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1. bofade+j2[view] [source] 2025-04-05 18:17:11
>>smnrg+(OP)
This is free speech. It's not open for discussion.

Our right to free speech is not granted by anyone's consent or by government decree. It preexists the state and cannot be taken away.

We hold this truth to be self-evident. We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights.

If any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.

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2. kcatsk+c4[view] [source] 2025-04-05 18:28:20
>>bofade+j2
Of course it's open for discussion. Free speech is not limitless.

You can wax poetically all you want about endowment by the creator, but try saying racial slurs on daytime TV and see how long that lasts.

Advertisement is just another form of speech that can be limited.

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3. bigstr+E7[view] [source] 2025-04-05 18:45:19
>>kcatsk+c4
> You can wax poetically all you want about endowment by the creator, but try saying racial slurs on daytime TV and see how long that lasts.

You're conflating two senses of "free speech". Free speech is an ideal, which our society does not fully reach (as you correctly pointed out). But in the US, "free speech" is also sometimes used to refer to the legal protection from the first amendment. And in your example, that does apply. I can say all the racial slurs I want on TV, and it would be quite illegal to put me in jail for it.

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4. bofade+7a[view] [source] 2025-04-05 18:58:43
>>bigstr+E7
People in other countries also have natural rights. Even if they live under oppressive governments, the right to free speech still exists. It's the same logic used by abolitionists to justify ending slavery.

"Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any particular culture or government, and so are universal, fundamental and inalienable (they cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their enjoyment through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's rights). Natural law is the law of natural rights.

Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). The concept of positive law is related to the concept of legal rights."

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