What makes it difficult is the fact that people respond like this. What did he say that you even disagreed with? He has an "anger issue"? wtf.
If fuck you is what you mean, then no amount of dressing will change the fact that you're saying it. And to then act as if you didn't say it just because you didn't use the words fuck you is lying. Being polite is being polite, but that doesn't change the message THAT much unless you actually lie and say something different. And then often the conversation becomes about attitude and respect and language, and not what was actually angering. Ultimately, that's what's stupid and disrespectful. And to then be scanning and policing each other's statements for this?
This annoys me to no end on Quora too when people just find novel ways of saying fuck you believing that's what their Be Nice Be Respectful policy means. No, it's not a license to say anything you want so long as you're polite. It's like how a racist thinks to get away with racism. If you're a racist then let's talk about it! Of course, normally they can't, so they've trained themselves to talk different. But it's not a real conversation. It's horseshit.
Challenging someone's argument and challenging someone's character are completely different. It doesn't matter how politely you do it if that's what you're doing.
And being honest takes courage! It was never truly about other people's feelings. It's "what if I" hurt them. You're about to do that anyway based on the point you're making, if it's a valid point against something they have a stake in. From there, either they're adults who recognize valid points or they're not. That's their court.
And if they weren't hurt, then you didn't say it, period. What you meant to say got lost in all the correctness.
The social mores have shifted, and while you may not be imprisoned, real tangible consequences (which are arguably unfair and inappropriate) can occur for trying to have a real meaningful conversation with someone based on your own honest beliefs. You are arguing essentially that those consequences are not only acceptable, but laudable, because you see it as "just desserts". Trying to distract from the serious philosophical issue by hyperfocusing on the legal non-issue is a common tactic of people who endorse bullying and "cancel culture" tactics to suppress other's speech. Your arguments here have been subtly insulting and not in good faith, and I don't think are the way people should behave on HN, but ironically, I'm responding to you in good faith because I fully support (philosophically) your right to say those things and you are acting within the rules.
Also, you ever hear of anyone in America being punished for saying they're a communist or homosexual? Or is that fiction to you as well?
To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men. And now it is that same group who coincidentally seems to complain the loudest that they no longer can say exactly what they wish without consequences.
This is true, and unsurprising given the historical context. In fact, the Constitution was written as such with the original intention of providing those freedoms primarily to the benefit of not just white men, but land-owning white men. Crofters, smallholders, and other types of land-owners wanted to be put on the same tier of political power as others, when previously they were stifled under the aristocracy. That was the defining feature of the American Revolution and the things which followed.
But your reply to me is primarily just a form of whataboutism and fails to refute or respond to my core point. My view of history is neither narrow nor incomplete, insofar as it applies to the racial and gender injustices that existed in the US. This also has pretty much nothing to do with the philosophical basis of free speech.
Free speech is a civil right, as civil rights have grown in the US it has been extended to those that civil rights have grown to encompass. It's not just the privileged few (or even the privileged majority) that are angry about a loss of this social more.
> but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful.
What you are calling "the powerful" seems to me to mostly be average normal people who just happen to not agree with the current sentiment in vogue. Most of the people who've found themselves on the wrong end of the consequences meted out for attempting to exercise freedom of speech would hardly qualify as "powerful" under any lay definition.
The public square is supposed to belong to everyone, and freedom of speech is the social more that ensures this is the case. We've lost or are beginning to lose this social more, and doing so has disastrous long-term and far-reaching consequences for our society.
And yes I am using a relatively broad definition of powerful, I’m not talking Bezos etc in the 0.01%, I’m talking more upper middle class and up mostly white men. Who maybe are not correctly defined as the powerful but they are traditionally the people protected by law & USA cultural norms (which isn’t power in the traditional sense of political power or wealth but means quite a bit in one’s day-to-day life).
And one more time to say the original counter argument of mine again, if there was free speech explain to me COINTELPRO.