Yuyutsu, again, a moral or ethical decision.
Your suggestion is one of ethics.
Whether I speak of the sun or not is irrelevant, as he already has the problem.
You see, here is an example of what I speak.
Your example is more about how you would feel in such a situation and less about the sick person.
He is well aware of his position, you, on the other hand, avoiding anything YOU might feel uncomfortable with and therefore think is offensive or whatever, is merely exposing YOUR emotions or fears about his situation.
I have already thought of several reasons and ways to say 'Hey the sun is shining', without causing distress or anxiety.
So why don't you take a deep breath, move away from the keyboard for a while and try to broaden your range of rhetoric and come up with a few yourself.
Then reconsider your view once more.
Freedom of speech is received as it is delivered.
IE; If you abuse someone, expect the obvious response.
It is always possible for the listener to get the message wrong.
They will respond in the manner they thought you were intending your comments, even though there was no malice intended.
This is especially so in the written form as it is impossible to write with inflection.
Without inflection the same sentence can give a different, incorrect or untrue meaning.
BTW, I hope someone has looked into the 'QUORA' forum. You won't be disappointed.

Goodness me, I have come late to this discussion and have only read page 1 and the last three pages.
You all seem to have got yourselves tangled up in clutter around the subject.
It seems to me to be quite simple.
Free speach means to me that comment can be made on any subject and
your opinion may be valid to yourself but not others.
It is your opinion and no one can deny it to you. ie you cannot be censored.
There seems to suddenly be a lot of people who want to deny you the right to your opinion.

If you are offended, well just don't read or listen to it !
It really is as simple as that.

If you do not like your head hurting, don't beat yourself with a big stick.

Dear Altrav,

Thank you for considering what I said, even if you disagree.

As I see it, reminding someone with melanoma of the sun's rays is likely to be upsetting, by reminding them of their fatal mistake. They may have melanoma all right, but they don't necessarily brood all the time about how stupid they were in their early life to expose their body that way. Rightly so, such brooding over the past wouldn't help, but only make them suffer more.

And yes, there are exceptions - you spotted some and I could spot some too, but what is the balance of probabilities?

Indeed, it's always possible for the listener to get the message wrong as well as to miss your intention. And when there are many listeners, it is statistically almost certain that some would do so.

This is why the man who is claimed to be the wisest ever, and whom I consider one of the best two Western philosophers (the other is Diogenes), said:

"Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few." [Ecclesiastes 5:2]

Next we arrive at the issue of law and freedom of speech.

Here we face two questions:
1) Is it legitimate for the state to limit freedom in public?
2) Is it wise to do so?

My answer to the first question is simple: on your property, you alone should set the rules, but assuming that public space is the state's legitimate property (and that topic we could discuss ad nauseam), then the state may do the same.

To the second question, anyone can make mistakes. You could make decisions at your home based on balance-of-probabilities and end up wrong - so can the state.

If you spit at someone's face, the balance-of-probabilities is that they suffer, but it's also possible that they lick their lips and say "how sweet"... It's wise to act on the balance-of-probabilities unless you really know what you are doing. Most don't.

Dear Bazz,

You are bursting into an open door:

«There seems to suddenly be a lot of people who want to deny you the right to your opinion.»

This is OLO. This is Graham Young's private space, so he and only he sets the rules here - and here, free speech reigns supreme!

To the best of my knowledge, nobody in this forum suggested to deny you the right to your opinion. There is no place for such behaviour here and Graham Young could and does kick our those who so attempt.

But at the public square, on the bus, in the public park, at the post office or on the road between drivers, things are different. There, you are still fully entitled to your opinion, only you are asked to limit its expression. If we believe that the square, the bus, the park, the post office and the roads belong to the public, then the public has every right to rule what is acceptable there and what is not. Whether the state or its government represent the public and rightly own those places is a separate and a very painful issue, but if we wish to emerge sane from this discussion, then let's look at just one issue at a time.

I suspect misunderstandings on this thread partially relate to different personality types. See Myers-Briggs. People have different problem solving styles. Engineering mindsets tend to be goal focused - but others could be people focused.

Canem Malum,

There are a ton of things you are legally not
allowed to say. You can't incite people
to violence, you can't slander (in speech) or
libel (in writing), you can't shout obscenities,
yet some people think they should have the right
to threaten and abuse and harass people. You aren't
allowed to intentionally inflict harm on someone
even by just using words.

Free speech does not mean you have the freedom to
say what you want whatever the consequences.
Nobody has to support someone else's shyte.

Many people are confused about what PC means.
Conservatives would have you believe that they are
under attack for not being "PC" and that they are
somehow the ones with courage for speaking their
minds. This is a strawman defense.

It isn't the word choice, the tone or the subject
matter that threatens people. It is the ideas
themselves. The attack on PC culture is simple -
privileged classes bemoaning the idea that they
can no longer feel, do, or say (or legislate) whatever
they want about anyone with impunity.

It isn't sinister - it has simply rendered some people
incapable of seeing how their words or actions affect
other people. Privilege is a collective narcissism.

The line needs to be drawn when genuinely harmful things
are being said. If something is plainly hate speech -
it shouldn't be given a platform.

All that is being said here is that people who enjoy the
rights of free speech have a duty to respect other people's
rights. A person's freedom of speech is limited by the
rights of others - for example their right to maintain their
good reputation and their right to privacy.

All societies including democratic ones, put various
limitations on what people may say. They prohibit certain
types of speech that they believe might harm the government
or the people. We have laws covering - libel and slander,
public decency, urging violence and so on.