> What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen.
I didn't downvote you and don't like if someone does it without leaving criticism. That said, I understand the objection to your reasoning very well and maybe people refrain from answering because the pitfalls of your model for speech are trivial. It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it.
And we have seen intentional lying which I believe was a great mistake in current times when information moves that fast. Because the lie will come to light at some point anyway.
> It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it.
I don't understand how you can call my issues with it trivial when I've heard this same propaganda over and over again for decades. I think the issue is that people made this propaganda their religion and are now unable to see that nuance can be used to safely reduce free speech.
You can't yell fire in a crowded fire when there is no fire can you? Why do you act like these safeguards don't already exist for other things?
The propaganda is actually the people saying there are consequences for speech and it must therefore be limited. It is a trivial observation that there are consequences but that is of course not a justification to curb it. Again, the problem with "reasonable" exceptions is that someone has to define them. Free speech means the spread of ideas, it doesn't mean you are allowed to lie if you swear an oath to a judge.
But we specifically see language policing and idea suppression in supposedly scientific institutions (hot examples: climate change, gender, wars, racism, immigration, ...).
I didn't downvote you and don't like if someone does it without leaving criticism. That said, I understand the objection to your reasoning very well and maybe people refrain from answering because the pitfalls of your model for speech are trivial. It comes down to who get the power to define truth. That is not a problem if anyone is allowed to leave their opinion. There will be people that abuse that right and that is the cost of it.
And we have seen intentional lying which I believe was a great mistake in current times when information moves that fast. Because the lie will come to light at some point anyway.