Comment by dahart
2 months ago
Free speech has exceptions that include commercial speech and advertising, especially false advertising. So are you talking about US free speech laws, or about some other kind of free speech?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
US law is not a natural right and does not grant the right to say anything. You can claim and exercise a perceived natural right to say anything, you just won’t be protected from punishment under US law for saying certain things.
A law cannot remove a natural right. A law can protect a natural right or oppress people by using violence against them if they exercise their natural right.
One stark example is the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in the United States. This law required that escaped slaves, even if they reached free states, be captured and returned to their owners. It went further by mandating that citizens and law enforcement in free states assist in this process, effectively making it illegal to help runaway slaves. Penalties for non-compliance were harsh—fines and imprisonment loomed over anyone who aided a fugitive.
By today’s standards, this is widely seen as abhorrent because it not only upheld slavery but forced people to actively participate in it, stripping away any moral or legal refuge for those seeking freedom. It’s a glaring relic of a time when human beings were legally treated as property, clashing hard with modern values of liberty and equality.
That’s great, but not what I asked about. Free speech protections in the US are based on laws and not natural rights.
Well that's not how it reads in historical documents to me. But you're free to have that opinion if you want to.
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