> It's become quite rare for me to see people who defend speech they don't agree with ...
I think framing this as being about speech with which one disagrees, or finds repugnant, is a bit disingenuous. It omits consideration of the possibility of speech that is genuinely harmful. For a few examples:
- My friends and I decide it'd be cool to put you in jail, so we report you as committing a serious crime that you didn't, and all give matching testimony that leads to your conviction.
- Pfizer starts selling a new drug that cures cancer. Except it turns out that they completely fabricated all the studies showing its effect, and actually the pills are nothing but placebos.
- A mugger with his hand in his pocket stops you at night and says, "Give me your wallet or I'll shoot you." You give him your wallet and he leaves.
I hope you would agree that these situations are... not ideal, and that the law should be able to discourage them. Despite the fact that all of these are, indisputably, speech.
Absolutely nothing you stated is legal now. The government would not have to intervene asking for censorship in any of these cases. They would press charges and have a court order to remove the non-protected speech.
Sure, I didn't mean to suggest that those things are legal. Just giving a few examples of speech that is harmful, rather than merely distasteful.
> The government would not have to intervene asking for censorship in any of these cases.
Hm, I think that may be pinning quite a lot on some questionable definition of "censorship."
In these examples the law would be banning some specific speech from me, Pfizer, and the mugger, and punishing us if we engaged in that banned speech anyway. Isn't that what censorship is?
Your first two examples are fraud, not speech. Your third example is speech, but if you remove the mugger and have a friend say the same thing to you it becomes a joke.
I think framing this as being about speech with which one disagrees, or finds repugnant, is a bit disingenuous. It omits consideration of the possibility of speech that is genuinely harmful. For a few examples:
- My friends and I decide it'd be cool to put you in jail, so we report you as committing a serious crime that you didn't, and all give matching testimony that leads to your conviction.
- Pfizer starts selling a new drug that cures cancer. Except it turns out that they completely fabricated all the studies showing its effect, and actually the pills are nothing but placebos.
- A mugger with his hand in his pocket stops you at night and says, "Give me your wallet or I'll shoot you." You give him your wallet and he leaves.
I hope you would agree that these situations are... not ideal, and that the law should be able to discourage them. Despite the fact that all of these are, indisputably, speech.