15 ms·

Even my bigoted critics deserve free speech

94 points by hncurious 5y ago

throwawayboise 5y ago
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." ― George Orwell
- beefield 5y ago
  Does that also apply to outright lies, threats and defamation in mass social media - assuming I do not want to hear those? And, am I obliged to listen and/or give a thoughtful response to anything I do not want to hear?
  - zanethomas 5y ago
    Is that a rhetorical question?
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Nobody is obliged to listen, or let them go without a response, as may be appropriate.
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      > Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and have criminal or civil consequences because we recognize that they overtly cause harm. Fraud too. What in your mind is the fundamental difference between causing harm by defamation, which is literally just lying in a particular context, and causing overt harm by other kinds of lying? In order to credibly differentiate them, saying that one is ok and the other is not ok, we must have some distinguishing essential characteristic. Significantly broader categories of lying definitely and overtly cause harm, so what to your mind brings a moral imperative to allow one but not the other?
      - stale2002 5y ago
        > we must have some distinguishing fundamental characteristic I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. Our court system is extremely conservative regarding the types of speech that it allows the government to punish people for. If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess.
        BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. I'm not sure that it does. Short of "I know it when I see it" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it) what definitions of the essential characteristic of good speech vs bad speech do we actually have if not overtly causing harm? > If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess. The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed when we got consumer protection laws, so I don't think so.
        stale2002 5y ago
        > what definitions do we actually have? By definitions, I am simply referring to how courts have ruled in the past on this stuff. Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. > The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed The courts have traditionally ruled pretty darn strictly on what the government is allowed to do. You should compared the supreme court precedents that we have in the US, to other countries, and you will see just how much more strict the US is, regarding what the government can ban. So yes, based on how strict courts have been in the past, if you want to redefine how speech laws work in the US, you are going to have an uphill battle.
        BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. Based on what, though? What specific essential characteristics define the cases where it is deemed acceptable to restrict speech and how do the same exact criteria not also apply to many other scenarios as well? Restrictable speech either has a clear essential nature or it doesn't, so one of three things must be true: 1) No such essential characteristic exists, which means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 2) Some essential characteristic does exist, but we just look the other way sometimes, which similarly means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 3) Some essential characteristic does exist that is actually applied everywhere that somehow morally differentiates "fraud" from "deception with intent". I don't see truth in 1 or 3, so I think we must be doing 2.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Today it is a viable theory investigated under orders of the sitting president. Characterstically, Facebook and other media companies didn't suffer any consequences for suppressing public discussion on this matter. (I don't hold any view about this theory. Comment is about absurdity of the idea of claiming that something is an outright lie, and also about hypocrisy of a so-called "fact-checkers")
    - edanm 5y ago
      > The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Was it? I remember hearing plenty about the theory for a while. Sure, a lot of it (if not most) was saying that the theory is wrong - but not that it was a lie or anything, just giving evidence against. (And to be clear, saying a year ago that it is for sure a leak was probably really a lie - just as saying it now, cause afaik there is no conclusive evidence either way).
      - Akronymus 5y ago
        You (in the plura) saying that it may have come from the lab about a year ago would likely have led to being silenced or banned for it because of "misinformation". I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory.
        Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        > I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory. Umm, to put it mildly, that was beyond obvious.
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    Typically, labelling something as a "lie" is a bigger un-truth than the actual thing being labelled. Very few comments or opinions are wholly untrue end-to-end. Most things have some kernel of truth... perhaps there are unfounded assumptions, exaggerations, selective interpretation, etc. The person labelling something as a "lie" is usually doing so in order to outright dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth without actually having to prove it's wrong in its entirety.
    - croon 5y ago
      So, Trump's lies about a rigged election. I'm labeling it a lie because it is. How am I a bigger liar? I'm open to hearing any explanation you have, as long as you're open to hearing my rebuttals. Your generalization is a bad one, not because it has exceptions, but because it likely has as many as confirmations.
