Sam. Where to start?
Keep in mind that I was principally trying to reconstruct from memory John Stuart Mill’s approach to the problem, c. 1850. Admittedly, I don’t have much problem with it, though unsurprisingly the argument could certainly be updated.
Let me go back to the “Fundamentalist” bit, because that may shed some insight on the differences between modern conservatives and contemporary lefties --something which continues to puzzle me-- rather than rehashing the justifications for governmental intervention --something we’re both familiar with.
------ Would you then consider yourself a ‘speech fundamentalist’? Or an ‘abortion fundamentalist’?
Abortion:
Here lefties have 2 prongs. One, they support a woman’s right to chooses, which has the flavor of a non-negotiable demand. But consider the second. In Roe v. Wade, Blackmun posited that the state had an, " important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life," one which however had to be balanced against other interests, among them the health of the mother. Here, we have a drift into medical issues and the language of tradeoffs. We veer away from an absolutist reliance on non-empirical principles.
Speech Fundamentalism:
This one is more interesting. Firstly, I wouldn’t mind being called a "Free Speech Fundamentalist: it sounds a lot like “First Amendment Absolutist”, a moniker which I have on occasion applied to myself.
Yet neither is entirely accurate. There are solid pragmatic grounds for supporting a free press, among them social and technological advance. Yet, I would also consider the right to free expression an intrinsic good (though it is also an extrinsic one).
The issue gets confusing, since I can’t remember coming across a decent empirical argument against free speech, so I’m not sure which basis I would use to defend it. What I’ve seen are “right against right” arguments. Specifically, wannabe censors point out that certain articles are repulsive for various reasons. But that hardly shows compelling harm.
Where compelling harm can be shown, it usually falls under, “Time, Place and Circumstance”, which I don’t have a problem with regulating (along US lines).
What you would have to show, Sam, is an example whereby a social or economic conservative proposes an empirically-based argument against free speech, and our hypothetical liberal rejects it purely on the grounds of freedom.
(( My speech argument seems weak here, btw. ))
To sharpen the debate, let me offer a working hypothesis:
Modern conservatives have a greater tendency to use absolutist arguments and an aversion to empirical analysis, relative to contemporary liberals. It’s not that liberal analysis never utilizes abstractions such as privacy or personal freedom. Rather, I’m saying that some sort of empirical justification typically leavens such appeals. [1]
Incidentally, methinks that Sam is far too sensible an individual to be a Fundamentalist anything, per se. However, since he’s reasonably adept at constructing market fundamentalist arguments, it may aid the fight against ignorance to assume otherwise for the sake of argument.
[1] I’m guessing that the roles may have been reversed in the 1970s. Nixon liked to claim that both Republicans and Democrats would set up certain social programs (e.g. the EPA); the difference between them was that the Repubs would do things right (In Nixon’s Less Than Entirely Humble Opinion).
