7 ms·

> They won't politely tolerate you. Deviants will be chastised, expelled/expatriated, jailed, or killed. If they have the power to? Yeah, in a heartbeat. But t

> They won't politely tolerate you. Deviants will be chastised, expelled/expatriated, jailed, or killed. If they have the power to? Yeah, in a heartbeat. But they're not the only ones, or the most powerful ones, just the most ostentatiously intolerant. > 1. Folks will gladly loan the hangman the rope that he will use to hang you, your family, and your neighbors — all because of "purity of belief" in free speech. If both Nazis and (as an example) Communists have free speech, then I can be supremely confident that I have free speech, and that I can use it without being expelled, jailed, or killed. (Chastisement, well, as long as you mean the verbal kind, I'll just have to cope.) I sure as Hell don't defend their rights because I like them. Have you never actually felt your ability to speak out meaningfully threatened by the society around you?

Akujin 9y ago
All it takes is a few key fascists in government positions to tear all of this down. All it takes is one false flag terrorist attack to justify the systematic persecution of a group of people. This is what happened in Germany. Recently in Turkey. And it can happen here just as easily.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  If you know your history, you know that liberal democracies have more enemies than fascists (particularly of the hick nazi variety).
contrast 9y ago
A white supremacist killed someone at the weekend for protesting. If their free speech gives you supreme confidence, then you are simply wrong. The evidence is fresh. You will have free speech - as long as you only go to the right places, say the right things, wear the right clothes, have the right colour skin. Over time, supremacist movements reduce that free space in greater and greater amounts. This is what the evidence of history tells us, very clearly. We can see it happening now. If despite the hard evidence that these groups are opposed to free speech and willing to kill those exercising it, you still defend their right to try and subjugate or kill people merely because of their DNA, you are not defending free speech. What you're really doing is celebrating your own virtue - you're defending their rights because you like yourself. You are taking a calculated risk with other people's lives to do so. Even if they're not even trying to speak at all, but just walking down the street while being the wrong race/gender/religion/etc. Fundamentalist free speech advocates make an implicit assumption: that a race of billions of social animals can completely avoid situations where one group makes another even feeling uncomfortable. It's purist nonsense. Occasionally feeling you aren't entirely free to speak is part of being a social animal. Part of living is learning when keeping your trap shut means you're being oppressed or censored, and when you are just being respectful to someone else's house, or a workplace, or suffering beyond your experience. You can't use a civilised person's inevitable experience of "well, I didn't want to cause offense" to justify Nazis.
- Akujin 9y ago
  And this is why in Germany you can't protest with any guns, military swat gear, masks, or other weapons. Doing so is illegal because a large group of people with weapons can intimidate another group into not being able to exercise their free speech.
  - gasof 9y ago
    How did that work out at the G20 protests?
    - vk23 9y ago
      Apart from some property damage and a few minor injuries it worked out pretty well. Nobody got killed and over the weekend only a single gunshot was fired (in the air). I dont want to imagine what would happen if a protest like the g20 one would clash with the police when guns are involved on both sides...
    - matt4077 9y ago
      Quite ok, actually. Nobody was killed. There were no "minutemen of the patriotic revolution" in fatigues and with automatic weapons. There were fantastic, peaceful protests such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeXRmurPTRI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeXRmurPTRI Yeah, there was property damage. So what? Also, I'm not quite sure what you're actually trying to say? Are you suggesting the protests would have been /better/ if protesters had had automatic weapons?
      - ckastner 9y ago
        You are deluding yourself when you call a protest with (significant, I might add) property damage fantastic and peaceful. Are you not aware that multiple instances of arson were committed [1]? Also: > Yeah, there was property damage. So what? What if this was your property? Would you be as callous if it had been your car that had been set on fire? [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-protests-idUSKBN19S1BA http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-protests-idUSK...
jrimbault 9y ago
>If both Nazis and (as an example) Communists have free speech That's where the argument become null, communists ideas have been banned from the US political landscape for a long time and even mild socialists propositions are a call for arms for many USians.
- PeterisP 9y ago
  They aren't banned in any sense whatsoever - there's a communist party in USA, they're free to publish their views, do rallies, advocate their position, run for elections, and they're "banned" only in the sense that almost noone votes for them or supports their views. That's the exact treatment that Nazis, ISIS, North American Man/Boy Love Association and all kinds of other disgusting groups should get - they should be free to associate and state their views publicly, so that the public can hear them, be disgusted, and vote against them. If some of them do violent acts or incite violence, then those particular people can and should be charged appropriately, but not the rest of the group.
  - NoGravitas 9y ago
    You are technically incorrect (the worst kind of incorrect). See, for example, the [Communist Control Act of 1954][0], various [state laws][1] [that prohibit communists from holding office or working in state jobs][2], and [exclusion from anti-discrimination laws][3] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/22/anti-communist-laws-california-trump-russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/22/anti-communist... [2]: https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-the-anti-communist https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-the-anti-communist [3]: http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/2012/12/time-to-repeal-anti-communist.html http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/2012/12/time-to-repeal-anti...
    - PeterisP 9y ago
      Do you mean the act that, according to the same source, "no administration has tried to enforce" and whenever states have attempted to do similar things, the restriction has been found unconstitutional (e.g. Blawis v. Bolin)? The USA legislation has a bunch of things "on the books" in their legislation that haven't been repealed since noone wants to touch them (e.g. sodomy laws), but aren't law in any practical sense since they aren't and cannot be enforced. Despite the things you quote, the Communist party of USA does exist, can participate in elections and has done so. Of course, almost noone votes for them, but that's their own fault. Many of the proposals and discussions in this thread are very similar to McCarthyism. Just as it was back then, despite people wanting to do so, the key acts and limitations of McCarthyism are fundamentally incompatible with Constitution of USA; just as it was (found to be) wrong and overstepping authority regarding communism back then (even if it took a bunch of years for the courts to override all the activism of the government), it's the same thing for any other radical ideologies now.
thehardsphere 9y ago
I'm sorry, was the government preventing Daily Stormer from starting a hosting company or CDN? I'm pretty sure it wasn't so they have the same free speech that everyone else does. CloudFare has free speech rights too. They are excersizing those rights by saying they don't want Daily Stormer on their network.

