I think of the two sides as "pro-speech" and "anti-speech" dissent.

I can disagree and oppose your opinions by exercising my own right to free speech. I can afford you your own pulpit, air time, and freedom to make your point, and then I can take mine and make my point as loudly as I can. I can schedule a march or rally the same day, across the street.

This is what "pro-speech" dissent looks like.

I can also disagree and oppose your opinion by removing your right to free speech. I can contact people who might give you a platform, and convince them not to do so. I can attempt to impose consequences for you legally, socially, or physically that discourage you from speaking. I can shout over you from across the street, to ensure people can't hear your speech.

This is what "anti-speech" dissent looks like.

And, IMHO, "pro-speech" is more important than almost* any consequence of speech.

* The sole exceptions probably being speech that inspires imminent action to violate any person's individual rights (e.g. violence) or that has an imminent or fundamental threat to bring about a change in government to one which does not allow, support, and respect free speech.

> The sole exceptions probably being speech that inspires imminent action to violate any person's individual rights (e.g. violence) or that has an imminent or fundamental threat to bring about a change in government to one which does not allow, support, and respect free speech.

Why do you cut the line there? What evidence do you have to include or not include these or other things? How do you define violence? Is causing brain damage violence? AFAIK it's possible to do that only by speech.

I've never seen an argument which wouldn't be possible to be phrased a way by which it wouldn't be "heresy", and include everything which isn't about changing others' feelings. For example, immigration. Almost 100% of useful arguments about immigration are not "heresies". The problem is when somebody is against immigration, and "forget" to mention that they opinion can cause death. Useful arguments don't "forget" this.

Yes, causing brain damage is violence. No, speech can not cause brain damage.

Unless inaction or speech is directly and unmistakeable the cause of someone’s death, then they cannot be held responsible for that death and trying to do so is just an attempt at manipulation.

> speech can not cause brain damage

https://www.verywellmind.com/childhood-abuse-changes-the-bra...

This states clearly otherwise.

Child abuse is not speech… I don’t understand how it is even necessary to explicitly say this. :-/

So it's not possible to insult or threaten somebody - or in this case a child - during a speech according to you. You need to say this explicitly, because people usually think otherwise. Do I need to send you a random Trump speech to prove it to you, that you just moved the goalpost?

Yes, it is possible to threaten or insult somebody, but this would not cause brain damage.

You cannot cause cellular damage to a human’s brain by talking to them.

People do not evaluate speech based on its truth, they evaluate it based on its authority, which is a function of many things (including, in eg twitters case, popularity). Fighting battles over whos speech should be afforded the biggest stage makes a huge difference in debate.

yes, if you put a flat-earther and a scientist in one debate, people just thinking that 'oh, maybe earth is flat!'

You’re joking, but if the flat earther was a New York Times journalist they would.

the problem is, if they hold an 'debate', this will make people trust there are some enough to debate

Yes, or if they write what a dictator says (eg Putin) then people read it and think "hmm the newspapers report that he said this, so it must be important, maybe it's true"

And in that way the dictators can fool the citizens in democratic countries via their own newspapers

> "right to an audience"

If Alice wants to talk but Bob doesn't want to listen to her, then he indeed shouldn't have to. But if Alice wants to talk and Bob does want to listen to her, then they should be able to without Karen being able to stop them.

When Alice says "those who look like so:... are kidnapping your babies and control the banks and steal your salaries"

and a year later 100 Bobs kill those that look like so?

That's one consequence of totally free speech unfortunately

> A lot of times what people are really talking of when they express concerns about "free speech" is the ethical value. This is frequently countered with an argument about the legal protection, but that's kind of missing the point IMHO.

That's true, but also I think people sometimes have an overly narrow focus on one single aspect of legal protection - especially, in the US context, the First Amendment. While 1A is the most crucial way in which the US legal system seeks to support that ethical value, there are other ways – something which violates the ethical value of free speech may not violate 1A, yet may violate other legal provisions.

To give just one example – California Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102 outlaws political discrimination in employment in the State of California. This can provide added protection to the ethical value of free speech compared to 1A. 1A does not prevent private employers from firing employees for publicly expressing particular political views – at least in some cases, 1101&1102 will. And a few other states have similar legal provisions, and there is always the chance that more states could adopt laws like this – getting state laws amended is far easier than amending the federal constitution, or putting in place a Supreme Court bench which will interpret it a certain way.