"Would the high ideal of “free speech,” enshrined by long-dead slave owners, matter to you then?"

Medium abounds with articles reminding us of how awful our Founders were. I have commented on several of them, making what I thought was a theoretical point (because I had never seen my prediction in action) that tearing down the Founders makes it easier to tear down our founding documents. Mr. Barad has proved me right with this absurd ad hominem attack on the Bill of Rights. For that, I owe him thanks.

Of course, Mr. Barad does not understand free speech. He thinks it has to do with people's right to be heard. It doesn't. Free speech is about voters' right to know what other voters are thinking. How do we know that there are a certain number of Americans willing to embarrass themselves by dressing up in Nazi regalia and parading through Skokie? We know it because we allow it. If we banned it, we might have people SAY they want to do it, but their commitment wouldn't be tested. By allowing it, we learn who they are and what they are about. That is very valuable information, ESPECIALLY for the residents of Skokie.

I don't know what a "free speech absolutist" is, but I do know that MY test of whether speech should be protected is whether I would want to know that someone is willing to say what others would suppress. Even lies are protected speech, unless they are libelous, because I want to know that people are TELLING lies, and I want to know how many of our citizens can be so easily fooled. Some may call that "absolutism": I call it the lifeblood of democracy. But then, the idea comes from James Madison, so who gives a fuck, right?