Akujin 9y ago

All it takes is a few key fascists in government positions to tear all of this down. All it takes is one false flag terrorist attack to justify the systematic persecution of a group of people. This is what happened in Germany. Recently in Turkey. And it can happen here just as easily.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
If you know your history, you know that liberal democracies have more enemies than fascists (particularly of the hick nazi variety).

contrast 9y ago

A white supremacist killed someone at the weekend for protesting. If their free speech gives you supreme confidence, then you are simply wrong. The evidence is fresh. You will have free speech - as long as you only go to the right places, say the right things, wear the right clothes, have the right colour skin. Over time, supremacist movements reduce that free space in greater and greater amounts. This is what the evidence of history tells us, very clearly. We can see it happening now. If despite the hard evidence that these groups are opposed to free speech and willing to kill those exercising it, you still defend their right to try and subjugate or kill people merely because of their DNA, you are not defending free speech. What you're really doing is celebrating your own virtue - you're defending their rights because you like yourself. You are taking a calculated risk with other people's lives to do so. Even if they're not even trying to speak at all, but just walking down the street while being the wrong race/gender/religion/etc. Fundamentalist free speech advocates make an implicit assumption: that a race of billions of social animals can completely avoid situations where one group makes another even feeling uncomfortable. It's purist nonsense. Occasionally feeling you aren't entirely free to speak is part of being a social animal. Part of living is learning when keeping your trap shut means you're being oppressed or censored, and when you are just being respectful to someone else's house, or a workplace, or suffering beyond your experience. You can't use a civilised person's inevitable experience of "well, I didn't want to cause offense" to justify Nazis.

