Marvin asks:
> If the German left had succeeded, as it desperately
tried to do, in breaking up Nazi meetings and
preventing them from using "the same platform as
everyone else" to gain power, would your objections
still hold?
But that is using hindsight. No one could definitively know where or what Nazi speech would lead to.
> Does free speech elevated to the level of a principle -
"no matter how dangerous or provocative" - take
precedence over what resulted, in part, from its exercise:
the subsequent wholesale massacre of Jews, gypsys,
homosexuals, the disabled, and political dissidents?
Again, you are using hindsight. You have a case if you can demonstrate that your foresight is infallible, but if you cannot do so, how can you ban speech on the mere suspicion that an atrocity might occur were that which some specific speech advocates for were to be put into practice?
That is the same logic by which homohaters ban same-sex marriage: it will lead to (fill in your favorite homohorror here). You can also get: Leftist speech must be banned since it will lead to . . . This game can be played any which way.
Scare tactics are always a favorite of the hive mind.
So what can we do? Do we try to draw a distinction between speech and an active conspiracy to commit a particular act, i.e., a group of haters who meet in a basement so they can decide where they are going to look for a queer to bash that night? How proximate in time does the particular act have to be to the speech that advocated for it?
What about speech that if listened to over and over again can influence a person to commit a crime?
Brian Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister (who will be quiet now since this is an overpost and he must not abuse his freedom)