      - listenallyall 5y ago
        Please state exactly what the lies are. That the election was rigged? Are you claiming that not a single district in a single state was compromised in any way? I'd like to see your proof. My point is not that Trump is correct... but just like I said, there are likely some kernels of truth in the statement, while you labelling it a lie is a shortcut to dismissing his entire argument without showing any proof yourself.
        croon 5y ago
        You're asking me to prove a negative. If there were any grounds for the claim, it wouldn't be a lie, but there aren't. The courts have settled it, election officials of both parties have settled it, and frankly basic understanding of the election system has settled it. I'md dismissing his entire argument because he doesn't have one outside of delusions. So I'll say it again, if you give me any substantive grounds for the lie, I can explain how it's wrong.
        listenallyall 5y ago
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    You're obliged by dint of living within the same megatribe as the rest of us assholes. You're obliged to think for yourself, because the question free speech always, inevitably boils down to is this: who decides the propriety of speech? And the answer is that, because of human fallibility and malice and corruption, the content of speech must be left to the individual. The more you constrain speech, the more you restrict a society's ability to self correct. Censorship concentrates state power and should always be carefully exercised and limited to an absolute minimum. It is a tool that has never been exercised by a government or institution for the betterment of a society. It has been universally corrupted and used for authoritarian control throughout history. Trusting modern corporations to somehow competently manage such a historically treacherous and corruptible means of social manipulation is naive at best. So yeah, that means your signal to noise ratio is gonna have to be lower than you'd prefer, and you're going to have to trust yourself and others in society to muddle through. It's the least bad because it doesn't preclude intellectual and ethical advances via morals and tastes of the day. Strangely enough, the more liberal and unconstrained speech is, the better quality of life gets for that society. The clearest example of this is the abolitionist movement that led to the end of slavery. If the US had exercised censorship and projected the majority views as the filter of appropriate speech, history may have gone much differently. Instead, loud people made annoying speeches in public that offended and provoked society to address the problem. If the ability to overcome great evils like that means that society has to put up with qanon, anti vaxxers, and flat earth dweebs, that is a price we should be happy to pay.
  - xupybd 5y ago
    You don't have to listen to anyone. You should be able to make that choice without prevent someone else the right to free speech. No one has the right to force to you to listen. Typically the the limits on free speech are base on the injury they cause another. If you lie about someone and it causes you harm you can sue them. If someone harasses you you can sue them.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Sadly, 1984 seems more guidebook than warning in our day.
- overeater 5y ago
  How strongly does this hold in cases where the speech is actually effective? I'm genuinely interested in a discussion without taking a side, because I feel like when people advocate for free speech, they are mainly thinking about unpopular unconvincing speech. Say, someone with a new brand of Nazi-ism is actually converting most of the people they talk to, using a combination of half-truths? Or even what if they are converting people by using celebrity endorsements and charismatic language? So no misinformation, but rather salient anecdotes, facts, and science? What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored?
  - caslon 5y ago
    Firm believer that private companies should be able to censor whatever they want here! > What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored? The government should not be censoring this. Private companies, as always, should feel free to censor what they want, regardless of positions.
    - overeater 5y ago
      Thanks for that thought. So what if we're back pre-WWII, and people were on the public streets giving speeches about joining the Nazi party? You'd support their right to spread their message, knowing what would happen? And I'm really trying to get at the point that this speech is actually effective. Not sure why people are downvoting, because I don't think this has been discussed before.
      - ryanschneider 5y ago
        Painfully, yes, being pro-Nazi in the run up to WW2 was entirely legal: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323... As much as I deplore their views I don’t think they should be legally barred from expressing them. Of course MSG has every right to decline hosting the above event, but the government shouldn’t be the arbiter of who can say what when in public.
- pjc50 5y ago
  The problem is more serious when it's things that people desperately do want to hear but turn out not to be true.
- neonate 5y ago
  That's from the unpublished preface to Animal Farm (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/), in which Orwell warned his British readers not to be too pleased with his satire of the Soviets: https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go. It was omitted from the novel under ironic circumstances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface - "For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and the page numbers had to be renumbered at the last minute") and only rediscovered in 1971. It is Chomsky's favorite Orwell piece, one he mentions all the time (e.g. https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/ https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/) and has probably done the most to popularize. https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface
- jollybean 5y ago
  So what we 'need to hear' is academics calling each other the n-word? Or the 'c-word'? This is a misapropriation of Orwell. Why do people have difficulty with the difference between 'slurs' and 'ideas'? And the difference between 'civil rights' and 'private organizations'? -> An academic, talking about a 'challenging idea' maybe using data points that challenge public norms or 'trigger' people - should be allowed to do so. Probably, using a word - any word - to talk about that word - or in historical context, said by a character in creative expression - should be fine. -> But using racist slurs against other people in civil discourse is totally inappropriate. If I called a co-worker a 'negro' or 'slut' I would expect to be fired. And neither of those things have to do with Free Speech. If you're quoting Orwell, do it in the right moments, because the more oppressive types will point out that using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public, which is plain rude. Then they can discretid the entire range of people concerned about 'Free Speech' as just irrelevant radicals. When media companies, governments, corps and universities are banning people for having ideas they don't like (or saying 'verbotten words' even in a legitimate context) then you trot out Orwell and issues of Freedom of Expression.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    > using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public Please explain how this could be "literally tantamount"? I don't understand that phrase or how this statement could be true.
