I take zero pleasure in saying this, but "the other side" is fucking insane. There's no arguing from first principles, let alone acknowledging that there are issues of concern with one's propositions.

In the case of "free speech", there's a failure to acknowledge the fundamental proposition of it when used in the US -- in that it's about the government not being able to prosecute you for speech that it doesn't like. This is literally the basis of the OP.

I'm a fan of Christopher Hitchens and he embodied that "free speech absolutism" argument convincingly (as otherwise its a pathway to censorship and oppression), but I think it's also important to recognize Karl Popper's Intolerance of Intolerance.

This stuff is no longer idle speculation -- it is an active facet of authoritarianism that is playing out around us right now.

Note that I'm not an American, but I know a grifter and an asshole when I see one and trump is both, without a doubt. If you believe the two parties in the USA are equal in this sense then you are willfully blind at this point.

The number of people that are comfortable with outright racism and xenophobia on HN is scary, the number of people that are unable to see the hand behind the curtain during a time when we were very vulnerable and who seem to take their personal comfort above the health of others is scary as well. But I guess that what you get when you tell a good chunk of the world that they are movie stars authors and celebrities.

COVID was interesting: as pandemics go this was a mild one, and yet, we fucked it up and here you are using it as a plank in your argument that the government has too much power. Sorry, but if that was your takeaway then you really were not paying attention and you probably have no clue about biology.

If you have the time and the spare cash go buy the book Spillover, read it and then check the date when it was written. Also realize that it is about the next pandemic, not the previous one. It probably won't do your sleep any good but at least you'll be a bit better informed.

Clearly you're not stupid, this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46983287

was on the money. Now follow the money and see where it leads.

Also, and final note on this: from the perspective of many other countries the USA has a one party system, with one party as a milder version of the other, but that doesn't mean that that not-so-mild version does not have some material differences, and that some of those differences may well lead to destabilizing the country on a scale not seen since the last few hundred years.