simonalkenmayer:

Philosophizing and discussing principles are all well and good, in a vacuum, but all ethical debate must have a practical purpose.

When we built this country we made a decision that personal freedom was important. There was a philosophical axiom in play, but axioms must be applied. That is what gave us the Supreme Court, the decision about harmful speech, the famous “shouting fire in a crowded theater.”

Speech that invites riot, that harms a person’s reputation with completely false statements, that pursues a person with threats, that causes injury by evoking panic…these have been determined to be the practical limits of the amorphous philosophical freedom.

The practicality must evolve with the world. Fifty years ago…hell, thirty years ago, a man’s capacity to cause harm with racist speech was very small. Only his family and friends caught the brunt of it, but the world has shifted. Now we have televisions, radio, and of course, the multi-headed hydra of the internet.

That tiny sphere of influence, that crowded theater, has gotten far more crowded.

Now a man’s terrible speech can reach millions around the world instantly. It can utterly destroy how our country is seen by the world and other powers that already have difficult relations with us. One man now has the microphone to a concert-sized stereo sound system and is yelling “fire!” To an audience 7 billion people strong.

This modern technology has meant that we must adapt our philosophy, just as we do in connection with cyber bullying, stalking, victimization. We must alter our high ideals so that they become tenable in the real universe. So what is the solution?

How can we inhibit the behavior without the removing from them the rights we all agree we should have?

The answer is consequences. Because the law is slow to move and most men these days have become lustfully entrenched in the notion of anonymity and protected obscurity, they fear no consequences. It falls to the people, the society around them, to hear the things they say and indicate that the words are not allowed because of the detrimental effect one man can have.

That is simply how it must happen until our law can be interpreted to meet the new age.

But a mindful person who understands why the philosophy exists, who embraces the concept of freedom but can apply practicality of themselves knows that murdering a man for what he believes is not his personal right. He comprehends that actions must have consequences and the consequences of murdering a Nazi are the same as murdering someone else. This well-minded and rightly angered citizen refuses to be responsible for a breech of the philosophy. So instead of simply ridding the world of a Nazi and demonstrating that the philosophy of freedom is an unsustainable paradox, this man punches a Nazi in the face to teach him a lesson.

Seems fair. It’s precisely what happened when men only had real soapboxes from which to shout hate speech.

TL;DR In the modern era the audience is far larger and the world uses social media as a metric of how to interpret the USA. Racism and hate speech are no longer hidden things but have been brought to the surface by men who have become too comfortable with the anonymity of the internet - a thing which did not exist in previous centuries. The law is slow to apply itself with the practical adaptation of philosophy. Therefore, consequences fall to those listening. And those listening choose to punch rather than to kill.

Because principles are important.