Don't Use These Free Speech Arguments Ever Again

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The Atlantic asked me to update and revise my old "false First Amendment tropes" piece, which I think meant "make it more coherent, better spelled, and less sweary." I did, and they ran it.

The bullet: there are a lot of flat-wrong arguments out there.

Link to tweet

[kcr]

1. So, essentially only SOME speech is allowed in the debate about free speech.

Don't you dare argue about how the law should be. That's not allowed in the debate about free speech, because free speech. Only free speech is allowed in speech about free speech. We're talking about free speech, here, where all speech is free speech, not speech about the speech YOU want. You can't talk about that!

This guy sure is an expert.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. I don't think that's the point. NT

[kcr]

3. It is the point. My point.

Not to mention he says it right in the headline. It's funny how there never seems to be any room in the speech debate for how the law SHOULD be. You'd think, given the topic of the debate, there'd at least be some wiggle room given the topic. You know, free speech and all. But, nope.