Rex Kerr
1 min readFeb 5, 2024

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It falls in the general category as the "fallacy of composition". Out of all objectionable actions, if you can show that one is (reasonably) handled a certain way, it doesn't follow that they all are.

Because I did not make a universal statement (e.g. "we must tolerate everything"), coming out with an example of things we don't tolerate ("not murder") is not germane at all to the topic. If one were to insist that it was, that would be a fallacy.

Sexual harassment is a much better example--there's a clear parallel to any kind of harassment, whether it's racial, religious, ethnic, etc. etc..

But this certainly doesn't cover cases of misinformation like "January 6 was actually Antifa" or "GMOs are bad for your health". Even if you think that the content is socially harmful and we'd be better off if people were forbidden from saying such things, you still haven't come up with a parallel that illustrates that it's already accepted.

This doesn't even get into the actually interesting argument about the value of speech in the "marketplace of ideas". So far we're trying to even get on the court, but your examples haven't gotten us there yet.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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