[quote=@Keyguyperson]
Friendly reminder that free speech isn't something that is naturally and eternally good, it's just something part of the world decided was a good idea and now people act like the universe itself demands that it be upheld. Nobody has to tolerate anybody else's viewpoint because "free speech", because free speech isn't some kind of moral be all end all. People are obsessed with the idea that western liberal values are somehow universal truths, when they're just as universally true as the social values of the Roman Empire. Morality is entirely relative, and the only reason so much of us have settled on the moral ideas proposed by modern western liberalism is because modern western liberalism happens to have the most power in the world. If it had been China and other Asian nations that rose to power rather than European ones, the values considered "true" by most of us would be significantly different.

Would you worship the god you do or do not had you been born in India? Would you believe that violence is inherently bad and that all views must be respected if you were a slave in the American South? No, you probably wouldn't. You hold the values you do because of what culture you were born into, what ideology is in power where that culture exists, and the other socioeconomic conditions you were born into. If I was born to some well-off family in the suburbs of California I'd probably be making the exact opposite argument that I am now.

The American constitution is not the tablets brought down by Moses.
[/quote]

Yeh but values of classical liberalism have been the most successful foundation for governments. They allow for a steady growth in knowledge, technological abilities, philosophy, religion. America was able to become so powerful partially due to their system of government and the freedoms it allowed.

Who cares how relative an argument or worldview is? That detracts from the point a person tries to make. Don't focus on the person, focus on what they're speaking of. This is why ad homonym attacks and insults are generally frowned upon in conversation, because they take focus away from what a person tries to say and places it on who the person is or might be. It doesn't matter that I might have thought differently if this happened in my lifetime or if I was born here, because that point of view on the subject doesn't prove or give insight into anything I'm talking about other than the history behind my thoughts.