I see.
"Freedom" is the metric for you.
You say:
You see, I happen to think that freedom means I have every right to say what I want, with reason, and you have every right to not like it...[...]
Rather absolutist, but you include "with reason" (I assume you meant "within reason") as wiggle room. What qualifies as "within reason" to you?
Does society and do individuals have rights other than freedom of expression that need to be balanced in this situation?
I think so. I believe in a social contract (but not necessarily a doctrinaire Social Contract). I think many of the tea-party-aligned candidates went over the line in the last election. The genuine battle of ideas that is essential in our political system can't occur when implicit threats of violence are a major part of the rhetoric. Yelling back and forth in such an environment of intimidation isn't freedom.
I think we all are aware that freedom of speech and expression is precious and I don't think people who think about it carefully are advocating draconian laws against incitement. But it's naive to argue that language doesn't matter. Dehumanizing and eliminationist language is dangerous and should not be tolerated in political discourse. History tells us that Language is more than just Words. For example - http://www.informawo...ontent=a743739870
My $0.02. FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.