Judge says Education Dept partisan out-of-office emails violated First Amendment

“the First Amendment is a cheap thing if all it provides is the assurance that one may say what a current majority is willing to hear.” Charles Rembar

I think we can all agree on this. It would just be nice if there was consistent enthusiasm for the first amendment when it comes to actual taboo ideas. Are you quoting this when you hear about right wing extremists being canceled or jailed in Europe? In the 1970s, Jewish lawyers at the ACLU defended the American Nazi Party’s right to march in Skokie. Not out of support, but to uphold the principle of free speech for all. What happened to intellectual honesty?

I mean it depends on what we are talking about. The case you mention was about the right to peacefully assemble, and that the swastika does not count as "fighting words" and thus not grounds to say the assembly isn't allowed. In the case of Europe, they don't have the same constitution as the USA so I'm not sure how to compare that, and if those extremists are merely being silenced over swastikas or calls for the deaths of people since you didn't specify.

Plus the comparison to Europe and that specific case is especially untenable because if the specific case in Europe was in Germany, then they have a special relationship with the swastika.

People in Europe are also human beings and so they also have a natural right to free speech. They just happen to live in oppressive governments willing to use violence against them for expressing their natural right to speak their opinion.

Exactly. It’s interesting that despite many countries sharing classic liberal political attitudes don’t have constitutional protections for free speech that go as far as the US. In my view free speech is the most fundamental requirement for any free society and democracy can’t work without it. But as we see with the UK right now and others, speech is impeded frequently.

On paper, free speech in the US appears sacrosanct. But in practice, top gear once did this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKcJ-0bAHB4

Maybe played up slightly for TV? But the impression is given that -in practice- they could not exercise their free speech in person in the US, but were fine broadcasting it in the UK.