> Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without persecution
Free speech used to be more of an ubiquitous social courtesy like that, yes.
However, that courtesy is rapidly disappearing in our society and free speech is being distilled down to its legal core which is: "you won't go to jail if you say something unpopular"
Everything else is on the table including losing your job, being boycotted, being hounded on social media, and otherwise ruining your life.
I personally like society better when free speech is a social courtesy extended to everyone by everyone, but... society's values change, and right now "harm reduction" is king.
> On 2 August 1775 a crowd of Sons of Liberty confronted him at his house. Brown requested the liberty to hold his own opinions, saying that he could "never enter into an Engagement to take up arms against the Country which gave him being", and finally met their demands with pistol and sword. Taken prisoner with a fractured skull, he was tied to a tree where he was roasted by fire, scalped, tarred, and feathered. This mistreatment resulted in the loss of two toes and lifelong headaches.
> Despite Robert's importance in Rehoboth community, he began to have problems with his fellow townsmen. On June 6, 1654, he was told to move his family out of the Plymouth Colony for allowing Abner Ordway and family, "persons of evil fame", to live in his home. The practice of banishing a family from the colony was known as a "Warning Out Notice."
Black people got lynched for using their right to free speech for much of this country's history. People who piss off their communities have been banished or exiled or worse for millennia. Our close cousins in the animal kingdom do the same thing; if you're a dick, you're either the new leader or you're out of the group.
This topic is frequently the one with the most hyperbolic revisionist statements, and I'm glad you point out the obvious to someone here. There's a near infinite list of things that would have gotten you in trouble socially if it got out during any time after WW2 to the late 90s.
The hand wringing about boycotts seems a little humorous. A few decades ago wasn’t the GOP the ones telling us if we didn’t like something, instead of regulating it we should vote with our wallets?
Free speech used to be more of an ubiquitous social courtesy like that, yes.
However, that courtesy is rapidly disappearing in our society and free speech is being distilled down to its legal core which is: "you won't go to jail if you say something unpopular"
Everything else is on the table including losing your job, being boycotted, being hounded on social media, and otherwise ruining your life.
I personally like society better when free speech is a social courtesy extended to everyone by everyone, but... society's values change, and right now "harm reduction" is king.