Law also involves some interpretation, but yes, if a person loses certain rights under certain circumstances — and it's a pretty good reason — comparable circumstances should produce a similar outcome the next time.

I'm "going a little off now" because there's no way to apply rights without being very very clear that principles can't be applied in an absolute sense. I think society should try to manage people's rights so that people can exercise them as fairly as possible, but being "fair" means limiting people's rights, for…

#1 - my right to liberty vs. the other person's right to life.

Not necessarily under all circumstances. I think we should foster property rights and free speech in general, but neither are absolute. I don't believe people should be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. I don't believe free speech allows me to keep the neighbors awake.

Here's a law that respects exactly one principle: my right to free speech, being absolute, means that anything at all that interferes with my free speech must be banned. If we're serious about that, that means that newspapers have to print anything and everything I want them to, upon request. In fact, newspapers are…

My right to swing my fist stops at the other person's nose.

Wait, you're asking me to lay out an entire body of law governing free speech? We already have one … and it not only governs free speech but also other principles that free speech comes in conflict with. For example, my free speech on my property does not mean I can play an air raid siren at 90 dB at 3am, because I…

You probably can't have one with A principle. You can have laws that balance two or more principles, though.

"You don't necessarily have to be a philosopher, you just have to understand that a principle is destroyed and meaningless if it isn't consistent and cannot be applied consistently - it's just a bunch of words with no attachment to the real world."

I am not a philosopher and I don't know what the term for this is, so I'll let you put a name to it. But here is the problem: holding any basically good principle as an absolute to be defended under all circumstances, demotes all other principles to complete irrelevance, and also makes things weird and stupid.

"That argument or point, removes any separation between an idea and an act - which has always been the defining line of what was and was not considered free speech."

Yep, that's the big hole in my theory. Unless they were lying, my idea doesn't hold up.

Oh, so it's "ideas you hate". I'm calling BS on that. The sorts of ideas that are crushed on campus, and rightfully so, are the ones that encourage disenfranchisement and oppression. That's the point Zakaria is trying very hard not to come clean about. He's not even good at trying to dance around the point.

Ah, Zakaria is trotting out the old "if you were tolerant you'd be tolerant of intolerance" argument. I'm not fooled for an instant.

Huh, turns out Jeremy Christian was a Bernie Bro.

That is a story worth telling! The Doctor is usually pretty good about not being cynical, so it would likely need to be some group or other that he has some history with.

… hey, aren't we supposed to get Mondasian Cybermen this season, you know, the guys who look like a cross between the Greendale Human Being and Kickpuncher? I wonder if the Monks are cadaverous because their bodies are breaking down and they need cybernetic. Probably doesn't hold up, but it would tie a couple things…

I wonder if the "consent" thing is, the Monks have learned through their simulations that things will go to shit for them unless the earth's peoples side with them voluntarily? Arrive with massive spaceships and threats like the Sycorax, and you'll get a Doctorin', and maybe get blown up by a gigantic secret death…

Do voters have any responsibilities here? The Left is so desperately afraid of being "sheeple" they contrive excuse after excuse not to vote; surely that's a completely unnecessary self-inflicted wound.

Man, Opera. I was a very early adopter — I took to Opera in 1995 or 1996, back when they were still announcing enhancements like the ability to display animated GIFs — but goddamn if they haven't systematically taken out all the features that made me like it in the first place.