Originally Posted by
BlackPeter
Well yes - I am sure that the right to free speech needs to end where it interferes with the legitimate rights of others ... and it needs to be balanced with the rights of others like any other right.
I don't think either that the argument of the dictatorial government is a flier.
No dictatorial government on this globe (and there are ways too many) does allow free speech - and free speech laws never prevented them from taking control. Quite easy - just take the government kill whoever resists and cr*p on the laws ...
I can't think about many examples where the right of free speech prevented a dictatorial dictatorship to establish itself or to end a dictatorial dictatorship, however I can think about endless examples where crooks used in weak democracies the right to free speech in order to establish their dictatorship.
The right to free speech brought Hitler into power. Trump used the right to free speech to spread his alternative realities and incite a riot. The idea of free speech stopped neither Stalin nor Putin nor Mao nor Xi suppressing their people.
We need to prevent dictatorial governments, but the way to do this is not to fight for unlimited free speech. Ask the people in Russia, or China, or Turkey or the Philippines or Iran or Syria on in 2/3rds of all countries of this globe.
The most important thing is not unlimited free speech but a democratically controlled government and the rule of law - and while the country of free speech (the US) is still sort of a democracy (but they left already a long time ago the "one man one vote" principle), they are already a long way down a slippery slope towards a dictatorship of a far right minority which uses the "right" of free speech to spread unlimited lies to the people. Are alternative facts covered by your right of unlimited free speech?