@brennen @cwebber @brainblasted @catonano In the US in the past the free speech battle was mainly from the left in terms of anti-communism and also suppression of protest against the draft during the Vietnam war. Communists, union organizers or even anyone suspected of holding vague left wing sympathies was removed from official positions and from the entertainment industry and anything which looked like left wing talk was removed from newspapers and magazines.

So the ability to speak and organize in public is pretty important, but this is not really what the far right are up to. They know that "free speech" is a weakness, especially in the academic environment where people are very tolerant of unconventional ideas. They know that by using this they can create shock and fear and most importantly shut down any oppositional counterspeech. Once people are in a psychological state of fear they will no longer criticize the regime and be too scared to organize in public, and that's the environment in which right wing authoritarianism thrives. The blueprint is that they always use a combination of scapegoating hate speech combined with shocking acts of violence publicized as widely as possible.