Canadian Politics Today

Absolute nonsense.  Conservative speakers have been banned or stopped via the heckler's veto from speaking at universities/colleges across the continent because they say things that offend liberal-minded students and faculty.

Fair enough.  But I also didn't include Colin Kaepernick as an example (or something like the Dixie Chicks case) because it's a branch of freedom of speech.

Speech, expression, free thought is a natural right we all are born with.   People, in the state of nature, have the freedom to do anything they please.  But in a society with a government authority, government can limit rights & actions of people through laws.  If you refuse to follow these laws, like a hate speech law, the government will come to your home and use violence on you & lock you up. 

True.  In nature, people can say what they like, or steal or murder to their own delight.

Let's all think about that for a second.  If we refuse to follow any law, armoured men will arrive at our homes, break open the door, and drag us away and violently assault or shoot us if we don't comply.  All laws are decrees ordered to be complied through threat of violence by the state.  So that said, it shouldn't be up to citizens to justify why we should have a particular right, it ultimately should be up to legislators (maker of laws) to justify why our rights should be curtailed by force/threat of violence.

I would characterize the justification of why we should have a right, or conversely a law, as a public discussion.  I think citizens may demand rights or laws, and legislators may respond or vice-versa but ok.

So, why should we have free speech?  Because we're born free in this world to do whatever the heck we want, unless our rights conflict with the rights of others.  Why should free speech be sometimes curtailed?  Because some speech (ie: threats of violence) can clash with the rights of others, ie: to be free from threats of violence.

Yes, this is a good reason as to why we should have free speech but not why we do.  The reason why we do is because it works.  More below.

And yes you could argue this is a libertarian argument, but it's more accurately an argument for liberalism in general.

Yes.  The only thing we're leaving out is the utility of this right.  Tribal societies believe themselves to be special, and we are no different.  As such, the rights and mechanics we have evolved in our open, democratic, and economically 'advanced' societies are seen and taught as a point of pride.  Of course we should be proud of these things, but we need to understand why they work so we can continue to improve them.

Democracy is another example of something that people vapidly parrot as a good thing, with no idea of why it's necessary, how it evolved, and what needs to happen to it to move it forward.  I don't expect the 80% of the masses to have any idea or participate in such a discussion but even then I fear that few of us understand what is happening.

Even Justin Trudeau has publicly stated that he admires China's system, as I am told anyway.   We are admiring authoritarian states because they are better at mobilizing against large common problems quickly (they are), and they have been better to their middle classes (they are).  But we can repeat to ourselves that we are 'free' I suppose.

It's vanity.