The Free Speech Debate (Sarah Isgur VS Jonah Goldberg) 

The real debate should be over platforming. Yes a municipality can’t discriminate against speech, but these private broadcasting companies CAN

Absolutely phenomenal discussion and debate! This is the kind of debate and discussion that is sorely needed in government and the rest of society! BTW Sarah totally owned Jonah IMO but I'm a HUGE free speech advocate like Sarah and AO host emeritus David French. Free speech is one the things I point to as an example of how wonderfully free we are in this country.

After watching this entire segment, I think it helps to clarify two points about the thinking of each disputant. I paid close attention, and thus warn that I have about three minutes worth of thoughts. * Sarah is a lawyer, and thus thinks mechanistically: process, gears, wheels. All rights and laws must be machined to 998/1000 of an inch, or someone's gears will grind. Sarah also has no confidence in judges or legislatures to eyeball the measurements. She believes all eyeballings will lead by inevitable mechanical and litigious forces to cascade system failure. *Jonah thinks philosophically: that all societies draw distinctions in judgment, and should draw them. Second, that free speech is not absolute, and is limited to operations consistent with the engineering designs in the Declaration and operational procedures of the Constitution. In my opinion, Sarah owns Jonah on his first thought. Sarah, from her high fortress of process, can fire shots off at Jonah's judgment calls all day. Jonah tries no less than six times to scale the fortress with suppositional situations, and each time Sarah trained her cannons upon those wooden ladders effectively (except pornagraphy were there is precedent [read: process], where Jonah did not press his advantage). I think Jonah's first argument can be better made after his second argument: that constitutional free speech is a means appointed to further the end of democratic republican government: and that unsavory elements have no right to brazenly opppose those ends to which free speech is appointed as a means. Once that battering ram is through the portcullis, however, Jonah can then launch into his distinctions, and what processes may be instituted to carry them out. I agree with Jonah's premise. However, Sarah won this debate.

Over the last 25 years, there has been no political pundit with whom I have been as consistently in agreement with than Jonah Goldberg. But in this debate, I am completely in agreement with Sarah. Jonah has the very understandable belief that there should be a way to prevent Nazi's from harassing Holocaust survivors without undermining the 1st Amendment. I am sure he would probably say that the Westboro Baptist Church shouldn't be allowed to protest at the funerals of fallen soldiers either. But as Sarah repeatedly said it's about process. What is the limiting principle? I could see a court deciding that denying a parade permit to the Nazi's to march through a Jewish neighborhood full of Holocaust survivors was a content restriction, but that offering them a permit to march 5 miles away satisfied strict scrutiny. Protecting the mental and emotional health of Holocaust survivors should be a compelling government interest in my opinion. Allowing them to march near, but not through the Jewish neighborhood is arguably narrowly tailored to satisfy that interest. I would be fine with such a decision. But content restrictions must be subject to strict scrutiny to be constitutional. I know I just said I am completely in agreement with Sarah, but sound like I am on Jonah's side after all. But I think their debate didn't really delve into strict scrutiny. I think I will ask Sarah in the AO comment section about whether she thought a permit to march 5 miles away could survive strict scrutiny. But whether or not we agree that it could survive there is as always the problem of who decides. Just because Supreme Court precedent creates a 3-part test for deciding whether speech is protected, that doesn't mean a judge won't put their thumb on the scale. Here is a recent example from the area of free exercise of religion. When I was in law school, I was taught that the Supreme Court had said that while a court could consider whether a religious belief was sincerely held, courts were never permitted to consider whether a religious belief was correct. But when the Little Sisters of the Poor argued that Obamacare mandates infringed on their religious beliefs, judges appointed by Democrats seemed to forget that. The Obama Administration argued that their accommodation, that the Little Sisters could file a form that would require their health insurance company to provide contraception to the Little Sisters' employees at no cost to the Little Sisters, was sufficient. The Little Sisters said that having to file that form violated their religious beliefs, Democratic appointed judges ruled it did not violate their beliefs. Now, having attended a Catholic school for 8 years, I think those judges were probably correct as a matter of Catholic dogma. But that is irrelevant, because under Supreme Court precedent all those judges were allowed to consider was whether the Sisters actually believed that filing that form violated their beliefs. That is why I am concerned that if “common sense” restrictions on free speech are permitted there will follow judges deciding that it is only common sense to protect LGBTQIA2S+ (anyone have an idea for the next letter that will be added to this acronym?) from being mis-gendered for all the reasons Sarah explained. We have to let judges judge whether a government law, regulation, or action is constitutional, but even that isn't a guarantee that minority rights will be protected. But I would rather err on the side of too much protection than too little. That is why I believe that it is probably best to allow the Nazis to march and the Westboro Baptist Church to protest. But I would shed no tears for the members of the Westboro Baptist Church if a city passed an ordnance setting the penalty for assaulting a funeral protester at $10 if no serious injury results and $20 if the protester requires a hospital stay greater than 1 week. It should still probably be murder for someone to kill a protester, but I would be OK with manslaughter or jury nullification as well. As far as Nazis are concerned, they are probably less relevant today than they were in the 1970s. Time has left very few Holocaust survivors for them to harass.

i see Jonah’s point: It’s difficult to debate how to best combat global warming when you constantly have to go back to the drawing board and argue that, yes, the earth is, in fact, a globe. 🌎

I didn't think I'd ever here such a poor argument from Jonah. He uses "Settled Ideas" as an argument--as if "Settled Ideas" is any kind of proof. "Settled" doesn't have reason behind it other than "We have decided."

I think Jack Black won this debate against Tina Fey, but they both made good points.

Jonah Goldberg is one of the few Republicans that can do a real debate on issues. He represents what conservatism should be, sane.

Sarah, there are laws against harassment …

Wow. We had this same argument back in 1985 in my HS law class. We had mock trails, I was the lawyer who was defending the KKK who wanted a permit to peacefully march as well. It was an easy case to win. Free speech is just that. You may not AGREE with what’s being said, but being in America gives people the right to peacefully SAY it.

If you dont like the laws then move. Until they pass a law that says you cant move.

9:33, true. Those really are ideas that should be accepted as axiomatic

When Sarah says "I can't come up with a way to limit it (Nazis marching), that protects all the speech that I think needs to be protected against majority opinion", it really shows the fundamental problem we are coming to as a society. This debate really pushes the listener to the idea that our "democracy" might not be working as intended. Great debate! Thank you for this video!

Am I the only one with a crush on Sarah?

37:07, comfort with contradiction

Jonah’s for “Free Speech Zones” apparently

15:24, isn’t verbal harassment illegal?

Jake&Elwood

targeting an individual… is that an acceptable distinction?

Sorry, Jonah, but Sarah kicked your butt. She has obviously thought through these issues more deeply and thoroughly than you. This debate has well worn ruts for good reason. You can't just come in and say, there must be a way to do this better, I can't think of a way right now, but surely it's possible.

what’s the line between disagreeable and obscene?

thank god for free speech , so who know who the idiots are.... moral issues are never settled... as he said, our morality continues to change, so we must continue to review them (moral issues) ezample.... slavery, abortion, womans rights....just because you are set in your morality doesnt mean its moral

Republicans like what the Nazis were saying. “They believe in it. They just don’t like the word Nazi, that’s all." ~Stormfront

DO WE NOT HATE VIOLENT TRANS ACTIVIST SPEECH ?..... PS I hate any form of NAZISM