>Assertion: The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say; it still leaves other people free to kick you out.
>Answer: No, the popular xkcd cartoon below is wrong. The First Amendment limits what the government can do, but freedom of speech is something much bigger than that.
The article attempts to address a legal argument with a cultural and philosophical one. This doesn't change the law but it does lose credibility with me.
No, it's precisely the other way around. The XKCD comic attempts to reframe one of the most important philosophical foundations of democracy as somehow legally unsound, or otherwise completely dismissable when it comes to ideas that are in the minority. When one is in the majority, implies Randall, it is their right to take part in the suppression of minority ideas. That sort of questioning of democratic fundamentals runs directly contrary to the ideals of a free society.
The whole point of free speech is to allow for fringe, crazy, bad ideas, so that we can put them in the light and suss them out. Without that, there is darkness, and we all know what happens to democracy in darkness.
>Answer: No, the popular xkcd cartoon below is wrong. The First Amendment limits what the government can do, but freedom of speech is something much bigger than that.
The article attempts to address a legal argument with a cultural and philosophical one. This doesn't change the law but it does lose credibility with me.