...PLEASE STOP...
They are unrelated, and MOSTLY irrelevant, to free speech.
None are a question of freedom of speech.
All three are a question of bad PR and violating contract terms.
These idiots are not victims of oppression... at least as far as speech goes.
"Well, that's just your perspective... this is mine"
No... You can have your own opinions, you cannot have your own facts.
This is not an opinion or a perspective, it is a fact. In making this argument, you are entirely and completely incorrect, in both fact and in principle.
That's not so bad... it's OK to be wrong... everyone is wrong about many things, every day.
What IS so bad, and why you must be corrected, is that by passionately advocating such a patently false viewpoint, and making weak and specious arguments to support it, you weaken the very important ACTUAL battle to restore and maintain free speech.
Using bad arguments for your cause HURTS your cause, it does not help it.
There are some very serious threats to free speech in this country, particularly on college campuses and in schools. There are supreme court cases in this session, and coming up addressing these issues right now... and the picture is decidedly mixed.
- We are dangerously close to criminalizing, or at least accepting some kind of official sanction, on "hate speech" in this country. We already HAVE criminalized "suspect motivations", through "hate crime" law.
- The Government is spying on and intimidating reporters, with the DOJ going after those it perceives as enemies.
- Witnesses are being suppressed out of fear of government retaliation.
- The IRS has gone after conservative political groups, simply for being conservative.
- We have enacted insane regulations about who can say what, when, and with how much and whose money, when it comes to politics and elections.
These are HUGE REAL PROBLEMS.
By equating things which are not about rights and freedoms, to things which are, you weaken rights and freedoms, and make them more difficult to defend.
Freedom of speech means you have the right to say as you damn well please and the government can't stop you or punish you for it (except in some very strictly limited ways).
It doesn't mean that private persons or organizations have to publish you, support you, employ you, associate with you, provide you with a forum or an audience, or listen to you.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequence.
If you can't back everything you say, and accept the consequences, then perhaps your problem is not one of lack of freedom, but of lack of courage.
"But... but... political correctness... thought police... BAD"
Yes.
I never said that political correctness WASN'T a chilling force on freedom of speech and even freedom of conscience... Of course it is.
...But that is not the same as government using force against you because of it (though with "hate speech" and things like campus "speech codes", we have to be very careful of that).
The problem with believing in freedom is that you have to believe in it for everyone, including people you don't like, or whose ideas you don't like, or who do bad things with it.
Private individuals and organizations can choose who they wish to associate with freely, and who they wish to support or oppose freely (or at least they are supposed to be able to).
That means both things and people that you like, and things and people that you don't.
That means you can be fired for expressing yourself. It means you can be fired for your political and social views. It means you can be fired for your private behavior. It means you can lose your customers, your money, your reputation...
In fact, everything but your life, and your freedom.
A free society means we have to put up with that.
We don't have to like it, but we DO have to put up with it.
And many of us actually have very little problem with it... so long as it's aligned with THEIR personal beliefs.
Frankly, I don't see very many "social conservatives" complaining very much when it's "progressives", gays, atheists, muslims, "perverts" etc... who experience negative consequences for their beliefs (admittedly, that is certainly not true of all. Some do decry all of this as suppression of free speech and freedom of conscience).
Most "social conservatives" aren't complaining when church groups or conservative groups try to get certain things banned, or removed from libraries or schools, or have teachers, or school administrators, or abortion providers fired...
...because you don't like their ideas or how they express them.
...Really, most anyone who you would identify as the enemy, or the "other side" or whatever other outgroup identification it may be.... seems it's ok to you if THEY have to live with the consequences of their choices, actions, and words...
Most of you are only complaining when it's happening to those you identify as YOUR ingroup, or for people whose opinions and ideas you agree with.
Again, not always, not everyone... but most.
The same of course is true of "the other side"... starting to see the point yet?
So really... What you're asking for is not "freedom of speech", it's "freedom of speech that you like", and freedom FROM both speech, and consequence that you don't.
That's not freedom. That exactly the same as "the other side"... you just like the opinions better.
