The second you create authority, only authoritarians will allow themselves to have it.

If you’ve ever stepped on a wet patch of floor right after you put on fresh socks, then you have to know it. Perhaps in a perfect world there could exist a ruling body that genuinely keeps its people’s best interests in mind when it bans the expression of objectively hideous sentiments. It supposes that speech can be classified as acceptable or unacceptable, and that someone has the duty to suppress the latter class. “Hate speech isn’t free speech.” This axiom, whenever it is bleated, should make any rational person’s skin crawl. Freedom of speech quotes, however expertly they may have been curated, are not poised to make some pink-haired, nose-pierced, garishly-tattooed liberal arts student put down their hashtag pitchfork and reconsider whether they’re actually doing good by demanding the public crucifixion of anyone whose point of view falls right of Mao Zedong’s. Listen: A blog post isn’t going to change anyone’s mind about free speech. “There is freedom of speech, but I cannot guarantee freedom after speech.”

Free speech quotes