Liberals don’t understand why “free speech” is an American constitutional premise. They think free speech exists so that the “marketplace of ideas” can sort out debated ideas. From that perspective, the Overton Window can close off debate on whatever orthodoxy says is already decided.

But that’s not why free speech is necessary. Free speech is not about your right to be heard; it is about my right to hear. As a practical matter, it is much easier for you to know that you are being silenced than for me to know that I am being deprived of your views. So, we give you the “right” to free speak freely. But it’s a derivative right arising from my need to know what my fellow citizens are thinking, especially if their thoughts are obnoxious to me.

As a voter, I am not interested in the arguments White supremacists have to make, but I am interested to know that they are out there, what kind of crowds they are drawing, how hard I have to work to resist them. We don’t know where the holes in our social fabric lie unless we let the occasional asshole visibly tear at them.

Digressions into whether “free speech” has limits (e.g., libel) are wholly beside the point. Free speech is about politics. It’s about everyone being able to know what everyone else is willing to let them know about their opinions. It is the lifeblood of electoral democracy. I want it for others; I hope others want it for me.