    - jollybean 5y ago
      The point is very clear and that someone is using Orwell to defend academics calling each other slurs in genteel settings. Obviously, that has nothing to do with Orwell, or even 'Free Speech'. As for 'literally tantamount' - the phrasing is poor, and would work better with only one of the two words, probably better just 'tantamount' or frankly neither. But it's completely moot. It doesn't change the fairly obvious implication of the statement. Free Speech is important, Orwell is important - but neither have anything to do with arbitrary ad-hominem slander among intellectuals in public. The author of the article is effectively making a personal plea, not really an intellectual one. Really what he's saying is 'I'm not that offended, don't dump this woman because she said something really raw'. Even if you remove the slur, the a statement such as "People think you're an idiot" is just terrible, playground rhetoric. Why would a University want to work with someone who makes arguments such as that that wouldn't even work well on Reddit? Use Orwell for where it was meant to be used.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  So what about a barrage of death and rape threats to women who dare to make youtube videos that are critical of sexism in video games? What about the racial abuse hurled over twitter at the black soccer players in the Euros who missed their pens? If you argue that people need to just suck that up, then you'll find that most people won't buy what you're selling. We're going to see freedom of speech curtailed because of problems like this where people won't self-regulate their bigotry at all. And I don't think its a good thing and you don't have to convince me that after they're done with the bigots that they'll come after the socialists. There needs to be a better argument than Absolutists-vs-Censorship though because I'm pretty sure censorship is gonna win that one.
echelon 5y ago
I'm a liberal, but social media should be a common carrier. We can't amplify only approved thoughts. If we do, we'll wake up in a world where many of the things we think and feel are wrongthink and used against us. Edit: We're not done improving the world. Putting control structures in place now will freeze progress and make us slide backwards.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  That is a very classically liberal point of view, in fact.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- geofft 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, social media was acting like a common carrier here - the @racetrust account was not shut down by Twitter. They appear to have deleted their account on their own.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  Social media can't be a common carrier without destroying social media's business model. We already had a "common carrier" model in the form of usenet, which turned into an absolute shithole when the average person was given access to post whatever he wanted.
geofft 5y ago
> No Platforming and censoring opposing voices only leads them to thrive underground. Frustratingly, the article offers no evidence for this claim. I understand the argument that censorship and deplatforming are bad because they are morally wrong - that it doesn't matter the effect they have because they are inherently bad tools to use. But I don't really understand the argument that they're bad because they're ineffective. When you drive something underground, it thrives less than it would on the surface, no? We have plenty of examples of censorship being effective. Take opposition to the US invasions of Iraq, for instance. Anyone who opposed it - even the Dixie Chicks, famously - was deplatformed and attacked in the media. There was no reasonable debate about whether it was a good idea. And it turned out it was not a good idea, and there were no WMDs, and it was a quagmire. But because opposition was pushed underground, it had no political power. Or take another superpower. The PRC has no moral objection to censorship. And certainly there are non-moribund underground dissident political and religious movements, coded ways of referencing 4 June 1989, etc. But could any argument be made that the PRC has made a tactical mistake in pushing these movements underground, that they're thriving because they were underground and would be less successful above ground?
- zanethomas 5y ago
  > No Platforming and censoring opposing voices only leads > them to thrive underground. > Frustratingly, the article offers no evidence for this > claim. See Gab, Rumble, Locals, Bitchute et al ... that's where people banned/censored by big tech can still be found.
  - tstrimple 5y ago
    If only the rejects from other platforms congregate on gab, they can’t mainstream their toxic views with the general public. That’s an example of deplatforming working.
