Comment by pessimizer

> Racists deserve free speech, and our society is better for it.

To the extent that our society is better for extending free speech to racists it has nothing to do with them deserving anything, but with the costs of empowering any fallible human institution to deny anyone things that that particular group of people do not deserve, and the cost of failing to make that distinction is being susceptible to being convinced that some other group truly does not deserve it and therefore some institution should be empowered to identify members of that group and deny it to them.

Wild how you're weaving a tale about mob justice when someone says something against racists.

Also, it's logically incoherent how you're portraying mob justice as a bad thing while rejecting governmental regulation. The entire idea of the state having a monopoly on violence is to prevent mob justice, or individuals taking the law into their own hands. Basic civics.

I'm generally in favor of free speech, but there are thorny issues associated with it that "free speech absolutists" aren't interrogating because they stop at "racists should be able to say what they want".

Free speech is a circular right.

One is free to say racist things. Others are free to mock them in return.

Racists are not free from consequences. If they don't like others freely expressing themselves in return, at the rhetorical and emotional expense of the racist, racists can freely express themselves in their home.

You're advocating a very reductive approach to free speech.

> Racists deserve free speech, and our society is better for it

The individual victims of racist speech would strongly disagree with that.