That's abridgement of the First Amendment.

That’s why I specifically called out the phrase “free speech absolutist”.

In my experience the vast majority of people who truly do advocate for freedom of speech are willing/able to understand nuances such as the fact that your freedom of speech does not grant you immunity from the social consequences of unpopular speech. I.e., other people exercising their freedom to disagree or opt not to use their private platform to host your speech. The “absolutists” will unironically call that censorship, rather than recognize other people are not compelled to engage with their speech.

Equally my ass

Someone with more time than me could easily do an entertaining mashup of Kirk and Mussolini quotes

You need better mental health care.

you start off by saying you’ve always thought you’re on the left

but the moment you disagree with someone, you start shit like this, which is a very common pattern of argument from right-wingers.

“I think your opinion is so wrong that it’s a symptom of mental illness” is just fucking stupid. do better. or, if you refuse to do better, stop attempting the “I’ve always been on the left but…” shtick. it is absolutely see-through and does not fool anyone.

Don’t know where you’re actually located, but “center” and “moderate” are just smokescreen euphemisms for “right wing without the nads to say so” here in the Amerikkkan lexicon, these days.

I’ve come to think of myself as trying to be outside of the social constructs that America is currently shedding.

I see society as layered. A social fabric that we weave by acting our beliefs within our communities, which layers atop nature. Upon that we build a structure of law, order, and an artificial economy that we see as beneficial in maintaining a healthy society. It’s important that these three layers closely conform to each other, and that the structures at the top remain minimalistic and efficient in their alignment to the fabric itself, which is more organic.

But the structure has become unwieldly, and is being used against us. It confines us. It enslaves us. The vast majority of people are acting out against this, and their actions are colored by their upbringings and beliefs combined with propaganda. Our diversity is being amplified through anger at our situation, the hate of the propaganda (edit: not ‘of the propaganda’, ‘generated from the propaganda’ is better), and the greed that has become systemic.

Then there are the people who seek to rule us. To some degree they recognize that they can manipulate a failing system to take absolute control. They’ve figured out that they can control us by our anger, and turn it into hate and greed. (edit: I should add that even these people are a symptom of the sickness, and while they may seek to perpetuate it, they’re not themselves the root cause)

Right, left… it doesn’t matter. The whole system is coming down. There’s a lot more to that, but as it stands… there’s a reason a lot of us feel driven to go live on a mountain top or in the depths of the forest. It’s a withdrawal from an unjust system. But we still need the social fabric, it’s our substrate that makes us who we are. We need to embrace our communities, locally, and focus on making the lives we want everyone to be able to have as we eventually pull through this period of authoritarian fascism.

Yup and I agree with you 100%. There is how I feel about it but I also think about it in terms of his beliefs. They are not mine but its kinda funny because normally one might bring up judging someone by their own standards to be nicer than ones own beliefs might make it out for the person but for him that is certainly not the case.