Having a free will does not mean having freedom from the consequences of choices. When your free speech results only in harm to yourself, nobody cares if you lie, but it is different when it results in real harm to others. This is why slander with the intent to destroy someone's reputation is illegal, and it is the reason Kyle Rittenhouse is now a millionaire.
This is precisely the point the globalists and their leftist minions have corrupted to persecute good people, and it is all based on lies established to be "official truth" for no other reason than because they say so. This is bad enough, but the issue of free speech becomes a different animal when they seek to codify their speech to be the only lawful speech. In the tradition of tyrants they have exalted the official narrative above the law, declaring the lie to be the truth, which is a lie in itself. They then use that to justify persecuting dissenters with or without the law's consent because according to their lie, people are being hurt by the "disinformation" and extreme measures are required. Nowhere has this been this more evident than in the medical lies surrounding the covid "pandemic," which they used to justify tyranny. It only fell apart because uncompromising people exposed it by telling the truth about what was really going on (often at great cost to themselves.). Should the ones who lied not be held accountable for their lies when a lot of people have died or become permanently injured because of them?
Philosophical questions about free speech do not matter when people's lives are weighed against it. A person in a crowded theater may not yell "FIRE!" when there is no fire, and the reason is obvious. If someone is trampled to death because of his moral freedom to utter a lie, he will be charged with manslaughter (or her and she if the shouter is a genetic female). My point is that it is perfectly justifiable for a society to make reasonable decisions about what people may and may not do in specific situations, and by reasonable, I mean non-burdensome and restricted in scope.
What is not justifiable is what the liberals have done, and no philosophical question about whether they have the moral freedom to lie will exonerate them. With lies they have turned justice upside down to become injustice, and with lies they turned free speech into something that exclusively protects their speech and justifies the persecution of truth-tellers. Speech has an inherent responsibility for its consequences, and liberal liars are responsible for industrial-scale death, injustice, and mayhem because of their lies. It is not okay.
On the point of telling the truth about whether your wife looks fat in a dress, I would say the issue leading to a divorce is having an infantile narcissistic wife who is making you responsible for her happiness. Get that straightened out, and you will not have to lie to her to preserve your marriage.
Having a free will does not mean having freedom from the consequences of choices. When your free speech results only in harm to yourself, nobody cares if you lie, but it is different when it results in real harm to others. This is why slander with the intent to destroy someone's reputation is illegal, and it is the reason Kyle Rittenhouse is now a millionaire.
This is precisely the point the globalists and their leftist minions have corrupted to persecute good people, and it is all based on lies established to be "official truth" for no other reason than because they say so. This is bad enough, but the issue of free speech becomes a different animal when they seek to codify their speech to be the only lawful speech. In the tradition of tyrants they have exalted the official narrative above the law, declaring the lie to be the truth, which is a lie in itself. They then use that to justify persecuting dissenters with or without the law's consent because according to their lie, people are being hurt by the "disinformation" and extreme measures are required. Nowhere has this been this more evident than in the medical lies surrounding the covid "pandemic," which they used to justify tyranny. It only fell apart because uncompromising people exposed it by telling the truth about what was really going on (often at great cost to themselves.). Should the ones who lied not be held accountable for their lies when a lot of people have died or become permanently injured because of them?
Philosophical questions about free speech do not matter when people's lives are weighed against it. A person in a crowded theater may not yell "FIRE!" when there is no fire, and the reason is obvious. If someone is trampled to death because of his moral freedom to utter a lie, he will be charged with manslaughter (or her and she if the shouter is a genetic female). My point is that it is perfectly justifiable for a society to make reasonable decisions about what people may and may not do in specific situations, and by reasonable, I mean non-burdensome and restricted in scope.
What is not justifiable is what the liberals have done, and no philosophical question about whether they have the moral freedom to lie will exonerate them. With lies they have turned justice upside down to become injustice, and with lies they turned free speech into something that exclusively protects their speech and justifies the persecution of truth-tellers. Speech has an inherent responsibility for its consequences, and liberal liars are responsible for industrial-scale death, injustice, and mayhem because of their lies. It is not okay.
On the point of telling the truth about whether your wife looks fat in a dress, I would say the issue leading to a divorce is having an infantile narcissistic wife who is making you responsible for her happiness. Get that straightened out, and you will not have to lie to her to preserve your marriage.