I want to take a slight break from providing examples of what does and not qualify as freedom of speech. Instead, I am going to isolate my primary argument. We should not control speech unless we are personally attached to that speech.
There is more to this issue than just the connections. Freedom of thought is more fundamental than freedom of speech. Freedom of speech should not be limited by thought. In other words, you need to maintain consistency in your handling of speech regardless of your personal beliefs.
If you believe that someone should be punished for making a controversial conservative comment, then you should support similar punishments for controversial liberal comments under similar circumstances. This might seem counterintuitive to a lot of people, but what someone has to say is pretty much irrelevant in regards to freedom of speech.
What a lot of us should be doing relates to empathy. When a story is posted related to speech, try to imagine if the roles were reversed. Would your views be consistent? For example, if someone said something that could be viewed as racist against blacks, would you view the issue the same if someone said something anti-white. If someone criticized Christianity, would you respond the same way if someone criticized Atheism?
There is one slight problem with this approach. Most people will have an answer based off of the initial incident. From there, they will try to justify what they want to believe. At the very least, let me go back to my primary argument. If we are not personally involved with speech, we have no right to censor. Imagine if you said something you believe away from your work. Someone takes offense and complains to your employer. You are then fired. Is this fair?
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