Freedom of speech isn’t about saying the normal things that normal people say, because these things don’t need protection. It’s about saying things that are very offensive to the large majority of people. The latter is restricted in many parts of Europe and you probably don’t feel those restrictions personally because they don’t apply to what you want to say, but that doesn’t mean that you have free speech. If the offensive people don’t have it, no one has it.

I do have to concede that European restrictions on speech have not created a slippery slope to dictatorship. I still defend a nearly absolute right to free speech because that’s a principle I believe in.