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IANAL, but common misconception is that a constitution regulates the rights between individuals/citizens of that state. But this is wrong, the constitution regu

IANAL, but common misconception is that a constitution regulates the rights between individuals/citizens of that state. But this is wrong, the constitution regulates the rights of an individual against the state/government. That is, you have the freedom of speech against any government entities and cannot be prosecuted for exercising it. But if you come to my bar/house whatever and I don't like your opinion, I can show you the door and you can't quote the constitution and refuse to leave because you are exercising your rights.

echelon 6y ago
This sucks when there are only three or four bars and they all have the same corporate interest. Look at Visa going after porn and private sex work. This entire culture of trying to control what others can say via deplatformization is neoliberal fascism. Bad things get said. But free speech protects all of us from tyranny, and we have to defend it. Because they'll come after you and your ideas next. Americans have thick skin, or at least most of us do. It's a consequence of our liberty, and it's a defining trait of our system.
BitwiseFool 6y ago
Civil Liberties don't exist if you leave them to the public sector. The US Government hosts and produces virtually nothing on it's own and just about everything you interact with is run or produced by a corporation. If you leave the responsibility of Free Speech to the Free Market then you end up having freedom of press only for the people who own one.
- CrazyStat 6y ago
  > you end up having freedom of press only for the people who own one. That's how things have traditionally been in the US, is it not? As far as I know there was never any law that would force me to allow someone else to use my (literal) printing press. The exception is the FCC fairness doctrine, but the basis for that was that the "printing press" (RF allocations) is actually a common good, and was only granted to private interests in exchange for certain concessions.
  - dfxm12 6y ago
    It's how it is today and also how it was when the framers wrote the constitution. Benjamin Rush suggested a particular printer for Thomas Paine to work with to print Common Sense, because Rush knew not every printer would want to print it based on its content.
- nostrademons 6y ago
  You can own a corporation with about $400 and an hour of filling out a form online, plus a month or so waiting for various government agencies to process it. The hard part is getting that corp to own anything of value, since it starts with just the money you put in. But this is still a viable path to wealth for people with time horizons measured in years rather than days. (And all the people who want immediate gratification provides a fairly large market to trade with.)
jaywalk 6y ago
Comparing your bar/house to a massive social platform like Reddit is absurd beyond belief.
SkyBelow 6y ago
The moment the government started giving our licenses as to who can run a bar, meaning that not just anyone can open one and bars have to be pleasing enough to the state to be allowed is the moment when the separation between private business and state ceases to be a clear well agreed upon line.
seneca 6y ago
This isn't the case. The rights we have are naturally ours, by nature of our very existence, and the constitution enumerates them as a mechanism to keep the government from infringing on them. It is very clearly written this way, and to say that our foundational natural rights don't matter in any context is dystopian and authoritarian. That is to say, rights exist outside and beyond the constitution. The question is really one of e.g. my rights vs Facebook's rights.

echelon 6y ago

This sucks when there are only three or four bars and they all have the same corporate interest. Look at Visa going after porn and private sex work. This entire culture of trying to control what others can say via deplatformization is neoliberal fascism. Bad things get said. But free speech protects all of us from tyranny, and we have to defend it. Because they'll come after you and your ideas next. Americans have thick skin, or at least most of us do. It's a consequence of our liberty, and it's a defining trait of our system.

BitwiseFool 6y ago

Civil Liberties don't exist if you leave them to the public sector. The US Government hosts and produces virtually nothing on it's own and just about everything you interact with is run or produced by a corporation. If you leave the responsibility of Free Speech to the Free Market then you end up having freedom of press only for the people who own one.

CrazyStat 6y ago
> you end up having freedom of press only for the people who own one. That's how things have traditionally been in the US, is it not? As far as I know there was never any law that would force me to allow someone else to use my (literal) printing press. The exception is the FCC fairness doctrine, but the basis for that was that the "printing press" (RF allocations) is actually a common good, and was only granted to private interests in exchange for certain concessions.
- dfxm12 6y ago
  It's how it is today and also how it was when the framers wrote the constitution. Benjamin Rush suggested a particular printer for Thomas Paine to work with to print Common Sense, because Rush knew not every printer would want to print it based on its content.
nostrademons 6y ago
You can own a corporation with about $400 and an hour of filling out a form online, plus a month or so waiting for various government agencies to process it. The hard part is getting that corp to own anything of value, since it starts with just the money you put in. But this is still a viable path to wealth for people with time horizons measured in years rather than days. (And all the people who want immediate gratification provides a fairly large market to trade with.)

jaywalk 6y ago

Comparing your bar/house to a massive social platform like Reddit is absurd beyond belief.

SkyBelow 6y ago

The moment the government started giving our licenses as to who can run a bar, meaning that not just anyone can open one and bars have to be pleasing enough to the state to be allowed is the moment when the separation between private business and state ceases to be a clear well agreed upon line.

seneca 6y ago

This isn't the case. The rights we have are naturally ours, by nature of our very existence, and the constitution enumerates them as a mechanism to keep the government from infringing on them. It is very clearly written this way, and to say that our foundational natural rights don't matter in any context is dystopian and authoritarian. That is to say, rights exist outside and beyond the constitution. The question is really one of e.g. my rights vs Facebook's rights.