Comment by II2II

In that case, even as an ideal, free speech does not exist. Someone can proclaim that I should be killed because of a certain opinion that I voice. Now there are only four outcomes to that scenario: (a) I take the threat seriously and stop voicing that opinion, in which case they have suppressed my freedom of speech; (b) I take the threat seriously and use it to suppress their freedom of speech, (c) I ignore the threat, yet someone else takes it seriously and, as a natural consequence of being dead, they have suppressed my freedom of speech; or (d) I ignore the threat and nothing happens, so nobody's freedom of speech is violated. The problem is, there is no guarantee of scenario (d). This leads to the freedom of speech being used as a tool to suppress the freedom of speech.

This is not a simple matter of people saying things that are undesirable, or even heretical. It is not a matter of someone saying something hateful, then ignoring them as a hater, because chances are they want to suppress the speech of those they hate.