    - hello_marmalade 5y ago
      The problem is that it causes those people to become more extreme because they get put into an echo chamber. It’s like putting a petty thief in with hardened criminals. They’re not coming out better than they went in, they’re coming out much, much worse. It’s the difference between seeing people say racist things on Twitter, and having someone shoot up a church. Extremists aren’t created out in public.
rvz 5y ago
> The university also cited another tweet in which she used the word ‘coconut’. Now she is suing the university for breaching her right to free speech. Isn’t it funny how the woke left suddenly supports free speech whenever its free speech is under attack... Whatever it is that has attracted the critics attention to the author for them to resort to name calling and ad hominems which are also racist, they have now realised that they have to see themselves out. Very ironic for the Twitter account of the Race Trust. > The real shame is that Khanom or the Race Trust did not try to challenge my politics or arguments. .... These attacks haven’t persuaded me to alter my worldview... To resort to ad hominems probably means that they can't challenge the author or change his mind with convincing and logical arguments. They have done an own goal and proved the author's point once again. EDIT: You do realise that they deleted their Twitter account? That's why I said 'they have to see themselves out.' Also I don't see 'name calling' or 'ad hominems' as a useful way of a convincing someone else since that is not an argument [0]. Instead, that was the first own goal. Now the second own goal by the 'Race Trust' is in the main argument that the author makes which is cancel-culture which he disagrees with. This issue has now transcended into real life and the university cancelled the author of the tweet. Regardless of the viewpoints of the 'Race Trust', such cancellations just makes the situation even worse than it was before. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's against the site guidelines because it makes threads tedious, nasty, and predictable. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the rules more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Edit: we've had to ask you this numerous times before. Eventually we ban accounts that keep ignoring these requests.
  - rvz 5y ago
    I edited and clarified my comment with context and added some substance to it and deleted another one in a different thread. Perhaps you'll now find that my comment is more 'thoughtful and substantive' and the rest of the comments in this thread have already descended further into mini flame wars. The worse thing about it is that some don't even have any evidence to substantiate their own comments. Oh dear.
mayankkaizen 5y ago
I am 41 years old. And I feel like in last 6-8 years, people have become far more intolerant regarding free speech. It is just not possible to say anything which is unpopular without inviting vicious attacks or even real threats. In part social media platforms are to be blamed. They somehow bring the worst out of everyone. The guy who is/was willing to listen to me patiently is now issuing death threats to anyone on Twitter. Somehow these trends are now transgressing to real life. These days people just don't think. They only react.
- cjensen 5y ago
  Your claim that people have become intolerant of free speech is unclear. For example, speech which generates "vicious attacks" in response is still free speech. The responses are also free speech. True threats should be reported to the police. That's not intolerance, that's just plain illegal. On the other hand if by "real threats" you mean hyperbolic threats, those are also free speech. Free speech is not a guarantee that others must listen, or that they must listen patiently. That is not now, nor has it ever been, the definition of free speech.
  - beervirus 5y ago
    The big platforms will silence you for saying things that clearly fall under free speech.
    - dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 5y ago
      The big platforms have no ability to silence anyone. They have the ability to limit your use of their resources, which is well within their rights.
      - beervirus 5y ago
        It’s within their rights (currently…) but it’s still problematic.
        5y ago
zanethomas 5y ago
Thanks for that! So many people fail to appreciate the value of free speech. We put up with stupid, ignorant, crack-smokin crazy, bigoted speech so we can hear the voices of people outside the mainstream who have something valuable to say.
- CraigJPerry 5y ago
  I don’t know, i mean in theory i love that view. Also, if someone says something wrong, instead of silencing them, how about we just use evidence to show why they’re wrong? But then on the other hand you have, to give a random example, someone like Andrew Wakefield - he might be bat shit crazy but he is smart enough and functional enough to gain a medical degree and become a qualified doctor, a seemingly well respected one until he went off the rails and committed fraud in his research in order to claim an autism link to mmr vaccines. To me it seems he’s not stupid, he’s not crazy. He’s passed the same qualifications as his peers, but he is a fraud. A fraud that has caused who knows how many child deaths, albeit indirectly.
  - zanethomas 5y ago
    I regularly smack the anti-semites on gab upside the head with a cluestick.