Akujin 9y ago
And this is why in Germany you can't protest with any guns, military swat gear, masks, or other weapons. Doing so is illegal because a large group of people with weapons can intimidate another group into not being able to exercise their free speech.
- gasof 9y ago
  How did that work out at the G20 protests?
  - vk23 9y ago
    Apart from some property damage and a few minor injuries it worked out pretty well. Nobody got killed and over the weekend only a single gunshot was fired (in the air). I dont want to imagine what would happen if a protest like the g20 one would clash with the police when guns are involved on both sides...
  - matt4077 9y ago
    Quite ok, actually. Nobody was killed. There were no "minutemen of the patriotic revolution" in fatigues and with automatic weapons. There were fantastic, peaceful protests such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeXRmurPTRI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeXRmurPTRI Yeah, there was property damage. So what? Also, I'm not quite sure what you're actually trying to say? Are you suggesting the protests would have been /better/ if protesters had had automatic weapons?
    - ckastner 9y ago
      You are deluding yourself when you call a protest with (significant, I might add) property damage fantastic and peaceful. Are you not aware that multiple instances of arson were committed [1]? Also: > Yeah, there was property damage. So what? What if this was your property? Would you be as callous if it had been your car that had been set on fire? [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-protests-idUSKBN19S1BA http://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-protests-idUSK...

jrimbault 9y ago

>If both Nazis and (as an example) Communists have free speech That's where the argument become null, communists ideas have been banned from the US political landscape for a long time and even mild socialists propositions are a call for arms for many USians.

PeterisP 9y ago
They aren't banned in any sense whatsoever - there's a communist party in USA, they're free to publish their views, do rallies, advocate their position, run for elections, and they're "banned" only in the sense that almost noone votes for them or supports their views. That's the exact treatment that Nazis, ISIS, North American Man/Boy Love Association and all kinds of other disgusting groups should get - they should be free to associate and state their views publicly, so that the public can hear them, be disgusted, and vote against them. If some of them do violent acts or incite violence, then those particular people can and should be charged appropriately, but not the rest of the group.
- NoGravitas 9y ago
  You are technically incorrect (the worst kind of incorrect). See, for example, the [Communist Control Act of 1954][0], various [state laws][1] [that prohibit communists from holding office or working in state jobs][2], and [exclusion from anti-discrimination laws][3] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954 [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/22/anti-communist-laws-california-trump-russia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/22/anti-communist... [2]: https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-the-anti-communist https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-the-anti-communist [3]: http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/2012/12/time-to-repeal-anti-communist.html http://employeeatty.blogspot.com/2012/12/time-to-repeal-anti...
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    Do you mean the act that, according to the same source, "no administration has tried to enforce" and whenever states have attempted to do similar things, the restriction has been found unconstitutional (e.g. Blawis v. Bolin)? The USA legislation has a bunch of things "on the books" in their legislation that haven't been repealed since noone wants to touch them (e.g. sodomy laws), but aren't law in any practical sense since they aren't and cannot be enforced. Despite the things you quote, the Communist party of USA does exist, can participate in elections and has done so. Of course, almost noone votes for them, but that's their own fault. Many of the proposals and discussions in this thread are very similar to McCarthyism. Just as it was back then, despite people wanting to do so, the key acts and limitations of McCarthyism are fundamentally incompatible with Constitution of USA; just as it was (found to be) wrong and overstepping authority regarding communism back then (even if it took a bunch of years for the courts to override all the activism of the government), it's the same thing for any other radical ideologies now.

thehardsphere 9y ago

I'm sorry, was the government preventing Daily Stormer from starting a hosting company or CDN? I'm pretty sure it wasn't so they have the same free speech that everyone else does. CloudFare has free speech rights too. They are excersizing those rights by saying they don't want Daily Stormer on their network.