Ironic that there are so many deleted comments on a post about free speech
You'll find that the same people making a big noise about 'free speech' will do everything they possibly can to suppress and conceal the speech of those who are calling 'em out for arguing in bad faith… because they are arguing in bad faith, because they have absolutely no intention of furthering free speech. It is purely a tactic.
You are invoking exploitable core tenets. If one is arguing in bad faith the FIRST thing you'll do is invoke free speech, invoke the principle of charity, call for the strongest possible interpretation and insist that good faith MUST be assumed.
For instance: I neither said nor meant that 'everybody' who supports free speech was doing this. That's half the trouble: it's protective coloration among people who are acting in earnest. I'm stating unequivocally that SOME folks in this camp are acting in bad faith: not just hypocrisy, but pursuing calculated behaviors akin to people coaching their peers to 'not reveal their power level' so as to better influence the communities they're operating on.
I don't know how many of 'em there are, but I find it a catastrophic failure of a community's intentions to assume charity. It's nothing more than an exploit, and there are some topics, political topics, that bring this out.
> where 'free speech' is treated as sort of antifa Kryptonite
I'm a bit confused by this. Whether or not free speech is repelent/harmful to antifa isn't an argument against free speech. If free speech harms a movement, then so be it. If it allows a movement to prosper, then so be it.
On the object level, I've seen a lot of allegations that antifa attack people who film them (and one of their movement sucker punched a journalist on air.) This gave me the impression that antifa is at least as interested in controlling speech as their opposition.