Freedom of speech anyone?

[CapnAwesome]

I had some respect for the organisation Cage and what they were doing. But now any respect I had is gone. Personally, I am firmly against 'freedom of speech*' if it means (religious) people who are determined to spread falsehoods/lies, such as those wanting to teach Creationism in schools or rewrite large chunks of history, and advocate hatred or violence against a particular group(s) of people are denied their right to speak. We cannot allow people who express such vile views to have their freedom of speech.

*I am confused by people who claim they are all for free speech. I think most people on this forum would agree that religious people who want to their religion to be taught in schools (Creationism in science class) or go out to proselytize on the streets are out to deliberately mislead the general public, and their own children (child abuse in my opinion, because they are denying them a good science/history education). Free speech for one person and not for another cannot be called 'freedom of speech'. I think it's right to put restrictions on people.

I know that, in some European countries, Holocaust denial is illegal so surely if you really wanted to defend freedom of speech then you'd defend the right of Holocaust deniers to speak, right? Or do people just want to defend opinions that they already agree with? 'Freedom of speech' is a very dubious term in my opinion.

Right, I come from a Jewish background and I would fully defend the freedom of speech of holocaust deniers. Whether or not they are allowed to speak on the subject publicly doesn't do anything to change their point of view. These people still exist and in fact allowing them to speak publicly is a good way of identifying who the racists and holocaust deniers and Islamic radicals even are. If we force them to be in the closet it becomes that much harder. Also it gives a good platform for rational people with far better arguments to counter the absurdity and violence of Islamic idiocy. Banning speech just seems insecure and provides an alluring taboo for young people. They think 'Why would the government not want me to hear this?' Then when they listen to it privately rather than publicly they don't get the counter point of view. Where as in this video you have the host who can act shocked and call the guy an idiot.

Teaching creationism in schools and preaching it in the streets are two very different things because of one very important aspect: voluntarism. Freedom of speech also means your freedom to listen to what you want. If someone is preaching in the streets I can just ignore them or not. If they come into the schools we are forced to listen to them. That's not freedom of speech but rather the opposite: coercive speech. The same applies to prayer in school and the like. You shouldn't be forced to listen to prayers if you don't want to and you shouldn't be disallowed to pray if you want to. (Which is exactly how the law is now, despite christ punchers calling it a ban.)

So I'm always in favor of the freedom of speech.