The people of the world seem to underestimate how important free speech is to the typical US citizen. No one else in the world has free speech rights. We view it as very important to have.
What this allows:
- Hate speech (non-violent)
- Holocaust/genocide denial
- Blasphemy and religious mockery
- Insulting leaders, judges, and the state
- Burning flags and national symbols
- Abstract praise of extremist ideologies
- Offensive political misinformation
- Harsh personal insults (non-defamatory)
- Publishing leaked material
- Advocacy of civil disobedience in the abstract
An outsider many view that as going "too far", but you limit one, it's the path to limiting them all.
This is just such a ridiculous joke in 2026 that nobody outside the US and many inside it could continue to take the idea that the US has any actual interest in free speech as a principled argument. We have all just watched for the last decade the people who cried the loudest about it immediately do a 180 the moment they got the political power to practice it. I can’t think of a single prominent “free speech absolutist” who didn’t fail this test miserably and immediately. So no, I don’t actually believe that the US values it above all else, I think that’s some bullshit that people say because they are only interested in the idea that they personally can say and do whatever they feel like and it doesn’t extend beyond that in practice.
The free speech absolutist is such a hilarious caricature these days. "I might not agree with what you say, but I'll defend your right to say it!" Well, as long as it's hateful and not woke or about (shivers in disgust) labor unions.
please do go ahead and correct me and name your top 3 free speech absolutists so we can all see how I was “being too emotional” and couldn’t see the obvious truth right in front of me about how free speech really is a deeply held belief of the nation.
It's a well understood principle and an abstract value. It's got nothing to do with the US per-se, except it found it's way into your constitution and is protected. The conservative right were never for free speech, that was plainly obvious from the start. That doesn't mean principled free speech absolutists can't exist. And it doesn't mean they need to be pure. You can permit them their flaws while still holding up the value. More free speech, rather than less.
