The right do not have a point if they refuse to stay within the bounds of civil discourse.

There’s another saying that applies. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

True freedom of speech depends upon two things. Equity and civility. You cannot horde those things for your own group but deny them to another. It’s not a one way street.

If backlash to woke culture is a “fair” point of the right, you must also concede that woke or cancel culture as a backlash to the far right (dismantling fairness doctrine which led to Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones making money off of hate speech) is a “fair" point. It is. It is a direct result of 20+ years of shock jock hate and vitriol thrown at the left and protected groups couched as political doctrine and ideology.

Is that not also a “fair" point of the left? Honestly?

This isn’t one side or the other is more right and virtuous and the other is more wrong and corrupt/anti-democratic toward the other. It’s a natural progression and escalation of the breakdown of civil discourse. It’s what’s bound to happen when the rules of fair play are tossed out of the sandbox and all the players start acting like monkeys in a cage throwing feces at each other fits of pique instead of actin like intelligent, passionate but respectful, human beings who don’t take their emotional state out on others.

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Both sides need to clean up their own houses before criticizing the other side.

The right needs to reckon with the legacies of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, Fox News, et al and accept some culpability to the current situation. They need to come up with a plan and put it into action to restore a fairness doctrine BEFORE whining about how their free speech is being suppressed and they’re a victim of cancel culture. Do that before pointing fingers at and demanding that the left fix it’s problems.

Otherwise your “righteous backlash" will only spawn another equally “righteous backlash" from the other side. Round and round we go in one performance of public censure after another.

Protecting free speech means more than protecting the right to say whatever you want.

It means censuring speech that slanders, rebuking speech that lies, chastising speech that abuses or is obscene, and condemning acts that violate equity. Particularly within your own group.

Otherwise free speech will not, cannot survive. For any of us.