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Well, I don't know. Freedom of speech is also a principle. Public accommodation and non-discrimination are also principled. We don't need laws to see these as a public good. We shouldn't parse these ideas into orthogonal pretzels just because wokeness.

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> We don't need laws to see [freedom of speech] as a public good.

I think it's very easy to refute this statement by looking at any country where freedom of speech isn't guaranteed by law. The most populous country in the world is a glaring example.

You got it backwards. The fact that unfree nations are seen as human rights violations shows that free speech is a public good even when illegal.

Why don’t you peruse the elected members of the UN Human Rights Council and get back to us on who is seen as ‘human rights violations’.

I'm not sure what the argument is, then? Either we need or don't need laws in place to ensure freedom of speech (clearly we do). If that's not what we're talking about, what is a law "recognizing free speech as a public good"? That... isn't a thing?

I mean to imply the principle transcends law, that the law does not provide the justification for the moral principle. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

> We don't need laws to see these as a public good.

Yes, actually you do.

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