Stop Defending Free Speech
"Free" is not a type of speech, it's a type of environment
Leftists’ attitude toward “free speech” is that you are free to repeat the speech they’ve prescribed for you
Conservatives’ attitude toward “free speech” is that every person has a God-given right to freely speak his mind, and that this right cannot be violated by the lesser authority of government
“Free speech” is a dangerous term that advances the Left’s tyrannical agenda
The Constitution protects the people’s “freedom of speech,” not “free speech.” It’s about people, not words.
Conservatives must stop using terminology weighted in favor of tyranny
Free speech: Content vs. context
Given that leftists and Conservatives have different and completely irreconcilable goals for society, it should surprise no one to learn that the two sides also have different and completely irreconcilable definitions of "free speech."
Leftists are concerned with the content of speech -- the specific ideas being expressed. They want the law to discriminate in their favor such that leftist ideas flow unimpeded through every sector of society while all other ideas are forcibly silenced and thus inaccessible.
To that end, they define "free speech" as the collection of ideas they will permit you to express -- those that won't get you canceled, fired, imprisoned, tortured, or executed. Coincidentally, these ideas just happen to be their ideas, so, in practice, "free speech" is just another way of saying "leftist speech." Their attitude is: you are free to speak our ideas. They are the ventriloquist; you are the dummy.
Conservatives, by contrast, are not focused on content but context. Their goal is to ensure that speech takes place within the context of a free society; one in which any person may express any idea. When they reference "free speech," the word "free" does not, as the Left insists, describe a kind of speech but a kind of environment for speech.
"Free speech" is dangerous
Unfortunately, the phrase "free speech" naturally plays into the Left's hands by giving the impression that "free" is a kind/category of speech (as if you could walk into Barnes and Noble and find a section called "Free" nestled somewhere between Folklore and Gardening).
And once we accept the premise that "free" is a category of speech, it's only natural to conclude that anything outside of this category is not free and therefore not protected by the Constitution. This reasoning is the basis for the Left's claim that “hate speech is not free speech,” and for its corollary that “hate speech” can be legally suppressed or even punished.
"Free speech" is not constitutional
The Constitution, however, does not distinguish amongst types of speech; in fact, it doesn’t even allude to the existence of types of speech. Whatever it has to say about speech it says about all speech, regardless of content. Consequently, all speech — hateful or otherwise — enjoys equal protection, as seen in the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The Constitution doesn't protect "free speech," it protects "freedom of speech" because its concern is people's freedoms, not their words. We can openly express our ideas not because they are free but because we are.
Like the rest of the Bill of Rights, the First Amendment was written to prevent the government from infringing on the God-given rights of citizens -- the very thing the Left is trying to do when it claims that certain kinds of speech can be censored. Their claim is not just unconstitutional, it's anti-constitutional and thus cannot go unchallenged.
Watch your language
It's not without an appreciation for irony that I end an article about freedom of speech by encouraging people not to say certain things, but here I go anyway:
We Conservatives need to stop using language that works against us. When we repeat words and phrases like "free speech" that are weighted in favor of the Left, we unnecessarily place ourselves at a disadvantage before debate even begins. We end up having to first crawl out of the hole leftists have dug for us before we can even think of meaningfully engaging them. Obviously, it's better to avoid these pitfalls in the first place by simply being more precise in our wording.
I'll go one step farther and say that such precision is our duty. When we allow leftists’ deceptive terminology to metastasize throughout our culture, their tyrannical premises gain a foothold that is increasingly difficult to dislodge. We've seen this with "free speech," "white supremacy," "love is love," "trans-women," "minor-attracted persons," "disinformation," "The Science™," and a host of other phrases specifically crafted to undermine truth. If we care about restoring liberty, we must push back. If we don't resist tyranny with words we are doomed to do so with guns, and that's not an outcome any of us should wish for.