I say this as someone who believes very strongly in the ideals and ideology of free speech: no one will support a right that they are required to sacrifice everything for while someone else benefits from it exclusively, while sacrificing nothing themselves.

There are too many examples of assholes using "free speech" as a shield and an excuse for their shitty and aggressive behavior, with the ONLY OPTION GIVEN to people on the receiving end being to "suck it up, it's free speech lolz"

Women having their private and intimate pictures published on the web, justified by free speech. Muslims being branded as terrorists by public figures, making them targets of violence and harassment, justified by free speech.

Protestors actively trying to exercise their right of free speech being targeted by government and police. Put on no-fly lists. Investigated/infiltrated by law enforcement. Openly attacked during demonstrations...

Except that _some_ protestors aren't, of course. There are some protestors who can march into government offices, fully armed, and shout in the faces of law enforcement and they don't even get accidentally downwind of mace or pepper spray.

What's the difference between those two groups? Why are some attacked and others tolerated? It's a mystery, I tell you. I can nazi a difference between them!

OK, ok, that was petty of me. I should have said "I just klan't tell you why."

This illustrates the problem that people defending free speech today face: the application and enforcement of protections surrounding free speech is remarkably one sided. And it appears to be getting more one sided as history progresses.

So why should the average person struggling to make their voice heard give a good God Damn about free speech, when it so obviously doesn't apply to them, or is only applied to them grudgingly, and at the bare minimum level?

It seems like the people who scold "the Left" (it's largely the left being scolded, these days) for not doing enough to "defend free speech" are expecting them to bear all the burden while reaping none of the rewards or protections that come with that fundamental right.

How many peaceful protests have been disrupted in recent months because the police and politicians simply didn't like them?

Unless you're an armed white guy screaming at a cop because you don't want to wear a mask, or rich, your right to free speech rests on a precarious edge.

On one side of this, their rights are assumed ahead of time, and you will have to battle long and hard to get courts to recognize that there are other rights of other people that must also be taken into account.

On the other side of it, you will have to battle long and hard to get courts to recognize that your rights were violated after the fact.

With that kind of unbalance, why would _anyone_ expect the people on the short of end of that stick to believe that "free speech" was anything other than an empty smokescreen to justify the poor behavior of neo-nazi assholes?

You can point to any number of cases where free speech ultimately worked--after someone managed to come up with the money they needed to battle through the courts until that right was ultimately recognized. And that's fucking GREAT when it does. But...

Too much of society is only willing to embrace any individual right or obligation only so long as it gets them from point a to point b. And conveniently ignore any part of it that gets in the way, until they are forced to do otherwise.

"The best way to counteract bad speech is with good speech. Oh, but your good speech can only be done HERE, between the hours of 7:00 and 7:15, and if you get too rowdy we'll treat you like rioters and bring in the tear gas."

"Also, don't do any of this on your employer's time, because it's your employer's time. Though if your employer should take the time to tell you, during business hours, who to vote for, we're going to allow it even though it's technically against the rules."

Right now, despite the fact that it still manages to function in the courts, the social toll that free speech takes is unduly apportioned to the people who should be, but largely are not, protected by it most. They must pay the greatest price, with the least to show for it.

So why should they be bothered to support it at all? However good it is in the abstract if it's not something they will be allowed to participate in without running through a gauntlet of truncheons, tazers, and the not-so-occasional bullet, why bother at all?

"I don't agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it" sounds great until you realize that there is no scenario where Tucker fucking Carlson will walk into machine gun fire to protect Tammy Duckworth's right to speak.

The Proud Boys will never take a stand to support the right of Black Lives Matter activists to speak out. It will never fucking happen.

The US currently loses its shit over something as simple as a football player KNEELING during the American Anthem. There is no fighting to death for your right to say it. There's plenty of fighting to the mild discomfort for MY right to say it, but that's not the same thing.

Free Speech, at least in the US, at least as I understand it, is cultural as well as legal. It is a value that was implemented in the Constitution in order to ensure the value was not killed off by the government. But cultural values require good faith to maintain.

That good faith was burned through a while back. That reservoir is empty. It'll take time and work to fill it up again.

So in summation, I'm not really impressed with the current articles and letters bemoaning the death of free speech, or how imperiled we are by fucking "cancel culture" of all things. Yes, a peril is there, but it's not because of that. It's because of everything that led to that.