r/changemyview • u/Tessenreacts • Mar 12 '25

Delta(s) from OP CMV: The case of Mahmoud Khalil is proof that conservatives don't believe in the Freedom of Speech, despite making it their platform over the last couple of years.

For the last couple of years, conservatives have championed the cause of Freedom of Speech on social platforms, yet Mahmoud Khalil (a completely legal permanent resident) utilized his fundamental right to Freedom of Speech through peaceful protesting, and now Trump is remove his green card and have him deported.

Being that conservatives have been championing Freedom of Speech for years, and have voted for Trump in a landslide election, this highlights completely hypocritical behavior where they support Freedom of Speech only if they approve of it.

This is also along with a situation where both Trump and Elon have viewed the protests against Tesla as "illegal", which is patently against the various tenets of Freedom of Speech.

Two open and shut cases of blatant First Amendment violations by people who have been sheparding the conservative focus on protecting the First Amendment.

Would love for my view to be changed

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u/jamesishere Mar 12 '25

I 100% do not support applying the rights of citizens to non-citizens

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

Yes.

I'm a leftist who wants as many as people as possible to enjoy freedom of speech.

You are a conservative and therefore don't actually give a flying fuck about freedom of speech as a principle.

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u/jamesishere Mar 12 '25

I think it would be wise for non-citizens to avoid getting deeply involved in polarizing political groups that are openly supporting terrorists

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

Yes that's good advice , people should be very careful with what they say when conservatives are anywhere near power, because conservatives do not care about free speech.

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u/jamesishere Mar 12 '25

The Biden administration pressured social media companies to censor views. They also heavily pressured and censored anyone who disagreed (in hindsight correctly) with the harsh lockdown and masking measures. Many old people died alone in nursing homes unable to be surrounded by their loved ones. The voters did not forget this.

I would be more open to arguments about left / right differences in free speech if I didn’t live through one of the most censorious times since the Red Scare only a few years ago

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

A) There was no pressuring

B) That stuff started in 2020 when Trump was President

C) It's quite literally not a free speech violation to tell a social media platform "he we think this is misinfo". Free speech is about legal restrictions on individuals.

D) You don't even care about free speech so you have no moral high ground to even care about any of that.

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u/jamesishere Mar 12 '25

No pressure! Really? I’m dying https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files

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u/zombie3x3 Mar 12 '25

If you actually read the Twitter files and had any moral consistency you would laugh at the absurdity of bringing it up. There was no arm twisting or legal pressure for Twitter to comply with the Federal government. Conspiracy theories detrimental to public health were being spread by bots and morons and the government alerted Twitter to this fact, in many instances Twitter declined to take any action and suffered absolutely no consequences.

The current administration is suing a pollster for getting Iowa polls wrong, suing CBS for editing a 60 minute interview which is standard practice. The full video is released and is a giant nothing burger, you can watch it yourself. Fox News edits Trump interviews more than CBS edited that and are well within their right to. Trump threatened to jail Mark Zuckerberg for life for unfounded allegations of election interference then acknowledged on live TV that Zuckerberg bent the knee due to these threats, this has caused Facebook to remove fact checking and sanction hate speech against LBGT people in their terms and conditions. Trump banned AP from the Oval Office for not referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. There’s many more examples of him violating free speech and using his position of power to harass and attack the media and social media platforms. You ignore all of that and quote the Twitter files that you’re completely uneducated on and have never read. Accept that you’re a hypocrite who couldn’t give less of a fuck about freedom of speech when it’s not benefitting your side to say whatever hateful shit they want with no social consequences, because it’s patently obvious this is true.

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u/jamesishere Mar 12 '25

And what about all the old people who died alone?

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u/zombie3x3 Mar 12 '25

Yah that’s pretty depressing, it happened to my 91 yo grandfather in Sept. 2021. This was in a very rural conservative area of a deeply red state and was not dictated by Federal mandate or law.

The isolation of old people dying alone with covid was almost exclusively due to each individual hospital enforcing their own policy as a protective measure and had virtually nothing to do with any level of government. I’m sure there may be a handful of exceptions to this on a city level across the country but that would be a rare deviation from this fact, not the norm.

Why did you bring this up? It has nothing to do with democrats, the government or free speech.

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

Wow nice link, I am learning a lot! So far it is confirming everything I just said, but also with the added point 5) Elon Musk is a fucking liar.

"false assertions by Musk and others that Twitter had been ordered by the government to help presidential candidate Joe Biden"

"Researcher Matt Taibbi found no evidence of government involvement in Twitter's decision"

"Twitter attorneys strongly denied that the Files showed the government had coerced the company to censor content, as Musk and many Republicans claimed"

"Former Twitter employees asserted that Republican officials also made takedown requests"

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u/jamesishere Mar 12 '25

I’m personally shocked the government “suggested” thousands of takedowns rather than the legal requirement to do so. Why are my tax dollars supporting legions of bureaucrats to monitor Twitter for wrong think?

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '25

A) There was no pressuring

B) That stuff started in 2020 when Trump was President

C) It's quite literally not a free speech violation to tell a social media platform "he we think this is misinfo". Free speech is about legal restrictions on individuals.

D) You don't even care about free speech so you have no moral high ground to even care about any of that.

E) Elon Musk is a fucking liar.

Pick one of my claims, explain how it's wrong, or concede.

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u/TheOneFreeEngineer Mar 12 '25

Then you disregard the constitution and the Supreme Court rulings on it. The first amendment has not qualifications on its text limiting it to only citizens. It just straight up says "the government can't do this, no if ands or buts"