Microblog Memes

Before getting into line items, let me clarify that I'm talking about the "Freedom of Speech" in capitals, referring to the part of the First Amendment, not to laws that allow people free expression in general.

It still is? Unless you think someone should be able to go to jail for making a joke about a government official.

That's an unintentionally leading question, in my opinion. In response, let me point you to the majority of Europe where untethered speech is not an inalienable right, and yet it's still perfectly legal to make jokes about government officials. Yes, there are parts of Europe where you can't. I'm not fond of lèse-majesté laws, but you don't need untethered free speech to forbid just that one type of law.

We'd be in a lot better place if this paragraph from the ECHR's freedom of expression were attached to it:

The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. -cited

Yeah you say that when a party you support is in power.

Bingo. I say that the party in power, even if I somewhat support it, should not be Constitutionally empowered to lie to us from a position of authority. They should not be allowed to use their position to "freely express" things that hurt others. In fact, free expression in speech belongs with all other free expressions. I can throw my hands around unless I'm intentionally throwing them into innocents' faces.

In most of the world, free expression means when I know I'm not lying, and when I'm not being grossly negligent or antisocial in my speech. I'm sorry, but I approve of the censoring of Naziism or any organized expression that seeks to eradicate or punish any ethnicity. I would support a law that forbids people from what the South did after our Civil War, targeted lies that have led to over a century of the country "expressing" the supposed inferiority of non-white people.