No, that’s how John Milton rolled.
I had the option of a variant that has been reworded to modern speak:
Thus, it is how I rolled.
I posted this in the other thread, it’s a tad less taxing than Milton:
Who is disagreeing with this? What specific policies or tactics are in conflict with this? Calls for boycotts and the like are just another form of speech.
Yeah but you’re pro censorship because you’d deny subsides request to draw a swastika on the side of your house iiandyiiii!
LOL. Somehow “someone’s” because “subsides”. Damn auto-correct!
I’m still stunned that, apparently, we need to explain that other people’s houses are not ‘free speech zones’.
Trying to get someone fired and ostracised isn’t murder, no. They probably won’t literally starve to death in the street - a few have committed suicide, though. It’s not a totally bloodless crime.
I already said that I think you should combat it with argument and evidence rather than trying to suppress it. For multiple reasons:
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A strong free speech culture is healthier for society. It’s not always obvious which ideas are good or correct, and if you suppress those that don’t fit your worldview, you never find out that you were wrong - or you learn it from experience, after people have suffered for your mistake.
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Mob justice isn’t just. Not everyone targeted by cancel mobs was guilty of what they were accused of, and guilt-by-association is relatively common. (I recall a case where a teen girl posted something racist on social media, and people called for a boycott of her father’s business. What was he supposed to do, disown his daughter?) Plus with viral social media, the ‘punishment’ is commonly disproportionate to the offence.
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It’s more effective to convince people you are right than to try and prevent them hearing objectionable speech. Especially in the age of the internet, it’s extremely hard to police what people are exposed to. And you can’t simultaneously deplatform and debate someone.
The appropriate comparator is literal lynch mobs. Whatever the failings of the US justice system (and I recently saw a paper claiming there is rather little bias) I’m confident everyone can agree it’s better than that.
So what, specifically, have I said that conflicts with any of this?
That’s certainly how it works worked in the US. /s
When they are aimed at censorship, they are opposed to the spirit of free speech.
What if they’re aimed at demonstrating consequences for, say, advocacy for white supremacism or genocide? Back to the coffee shop example – if I find out the owner is a white supremacist, and is using his profits to fund white supremacist causes, is it “censorship” if I expose this fact and urge others to no longer support this business? Is it wrong, in your opinion?
You are defending boycotts, doxxing, and other actions aimed at censoring ideas you disapprove of, and punishing anyone who tries to speak about them. Y’know, exactly the things I just said were bad. And unless you have radically changed your views since 2021, ‘ideas @iiandyiiii disapproves of’ is a rather expansive list.
That’s a false reading of my position (I’ve said that occasionally those tools can be warranted), and always has been. I’ve been much, much more nuanced and careful. And IIRC, you’ve admitted that, in certain circumstances, boycotts and doxxing are okay.
AFAICT our positions overall are no different, philosophically speaking – we both agree they can be warranted in some circumstances. We just disagree on some of those circumstances.
If you disagree, please be very, very specific. You’ve been incredibly vague (and largely incorrect) in your characterizations of my positions.
I’d really like to see your answer to the “Nazi coffeeshop” hypothetical.
You are mostly describing an ideal world in which the best expressions of American freedoms produce the desired outcomes of a better world. I can’t imagine anybody here disagreeing with that.
Yet you started this thread by defending McCarthyism, an era that totally defied every ideal of free speech and free thought in ways that eventually disgusted even most supporters.
Perhaps reality is not an ideal world in which lofty claims can be used as digs at others who don’t parse the meaning of words exactly like you do.
So nuanced that you’ve been unable to come with any kind of guidelines for when you think they are okay and when they are not. 
I know I disagree with your judgement on cases that have been brought up in the past. How can I characterise your position when you are unable or unwilling to offer any kind of justification for your decisions?
Here are some guidelines I think are reasonable: you should not try to censor views that are well within the Overton window. You should not censor factual claims, unless they are very well established to be false, and no new evidence is offered. You should not try to prevent debate on a ‘live’ issue: if you are currently trying to change laws or customs, it’s not moral to try to censor objections or prevent people advocating for their own interests. You are especially likely to stifle valid objections if you do. If the number of banned topics is rapidly increasing, you should worry that something is wrong.
That was not a defence of McCarthyism. It was pointing out that the arguments used to defend ‘cancelling’ and blacklisting today could also be used to defend aspects of the Red Scare. I do not subscribe to those arguments, and I suspect our current era will be viewed in a similar light by historians.
Eta: it wasn’t supposed to be a ‘gotcha’. I thought everyone was aware of my stance on free speech.
Because the world is not nearly so simple. Every single “rule” would have exceptions. The best way to sum it up is to try and only use boycotts or doxxing when it’s truly necessary, usually to show that certain flavors of advocacy should not be welcome in civilized society. White supremacism should not be welcome. Nor should advocacy for genocide. Or legalizing child molestation. Or destroying democracy and replacing it with authoritarianism.
Even these would have exceptions – if someone is sitting in their basement and making dumb social media posts with no following, even if they’re terrible, then I’d probably be in favor of ignoring him.
And exceptions could go the other way too – if someone is a multi-billionaire, and using their vast fortune to, say, deconstruct the US federal government and harm their political/business “enemies”, even if they’re not openly advocating for genocide or white supremacism, then I’m definitely in favor of organizing boycotts against them. If they’re using internet anonymous socks to boost their views, those socks should be exposed.
So back to the Nazi coffee-shop, which you still haven’t answered. Suppose I find out that the owner of the local coffee shop is using his profits to advocate for white supremacist causes, and using an anonymous internet identity to push this advocacy. Is it wrong for me to expose this, and advocate for people to stop buying coffee there?
When is it truly necessary? That’s the question here. How are you deciding? I’m not asking you for a black and white rule, no exceptions, that I’m going to hold you to in perpetuity. Just some kind of principle that isn’t ‘what my tribe happens to believe in <current year>’
There are views that were seen as extreme and unacceptable in the past that are now unexceptional. My atheism, for example. So I don’t find the argument that certain ideas are ‘obviously’ wrong and harmful, and therefore must be suppressed particularly compelling. No doubt many of them are. But how are you going to find out which without giving them a fair hearing?