re: "America Has a Free Speech Problem" (The New York Times, March 19, 2022)
To the lame excuse for censorship that "those who complain about it [cancel culture] are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech," the appropriate response is: You may well be right, but the foundational principle of free speech requires that we allow even bigots to spread their vile, worthless, repugnant hatred and worse. The cut off point is calls for violence, not mere hate speech or other filth. Democracy and its founding principles never promised to be easy or nice or to fit our own personal set of likes and dislikes.
Even less should right-wing authoritarians preaching biblical intolerance of the Exodus 20:3 variety be allowed to get away with banning books or ideas in classrooms, including critical race theory and sexuality: children are not idiots incapable of making critical assessments when given the tools to do so, but that means they have to first be given the necessary tools.
If university students can't rebut ideas they hate, they should consider that those hated ideas might in fact be correct. Unless they are debated, not cancelled, the popular errors can never be discovered as they deserve to be.
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The above comment was submitted by Felix Qui to The New York Times article.
It is published there at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/opinion/cancel-culture-free-speech-poll.html#commentsContainer&permid=117428286:117428286
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