    - CraigJPerry 5y ago
      It was 10 years ago when “Rumors, Truths, and Reality: A Study of Political Misinformation” was published. Among other things, That was the study that tried debunking “death panels” and the affordable care act. The outcome was entrenchment, more people believed in death panels after hearing the fact check. Since then this study has been repeated 10s if not hundreds of times. That fact checking doesnt change minds is not in question. It simply does not work to change someone’s mind.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Andrew Wakefield's medical credentials were revoked and his falsified research was retracted. The system worked.
pjc50 5y ago
Polite reminder that "Spiked!" is the journal formerly known as Living Marxism, after a phoenix rebrand when they were sued out of existence for libelling ITN over the Bosnian genocide. Polite request that if you believe in free speech at any cost, don't downvote this comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Marxism
- valec 5y ago
  hacker news only cares about free speech when it can be used to dunk on "the left"
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    This is a left libertarian (leaning of the editor of Spiked) dunking on the left, so it still applies. Not surprising, to be honest. The mainstream left is increasingly less libertarian (especially because of cancel culture). Can't say HN feels particularly pro free speech though.
    - pmyteh 5y ago
      Spiked! is not a left-wing outlet, libertarian or otherwise. They're a group of former doctrinaire Marxists who swung to the equally-doctrinaire libertarian right after the fall of the Soviet Union. There's a whole nexus of organisations around them, and they have made a good living out of being professional contrarians. Their influence in British politics has been nearly wholly malign, both when they were on the left and now they're on the right. They are excellent self-publicists. Their funding is probably the same US right-libertarian dark money pools as the Tufton Street groups, though it's hard to be sure as their finances are characteristically opaque. Speaking as someone is is on the libertarian end of the British left, these guys are not our allies.
- luckylion 5y ago
  I fail to see the point of this comment. Are you suggesting the opinion of Calvin Robinson should be disregarded because it's published on a website you don't like?
cjensen 5y ago
Worth noting that in the US, this could not have happened. The First Amendment covers academia which receives Federal Funds. There's even an organization which is dedicated to defending this principle in court[1]. [1] https://www.thefire.org https://www.thefire.org
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  > The First Amendment covers academia which receives Federal Funds This isn't true. 1. Private colleges and universities that receive federal funds (e.g., the form of Pell Grants, government-originated student loans, or even research grants) have no obligation to offer faculty any amount of intellectual freedom. (Tangentially, this is highly unlikely to change as long as evangelical Christians are a non-trivial bloc within the GOP; tons of bible colleges, religiously affiliated colleges/universities, and seminaries rely on federal funds in one form or another. The evangelical world has a vested interest in maintain the financial viability of these institutions without sacrificing their character.) 2. Even at public universities, this still isn't true. Government employees enjoy asoundingly expansive free speech rights compared to private sector employees, but, crucially, only in their capacity as private citizens! Public statements made in pursuit of official duties are not generally protected under 1A. NB: the tweets came from an official account.
throw3849 5y ago
I do not really care about western politics. But by your standards it is one racist calling out another racist. I just wish there was AI filter to scrub this stuff from my feed. Author wrote this on twitter: 》Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory are political and do not belong in schools. https://celebpie.com/calvin-robinson/ https://celebpie.com/calvin-robinson/
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop routinely using multiple throwaway accounts? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
bob229 5y ago
Critical race theory is cancer
emerged 5y ago
It really does us no favors to hide the things people want to say. All their thoughts and intentions are still there except now we don’t know it.
risedotmoe 5y ago
I feel like if anything should be learned from this era, it’s that censorship does not work.
ordiel 5y ago
Tho I agree in some part with whats stated, a title containg something as "even my bigoted critics" making it personal only takes credit away from this type of publications taking it from... "Meh they have a point" to... "Meh just another flower complaining" if you want to make something objective you take yourself and your "experiences" (whatever that means) out of the equation. Who are you to tell they are the biggots, who is there to say that by enclosing larges grops of people and giving all them a sort of group mentality out of "your perception" of them (all) sharing a similar mindset the autos is not itself becoming a biggot.... (I am just trying to point out how much this type of things depreciate the value of writing something meaningful)
JohnHaugeland 5y ago
I'm so tired of everyone acting like freedom of speech means freedom from consequences Yes, yes. You were a racist in public, you got fired, and something something first amendment Can we stop acting like this would pass muster in a grade school? It's downright embarrassing

94 points by hncurious 5y ago

throwawayboise 5y ago

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." ― George Orwell

beefield 5y ago
Does that also apply to outright lies, threats and defamation in mass social media - assuming I do not want to hear those? And, am I obliged to listen and/or give a thoughtful response to anything I do not want to hear?
- zanethomas 5y ago
  Is that a rhetorical question?
