Again , I ' m not arguing that you ' re wrong about which kinds of corrective agendas jeopardize more important values or freedoms . I ' m simply arguing that setting up the debate as corrective forces vs . noncorrective forces is not going to lead to a constructive discussion . That was not my intent . I am speaking of course about the specific culture war strategy of censorship , especially the general forcible prohibition of certain words or phrases the attempt to change culture by manually changing the language . This is what I refer to when I say Such shaping . This is what I say is as far as I have seen impossible to do ethically , in public arenas . That ' s your belief , but it ' s a controversial one , and you never really argued for it . In my experience , focusing on physical or direct individual harm ignores other problems which may end up causing more harm in the aggregate . I ' m not sure why you would dismiss this so casually . Harm to who or what ? Actual or ' philosophical persons '? And , how immediate or imminent a threat of actual harm ? How confident in your assessment ? These are the issues with use of force . When it comes to this kind of speech control , I have never seen there to be a justifiable case . It is my firm conviction , admittedly a controversial one , today , that the rights of a ' philosophical person ' should never supersede an actual one . There may be a line which can be drawn , but your common sense is not the obvious arbiter of that line . Actual damages . Actual harm . The line is already drawn . And even then , there is deliberately usually no prior restraint involved in libel , slander , or invasion of privacy cases . The punishment is a remunerative measure after the damage has already occurred , not something done to proactively restrict the free exchange of ideas .