me too carrol. you asked that it not be so abstract. i gave you a very concrete example of a few times when the charge of some "isms" or scab speech has been hurled by the two people on this list who repeatedly portray themselves as the most advanced of marxists.
the problem of how to define speech as racist or sexist or whathaveyou is extremely difficult to flesh out now. i can't see how it will go away under revolutionary conditions. . extreme cases are easy, but there's a lot of gray in between--something i was trying to get at in another post. now, if even you and charles who consider yourself at the vanguard of revolutionary consciousness, are quick to try to use the charge of racism, sexism, --scab speech--in order to slam your opponent in a debate, why on earth do you think the same won't happen under revolutionary conditions? or do you think our human penchant for retaliation and the desire for "purity" in the name of quelling counterrevolutionary forces will go away?
you have to get personal, carrol, and imagine yourself or those you care about as the targets of concerted efforts to suppress free speech during some revolutionary moment. human beings are too friggin arbitrary and petty NOT to support any and all attempts by the state--revolutionary or not--to suppress speech.
it's not an issue of absolute metaphysical free speech ---some sort of postitive right TO freedom of speech. bourgeois rights are negative rights, as in the freedom FROM the coercive power of the state.
most people have actually been saying what you said to charles--except you didn't want to see it that way, nor did charles. dennis isn't saying that Horowitz has a positive right TO say anything he wants, but that he has a negative right from the power of the state and that, recognizing that, he has a negative right to be free from the coercive power of public opinion which can be used just as, if not more effectively, that the power of the state to shut people up.
but what you've done was go quite a bit further. what you've advocated is quite different.
i'd suggest a read of Marx on the Paris Commune.
kelley