It is important to note, however, that the vast majority of people who oppose limiting free speech on political grounds are not free speech absolutists. They all have their exceptions to the rule, whether obscenity, incitement to violence, copyright infringement, press censorship during wartime, or restrictions for the incarcerated.

If we rephrase the terms of the debate by taking these exceptions into account, we can see that many liberals support limiting the free speech of working-class teens busted for drugs, but not limiting the free speech of Nazis.

Many are fine when the police quash the free speech of the undocumented by hunting them down, while they amplify the speech of the Klan by protecting them. They advocate curtailing ads for cigarettes but not ads for white supremacy.

All of these examples limit speech. The only difference is that liberals pretend that their limitations are apolitical, while anti-fascists embrace an avowedly political rejection of fascism.