100% agree. The entire philosophical underpinning of free speech in the U.S. (at least legally and constitutionally, if not culturally anymore) is protection for speech you don’t like or agree with, a free open market of ideas, even hateful ones. The left, my erstwhile brethren, have entirely lost the plot on this.
The “paradox of tolerance” argument as I’ve heard it expressed, says that if a tolerant society tolerates intolerance, where the intolerant voices are offered the same legitimacy as tolerant views, the intolerant views will ultimately drown out the tolerant ones.
This strikes me as a form of fearmongering, and opens the door to a world where people in positions of power make arbitrary decisions about what types of speech to permit and what to censor or even criminalize, and become the type of authoritarians they themselves claim to oppose.
The best way I see to push back against terrible ideas is to loudly expose the people voicing them and overpower them with sheer numbers.
I couldn’t possibly agree more. Well said, sir.
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