to freedom of speech, not supporting them, in my view.
>But it is in the interest of the country as a whole that all viewpoints are heard. But if one person can buy all TV-stations then he will have free speech and nobody else really does.
Did nobody have freedom of expression before television? Broadcast media is just one way of communicating ideas, and TV is a decreasingly relevant part of the media. TV is worse than it used to be largely because nobody really watches it anymore except for sports.
>It used to be law that there are limits to how many millions one person or corporation can use to win elections.
There is very little evidence that spending more on election advertising actually does anything. Hillary and Harris both spend much more than Trump and lost. Biden spent more and won. Obama spent less and won. The statistics across a wide range of elections at different scales don't show it having much effect. It is probably important to even be an option, but it doesn't win elections.
eh, I'm not going to cast stones at people who will voice support for the right to reprehensible speech and will fight for a system that makes sure even people with reprehensible speech have recognized rights and can get legal representation, even while they personally do not want to represent nazis etc. That's not a moral failing.
Suggesting a group is in some way a failure now because they don't use their speech how you think they should is, of course, at least a bit iffy while we're talking about this :) but FIRE is probably the group you're looking for today.
The Paradox of tolerance almost never means what the person invoking it as a rebuttal to free speech thinks it means. It's not some moral axiom that demands action to shut down problematic speech whenever it happens. It's a concept that has varied views on to what extent should tolerance of intolerance be extended and to what response is appropriate when it extends beyonds that threshold.
The most frequently quoted text I've seen is Karl Popper's writing, where he states that we must reserve the right to suppress intolerant philosophies, not that we should always suppress them.
Now, some people might have the opinion that we should be completely intolerant to intolerance and that might be a defendable position in its own right, but the paradox of tolerance is not intrinsically condoning that sort of response.
> ....It's not some moral axiom that demands action to shut down problematic speech whenever it happens.
No, that would probably end up in a logical paradox, if one were intolerant of any degree of intolerance.
> It's a concept that has varied views on to what extent should tolerance of intolerance be extended and to what response is appropriate when it extends beyonds that threshold.
I don't know enough to have a particular position on the ACLU, but at least in theory an organisation defending free speech might decide that conditions have become such that defending certain things will lead to the inability to defend other things and choose to proceed differently on that basis.
You're right -- many people who claim to support free speech really mean they favor "free speech for me, not for thee." And typically these people want to be able to say controversial things without consequence. But how people respond to speech is orthogonal to whether or not we are allowed to exercise our rights to it.
The ACLU did "free speech absolutism" right back in the 90's and 00's. They defended everyone's speech, no matter the politics, no matter how socially right or wrong it was [1]. They'd step up to bat for Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Atheists, and Satanists. Your views didn't matter. Defending the rights we all share was the point. Because when someone else's rights are degraded and not defended, it means everyone's rights are up for attack.
Unfortunately the ACLU doesn't hold these same views today. They're batting for one team only.
[1] They defended Westboro Baptist Church and NAMBLA, FFS. I definitely hate both of these organizations, but free speech is free speech. By defending even the most reprehensible speech, it ensures that mine remains free regardless of how the political pendulum swings. That's how it should be, anyway.