"But probably they won't stay democratic for long."
The word "probably" is precisely my point. To my knowledge, nobody ever tested this. We have police to deal with mess, which is under public scrutiny. Why SS should be exempt is not clear at all.
"Remember that this works for the WBC."
Not being American, I don't know what you refer to, sorry.
"Free speech does not mean speech without consequences"
I don't follow. I don't understand why speaking about what happened to you in the past should have any consequence to you. It may have consequence for the other people involved, that some may learn they are not so squeaky clean, and they will lose their authority, but that's precisely what the article was about.
I'm not talking about only internal threats, but external threats as well. I'm not sure that "nobody has tested this" but history has lots of cases of coups, invasions, etc (and probably other cases where things went differently)
The WBC is the Westboro Baptist Church, read about them and how they use freedom of speech laws.
"I don't understand why speaking about what happened to you in the past should have any consequence to you."
Because of something called Defamation. There's also the possibility of having admitted to a crime.
But yes, in the US freedom of speech is very strong, even there, it's not 100% free of consequences (which may be a good thing). In some other countries defamation laws stifle free speech.
These are the things where I believe we should change the culture. We should learn not to take claims on their face value. If everyone would do that, we would need no defamation laws or laws restricting free speech. All that would be just "noise". And my 3rd point was, we can maybe even automate such processing of information, for our own benefit.
I believe that the positive effect of not censoring stuff outweighs the negative effect of spreading misinformation, always. In other words, you cannot at the same time claim that people cannot distinguish misinformation and that they process it differently from truth (and therefore attempts to ban it will do more good than harm). And the idea of "free speech" in itself is a proof of that, so far.
The word "probably" is precisely my point. To my knowledge, nobody ever tested this. We have police to deal with mess, which is under public scrutiny. Why SS should be exempt is not clear at all.
"Remember that this works for the WBC."
Not being American, I don't know what you refer to, sorry.
"Free speech does not mean speech without consequences"
I don't follow. I don't understand why speaking about what happened to you in the past should have any consequence to you. It may have consequence for the other people involved, that some may learn they are not so squeaky clean, and they will lose their authority, but that's precisely what the article was about.