You've edited this at least twice since I started to write so who knows what this will by the time I hit 'reply', but this is really weird. If I can't choose not to associate with someone because of something they said then freedom of association just doesn't exist. If I can't kick someone out of my business because of something they've said then I just don't have control over whom I do business with. In a society with a cultural principle of free speech people would be able to exercise their right to say heinous things, and decent people would exercise their right to not have anything to do with those people, and the heinous thing saying people wouldn't whine about it, except disingenuously, because despite all their protestations they would actually understand that their right to free speech should not compel me to have them in my club, church, business, whatever.

I don't think you're actually grappling with the idea of "a cultural principle of free speech" here.

If I imagine a culture with the maximum level of respect for free speech as a principle - a strong cultural belief that the best way to reach the truth is by debating ideas, even terrible ones - I imagine a culture in which a Nazi can state their piece at a bar, and then everyone calmly discusses their opinions and why they're wrong.

If I imagine a culture with a minimum level of respect for free speech, I imagine a culture in which I might say something anodyne, like "the minimum wage should be increased," and lose all the friends who disagree with me.

Think, for example, about high school debate. In the past, it was an arena in which various controversial proposals were thrown out and discussed. It had a high level of respect for free speech as a principle.

Nowadays, some debate judges say things like (this is an actual quote):

> I will no longer evaluate and thus never vote for rightest capitalist-imperialist positions/arguments... Examples of arguments of this nature are as follows: fascism good, capitalism good, imperialist war good, neoliberalism good, defenses of US or otherwise bourgeois nationalism, Zionism or normalizing Israel, colonialism good, US white fascist policing good, etc.

Everyone here is exercising their freedom of speech. That doesn't mean they're showing equal respect for the free expression of ideas.

OK, sure, it is possible to imagine a culture in which the principle of free speech is above and supersedes all other principles. That culture would be terrible. Suppose I'm at that bar and Nazi Bob starts spouting Nazi nonsense. Is there a social expectation that I stay and engage despite my desire to go somewhere else? If Nazi Bob hangs out at that bar all the time and I decide I don't want to go there because I don't like listening to him and calmly engaging with him is there a cultural stigma associated with that? If there's not, suppose I and a number of other patrons stop frequenting the bar. Is the bar tender then subject to some kind of social cost for saying "Hey Nazi Bob, I'm going to have to ask you to not come back because you're driving away other patrons?" I agree that the high school debate thing is bad, and in general I agree that people talking about ideas is good, but this idea that there should be no consequences whatsoever for what you say just doesn't survive even the briefest analysis. How would that even work? If you say some combination of words that elicits a reaction in me am I supposed to just not feel or think those things? Does that mean that I experience the consequences of your speech but you don't? Do I have freedom to not associate with you until you say something abhorrent? If I'm friends with someone and I say "Hey I think it would be really funny to flay your kids" or some other terrible thing do they have to just calmly debate that? Do they have to continue to associate with me because if they stopped being my friend that wouldn't be respecting my freedom to express my ideas? I'd argue that it's not only possible to respect freedom of speech as a principle balanced against other rights, it's _only_ possible to respect it as such, because otherwise the person with the loudest,most extreme, and most offensive ideas sets the tone of any conversation. If I don't have the option to get up and walk away, either literally or metaphorically, then my association with them and consequently my speech is coerced.

I don't disagree with you at all. My point is that there's a spectrum here from "no cultural value on free speech" to "free speech is the highest principle" and I think it's perfectly coherent to argue that our society should value free speech and the frank discussion of controversial ideas more highly than it does today.

It means whatever the private citizens decide it to mean. That's kinda what freedom, democracy and the pursuit of happiness is; like how we treat our economy, but with ideas. Lightly regulated, with compensation where damages can be proven. Nobody sells insurance for hurt feelings, though.