What?! The people who ban books are a threat to free speech?

No fucking shit

What they want is freedom to control reality. What Republicans say, every day is not real, they don't live in reality. What they want is not free speech, they have that more than ever. What they want is to dictate reality to the rest of us.

All conservative are bad, acab as it were.

Always has been. They're just reaching as far as they can now.

I've found a pretty effective argument when dealing with right wingers at this point. I simply say that only one side is banning books and it's theirs, and I stick only to that. It's indefensible. They can try to twist it, say it's just protecting kids, and I will continue to say "Only the republicans are banning books". It's the end of discussion. Its shoving in their face that there is a clear line in the sand that republicans have crossed, and there is nothing they can say that would change that.

Right wing hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug. At the end of the day it's just a form of entitlement.

They'll ban books and then whine that they're being oppressed when people point out that they're scared of ideas.

Are the Antifa in the room as we speak?

Always has been though??

Something, something, fuck their feelings?

Always have been. The term has been already tainted with bigotry and violence.

Every conservative accusation is a confession.

Duh.

Free speech for me but not for thee!

Always has been

In the U.S., yes, at this moment the major threats to free speech are coming from the so-called "right". Forbidding teaching black history, LGBT issues, etc. A few years ago, lest we forget, it was Obama cracking down on the OWS protests and trying to prosecute Julian Assange and Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning. Before that it was the GOP again pushing the PATRIOT Act and trying to ban Grand Theft Auto. They did it for a long time with the Red Scare. That of course, basically kicked off in response to Stalin, who was doing his own purges of opponents and censorship. Pre-war, it was Hitler, Mussolini and Franco worst of all, but was happening in the U.S. too. That all goes back even further to the Comstock laws, the Alien and Sedition Acts, you name it. There isn't some magical quality about the directions "left" and "right" by which bad people in power in government under that label don't want to silence their opponents. There is a tendency for what we call "the right" - this kind of more-or-less fascist, religious based, emotionally charged, etc. set of ideologies - to respond more eagerly to calls to silence or brutalize opponents, because they are by and large a good bit dumber at the end of the day.

This just in: the sky is blue and grass is green.

Typical bothsideism in the comments of that site as per usual. Would love to see those bothsiders on an article stating the opposite of this one.

Take note that this is an engaging title. I'd like to see more political science discussion in this community. These opinion pieces are part not a good part of the internet. They're made for sharing and being consumed on social media.

always. every time. this is not surprising to anyone . people who act like this is untrue, or surprising, make me sick to my stomach.

The Right Wing strategy is to simply claim you are being censored or treated unfairly so that people who don't know what you're doing give you a little more leg room.

Take that leg room and use it to advance your most extreme positions, go back to claiming you're being treated unfairly if anyone calls you on it.

The final step is that you must accuse anyone actually being censored or treated unfairly off pulling this bullshit.

The Right were never free speech advocates, and if you still think they were, try using the word "cisgender" and the word "retard" on Twitter, and tell me which one gets you banned first.