Thicker skin or free speech?

It's amazing how many opponents of free speech think that language like this carries any credibility, or places them on a moral high ground.

Yes, you do need to grow a thicker skin. That's a better idea than living in a delusion that people will suddenly become nicer. People with thicker skins are more useful people. They're people who won't crumble when faced with bad ideas or evil actions. They're people who can keep a clear mind and face adversity. People with thick skins are the people who shield the people with thin skins.

Yes, people have a right to be mean. This "freedom to be mean" is just another way of saying "right to free speech." The First Amendment is there to protect speech that people find offensive and hurtful. It's there to protect speech that weak, manipulative people will try to silence by labeling as "mean."

Still, finally, if people making this argument want any credibility, they've gotta talk their own talk (no, that's not a typo, I'm not even asking them to walk their own talk). Everybody who I've seen make this argument is a fucking vicious person whenever they're faced with a person who disagrees with them politically. This is an attitude usually shared by radical leftists. I've never seen these people be kind to anybody to the right of AOC. When I do see somebody on the right package an argument for an abridgment of free speech like this, I'll expect to see the same hypocrisy of behavior.

This can't be the correct view of how people should operate because nobody actually believes it. People only pretend to believe it.