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The following is the full text of a post on Facebook by Wil Wheaton, just in case it gets lost later for whatever reason:
"I just watched this idiot reporter on KCAL questioning people who were protesting outside of the Republican State Convention in Northern California today.
"They were, unsurprisingly, protesting Donald Trump's rhetoric and message. They were largely younger people, and they were unhappy about his misogyny, bigotry, racism, and xenophobia.
"So this stupid reporter, who either knows better and doesn't care, or is so profoundly ignorant of what he's reporting on he shouldn't be there, starts asking the protesters, 'Don't you think Donald Trump has the right to free speech?'
"Okay, stupid, let's break this down for you because apparently any idiot can call himself a reporter these days and get hired by a network. The protesters aren't government or law enforcement, or agents of the state, so they can't abridge or prevent Trump's speech. They aren't using the apparatus of the state to interfere with his ability to say whatever he wants, so the question about his free speech is irrelevant.
"This idiot is asking the wrong question because he's lazy, stupid, unprepared, or being deliberately obtuse. The question is not 'don't you think Donald Trump has a right to free speech' the question is ... well, just to pull three off the top of my non-professional-journalist head: 'Why do you feel this way, why are you here, what do you hope to accomplish?'
"This idiot did nothing to educate his viewers, and instead spread the false idea that challenging someone's ideas has anything to do with that person's constitutionally-protected right to free speech. This stupid reporter has conflated Free Speech with speech free of consequence, which is something I'd expect from a 12 year-old, not someone who is allegedly a professional television reporter."
I agree with everything he said here.
I also scrolled down through the comments, just to see if anyone had posted this xkcd comic, and if they hadn't, I was going to do so myself. Someone had already beaten me to it, so I didn't need to do so.
Hell, I'll actually embed that xkcd comic here, in addition to the link I gave above:
Mouseover-text for the image (which I can't attach to the image embed itself here, thanks to LiveJournal's still present bug [or, rather, I could attach it, but it'd look like shit]): "I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express."
In the United States of America, your speech is (supposed to be) protected by the government. That is to say, the government, through law enforcement or whatever, cannot (or isn't supposed to be able to) silence the voice of any citizens or groups of citizens, as long as they are not actively causing real, actual harm to other people, such as in the age-old example of falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. This is what is meant by the term "freedom of speech," as defined by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. That's all it means. What it does not mean is "freedom from any and all consequences," which is what far, far too many people seem to mistakenly believe it means. Everyone in the USA who starts bawwing "Free speech! Free speech!" every time someone rightly protests the asinine horseshit that comes out of their mouths (or, say, shows up in their posts on any given forums, right before they get banned) is merely showing their asininity in yet another way.
"I just watched this idiot reporter on KCAL questioning people who were protesting outside of the Republican State Convention in Northern California today.
"They were, unsurprisingly, protesting Donald Trump's rhetoric and message. They were largely younger people, and they were unhappy about his misogyny, bigotry, racism, and xenophobia.
"So this stupid reporter, who either knows better and doesn't care, or is so profoundly ignorant of what he's reporting on he shouldn't be there, starts asking the protesters, 'Don't you think Donald Trump has the right to free speech?'
"Okay, stupid, let's break this down for you because apparently any idiot can call himself a reporter these days and get hired by a network. The protesters aren't government or law enforcement, or agents of the state, so they can't abridge or prevent Trump's speech. They aren't using the apparatus of the state to interfere with his ability to say whatever he wants, so the question about his free speech is irrelevant.
"This idiot is asking the wrong question because he's lazy, stupid, unprepared, or being deliberately obtuse. The question is not 'don't you think Donald Trump has a right to free speech' the question is ... well, just to pull three off the top of my non-professional-journalist head: 'Why do you feel this way, why are you here, what do you hope to accomplish?'
"This idiot did nothing to educate his viewers, and instead spread the false idea that challenging someone's ideas has anything to do with that person's constitutionally-protected right to free speech. This stupid reporter has conflated Free Speech with speech free of consequence, which is something I'd expect from a 12 year-old, not someone who is allegedly a professional television reporter."
I agree with everything he said here.
I also scrolled down through the comments, just to see if anyone had posted this xkcd comic, and if they hadn't, I was going to do so myself. Someone had already beaten me to it, so I didn't need to do so.
Hell, I'll actually embed that xkcd comic here, in addition to the link I gave above:
Mouseover-text for the image (which I can't attach to the image embed itself here, thanks to LiveJournal's still present bug [or, rather, I could attach it, but it'd look like shit]): "I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express."
In the United States of America, your speech is (supposed to be) protected by the government. That is to say, the government, through law enforcement or whatever, cannot (or isn't supposed to be able to) silence the voice of any citizens or groups of citizens, as long as they are not actively causing real, actual harm to other people, such as in the age-old example of falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. This is what is meant by the term "freedom of speech," as defined by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. That's all it means. What it does not mean is "freedom from any and all consequences," which is what far, far too many people seem to mistakenly believe it means. Everyone in the USA who starts bawwing "Free speech! Free speech!" every time someone rightly protests the asinine horseshit that comes out of their mouths (or, say, shows up in their posts on any given forums, right before they get banned) is merely showing their asininity in yet another way.
