Like all conservative arguments I’ve seen, you make everything sound so simple. Or simpler than it is, anyway.

For example, if we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, should we be platforming people who are lying and/or spreading dishonesty through ignorance? They claim it’s true, but we know it’s not. And they’re probably lying anyway.

Just accept that your free speech stance will cost lives.

That’s what COVID misinformation did — estimates in 2022 were that up to 1/3 of deaths in the U.S. could have been prevented if everyone had been vaccinated. That’s over 300,000 lives lost. Without clamping down on misinformation, it would have been worse. And it wasn’t just a “do what you believe is right” situation since every unvaccinated person threatens the health of everyone they come in contact with. Had social media posted COVID misinformation freely, it would have put literally millions more people at risk.

Worse yet, we got incredibly lucky with COVID. What if it had a fatality rate one percent higher? It would have been horrifying, exponentially worse than it was. That virus, and far worse, are out there somewhere. Given the right’s campaign for anti-science free speech, when one strikes the financial and human costs will be staggering.

How “free” is that speech now?

You seem to feel that “misgendering people or making claims about gender that a few years ago would have been seen as stating the obvious” should be acceptable. But times and mores change.

If you wonder why the LGBT community is so vocal, it’s because when I was a kid, it was OK, if not encouraged, to slander and libel them. They faced the constant threat of physical and emotional violence, all the while knowing law enforcement wouldn’t help. Thank heavens there was no Twitter because freely posting whatever anyone wanted to say would have created a f*cking nightmare. But the problems aren’t gone even today. What do we do with people trying to stir up hatred against them? Lives will be ruined or lost because they aren’t powerful enough to stand up to the wider society. What was normal in the past they’d like to see become discrimination.

Women would also like to put some things in the rearview. I was alive to see the last state allow women to take out a loan or credit card without a male cosigner. Sexual harassment at work was the norm, not the exception. Rape is rarely prosecuted now; then, it was rarely even brought up. Husbands beat wives who mostly had no choice but to stay quiet. Even conservative women would like all that to be discrimination now. Should people be allowed to speak freely, even though it will create a hostile environment for women who lack the power to make it stop?

As for trans issues, history is quite clear — unless Tr*mp and his ilk keep their promises to destroy Western civilization as we know it and rebuild along the lines of Russia and Hungary, people will one day talk about your position on trans issues in the same breath as the KKK, hunting for “queers” to beat up, and making “horizontal shorthand” an unstated requirement for women in the workplace.

Stand on principle if you wish, but how will that feel?

You claim “speech was being dictated along the ideological lines of the political left.” If you want free speech for anything people claim to think is true, all I ask is to please lay out the boundaries. Or is it a free-for-all?

Censoring vaccine deniers saved tens or hundreds of thousands of lives. Many pro-Tr*mp and pro-Republican accounts are run by foreign operatives trying to weaken the country. The national security agencies would rather they not be given free rein, and without the misinformation campaigns, Tr*mp would never have been elected president in 2016, 2020, or 2024. Is that OK?

It certainly is for Musk, who not only contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Republicans but also used his power to open a free channel for dishonesty to sway the election. Does that count as a campaign contribution?

So it’s not easy: you have to decide where you stand on dishonesty, racist, sexist, and homophobic speech, and more. Are you willing to meet with the people who are harmed face-to-face and admit their fate was in your hands, and you chose to let the lies and hate flow?

Having read what you’ve written, you seem to believe the ideology of the political left is to save lives, protect the vulnerable, and have free and fair elections. That doesn’t sound so bad.

But I know it’s not as easy or simple as that, because nothing is. My opinions on censorship have conflicts, too. Every action has a reaction, every freedom has consequences.

Everybody has to choose. It may be painful, but it should be. Who do you support, and who do you choose to oppress? When it comes to hurting people, there’s no “none of the above” option.

You can side with conservatives, who mostly face nothing more than bruised feelings, if you like. I prefer to protect the truly vulnerable. Both positions have upsides and downsides, but we all must own up to them. Peevish handwaving isn’t enough.