We say we want free speech — until we hear something we hate

The First Amendment is clear: “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” No qualifiers. No exceptions. Just liberty.

Forged in rebellion, the First Amendment protects the unsavory as much as the noble. Yet Americans in 2025 — left, right, and center — still can’t stomach it. We’re too emotional, too fragile, and too quick to clutch pearls or pitchforks when words sting.

Absolute free speech demands that we ditch the training wheels and face the chaos.

Historically, liberals owned the free speech mantle. Think of the ’60s counterculture, railing against establishment censors. However, that legacy began to crumble when Tipper Gore pushed for “Parental Advisory” stickers, and it outright shattered during the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.

The left became the “script enforcers.” Dissenters questioning lockdowns or vaccine effectiveness were branded “misinformation” spreaders and booted from Twitter and Facebook. Big Tech, egged on by progressive lawmakers, didn’t just moderate — it silenced. The party of free expression revealed its censorious streak, proving that power trumps principle every time.

Conservatives took up the free speech mantle — so they say. Elon Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter promised a free speech renaissance. He called it a platform for unfiltered truth — a digital town square — and it felt like that for a while. Users could breathe easier, tossing out hot takes without instant banishment. But the honeymoon’s over. X still throttles visibility on certain topics: any post with the word “trannies,” questioning foreign aid to Israel, or disputing the timing of a push for more H-1B visas, to name a few.

Even the champions of “absolute free speech” have limits they won’t admit.

The First Amendment doesn’t care about your feelings — or mine. That’s the hard truth. It protects the speech we all hate — slurs, rants, provocations. The Supreme Court has carved out narrow exceptions: You can’t defame with reckless lies (New York Times v. Sullivan, 1964) or incite imminent violence (Brandenburg v. Ohio, 1969).

However, today’s content getting axed — even on so-called “free speech bastions” like X — rarely crosses those lines. It’s just “uncomfortable.”

“Hate speech,” a term so elastic that it’s meaningless, gets slapped on anything from locker-room trash talk to policy critiques. Thankfully, the Constitution doesn’t bend for hurt feelings. It’s absolute until a court says otherwise — and courts have historically leaned hard toward liberty.

Take Cohen v. California (1971). A guy wore a jacket saying “F**k the Draft” into a courthouse. Though his jacket was certainly offensive, the Supreme Court ruled that it was protected speech, noting that “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.”

Similarly, in Snyder v. Phelps (2011), the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that Westboro Baptist protesters, who picketed soldiers’ funerals with vile signs, were protected under the First Amendment. The pattern is clear: The framers of the Constitution established a system in which words can be expressed freely, and judges sort the mess later — not moderators, not mobs, not you.

So why can’t we handle free speech? Liberals want safe spaces; conservatives want certain topics off-limits. During COVID-19, the left cried “public health” to justify silencing skeptics. Now, some on the right clutch their chests over critiques of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee influence or aid to Israel — topics that deserve debate, not gag orders.

Both sides claim they’re protecting society, but they’re really protecting their feelings. Absolute free speech demands that we ditch the training wheels and face the chaos. Americans on both sides, however, keep reaching for the mute button.

The X experiment proves it. Musk handed us the keys to a more unrestrained platform, but users — left and right — still howl when they see something they hate. Visibility limits persist, not because Musk is a fraud but because the consumer base demands it.

We’re not a society built for unfiltered truth; we’re too hooked on comfort. The First Amendment promises a brawl of ideas. Until we grow thicker skin, we’ll keep begging someone — government, tech lords, or whoever — to play referee.

Absolute free speech isn’t a fantasy; it’s the law. Courts have defended it for decades, but we fail to actually live it. Conservatives might lead the charge, but even they flinch at speech they hate.