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I gave you an up vote for your honesty (and do appreciate it). I've been suggesting this since before all this went down: many left of center folks don't actua

I gave you an up vote for your honesty (and do appreciate it). I've been suggesting this since before all this went down: many left of center folks don't actually believe in free speech; only "correct" speech. What makes me really nervous is historically, leftist governments have much higher body counts than right wing governments. These types of governments have the commonality that they tightly control speech and thought. This is all personal as a relative in my wife's side of the family spent half his life in the gulag for having the audacity to suggest Stalin was not a good guy to his drinking buddies (who turns out are the ones that reported him). If you're on the left (or right), please do some soul searching on this topic. Also consider that it might not be your guy/gal/party who decides what speech is appropriate (and it's a constantly moving target). And in the age of the internet archive, anything you've written in the past is/will be open season. That's pretty scary, at least for me.

futurix 6y ago
I can partially understand this, as my family is from ex-USSR country (also went through repressions on one side) and we all shudder at the mentions of 'socialism' and 'communism' too. However it doesn't take a lot of research to realise that the modern Western understanding of those terms and actual things that the modern socialists want are in no way comparable to the realities of mid-20th century. In USSR socialist and communist ideas were subverted to facilitate repressions and totalitarian society. Modern socialism is basically Sweden or Denmark - no gulag there.
- watwut 6y ago
  There is long history of extreme right wing trying to make people think that communist and "anyone more left them me" are the same. Already in Germany before WWII Hitler used that to his advantage where he worked hard enough to make "Jew", "communist" and "social democrat" into synonyms. Meanwhile, social democrats were the biggest party that was openly pro-democracy. Other major party were anti-democracy. The distinction is not between modern and old "socialism" like Sweden or Denmark. The distinction is whether you buy the "anyone not exactly right with is basically communist" framing.
- cpursley 6y ago
  The conversation is about restricting speech in America, not free healthcare.

futurix 6y ago

I can partially understand this, as my family is from ex-USSR country (also went through repressions on one side) and we all shudder at the mentions of 'socialism' and 'communism' too. However it doesn't take a lot of research to realise that the modern Western understanding of those terms and actual things that the modern socialists want are in no way comparable to the realities of mid-20th century. In USSR socialist and communist ideas were subverted to facilitate repressions and totalitarian society. Modern socialism is basically Sweden or Denmark - no gulag there.

watwut 6y ago
There is long history of extreme right wing trying to make people think that communist and "anyone more left them me" are the same. Already in Germany before WWII Hitler used that to his advantage where he worked hard enough to make "Jew", "communist" and "social democrat" into synonyms. Meanwhile, social democrats were the biggest party that was openly pro-democracy. Other major party were anti-democracy. The distinction is not between modern and old "socialism" like Sweden or Denmark. The distinction is whether you buy the "anyone not exactly right with is basically communist" framing.
cpursley 6y ago
The conversation is about restricting speech in America, not free healthcare.