5 Answers and 4 Questions for Censorship Fetishists like Tim Wise

James coreas, CC BY 3.0

I’m not shaming your kink, just curious about some things

Look, Tim, I get why you asked 5 Questions for Free Speech Fetishists. Identitarian anti-racists have been promoting censorship for decades now because you’re sure the censors will always be on your side.

You wrote,

And frankly, everyone believes in limits to free speech — even crypto-bro libertarians who think Bitcoin will replace currency and Ayn Rand wrote good novels.

They may be stupid, but even they don’t believe in completely unrestricted free expression. Even they don’t advocate protecting libel, slander, plagiarism, perjury, or the unauthorized release of confidential financial and medical information.

So too, incitements to imminent violence, false advertising, verbal harassment, and child pornography, among others. All of these are speech acts that everyone agrees can be prohibited.

But you skipped a crucial step when you failed to define free speech.

Without defining terms, you could argue, for example, that everyone believes in limits to freedom of movement because most people believe no one has a right to enter other people’s home uninvited. And then having claimed to have…