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Nobody is obliged to listen, or let them go without a response, as may be appropriate.
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    > Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and can have criminal or civil consequences. Lies, yes. People are free to utter them. Credible threats and defamation are legally defined and have criminal or civil consequences because we recognize that they overtly cause harm. Fraud too. What in your mind is the fundamental difference between causing harm by defamation, which is literally just lying in a particular context, and causing overt harm by other kinds of lying? In order to credibly differentiate them, saying that one is ok and the other is not ok, we must have some distinguishing essential characteristic. Significantly broader categories of lying definitely and overtly cause harm, so what to your mind brings a moral imperative to allow one but not the other?
    - stale2002 5y ago
      > we must have some distinguishing fundamental characteristic I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. Our court system is extremely conservative regarding the types of speech that it allows the government to punish people for. If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess.
      - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > I think our court system does a good job of defining this already. I'm not sure that it does. Short of "I know it when I see it" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it) what definitions of the essential characteristic of good speech vs bad speech do we actually have if not overtly causing harm? > If you disagree, you are going to have to repeal the 1st amendment, I guess. The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed when we got consumer protection laws, so I don't think so.
        stale2002 5y ago
        > what definitions do we actually have? By definitions, I am simply referring to how courts have ruled in the past on this stuff. Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. > The 1st amendment wasn't suddenly repealed The courts have traditionally ruled pretty darn strictly on what the government is allowed to do. You should compared the supreme court precedents that we have in the US, to other countries, and you will see just how much more strict the US is, regarding what the government can ban. So yes, based on how strict courts have been in the past, if you want to redefine how speech laws work in the US, you are going to have an uphill battle.
        BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
        > Which is to put very strict limits on what the government can do. Based on what, though? What specific essential characteristics define the cases where it is deemed acceptable to restrict speech and how do the same exact criteria not also apply to many other scenarios as well? Restrictable speech either has a clear essential nature or it doesn't, so one of three things must be true: 1) No such essential characteristic exists, which means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 2) Some essential characteristic does exist, but we just look the other way sometimes, which similarly means that our regulations are applied arbitrarily. 3) Some essential characteristic does exist that is actually applied everywhere that somehow morally differentiates "fraud" from "deception with intent". I don't see truth in 1 or 3, so I think we must be doing 2.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Today it is a viable theory investigated under orders of the sitting president. Characterstically, Facebook and other media companies didn't suffer any consequences for suppressing public discussion on this matter. (I don't hold any view about this theory. Comment is about absurdity of the idea of claiming that something is an outright lie, and also about hypocrisy of a so-called "fact-checkers")
  - edanm 5y ago
    > The leak of of the "China" virus from the Wuhan lab was an outright lie just one year ago. Was it? I remember hearing plenty about the theory for a while. Sure, a lot of it (if not most) was saying that the theory is wrong - but not that it was a lie or anything, just giving evidence against. (And to be clear, saying a year ago that it is for sure a leak was probably really a lie - just as saying it now, cause afaik there is no conclusive evidence either way).
    - Akronymus 5y ago
      You (in the plura) saying that it may have come from the lab about a year ago would likely have led to being silenced or banned for it because of "misinformation". I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        > I personally suspect that was at least in part motivated by the then president being a proponent of the theory. Umm, to put it mildly, that was beyond obvious.
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Typically, labelling something as a "lie" is a bigger un-truth than the actual thing being labelled. Very few comments or opinions are wholly untrue end-to-end. Most things have some kernel of truth... perhaps there are unfounded assumptions, exaggerations, selective interpretation, etc. The person labelling something as a "lie" is usually doing so in order to outright dismiss some uncomfortably partial truth without actually having to prove it's wrong in its entirety.
  - croon 5y ago
    So, Trump's lies about a rigged election. I'm labeling it a lie because it is. How am I a bigger liar? I'm open to hearing any explanation you have, as long as you're open to hearing my rebuttals. Your generalization is a bad one, not because it has exceptions, but because it likely has as many as confirmations.
    - listenallyall 5y ago
      Please state exactly what the lies are. That the election was rigged? Are you claiming that not a single district in a single state was compromised in any way? I'd like to see your proof. My point is not that Trump is correct... but just like I said, there are likely some kernels of truth in the statement, while you labelling it a lie is a shortcut to dismissing his entire argument without showing any proof yourself.
      - croon 5y ago
        You're asking me to prove a negative. If there were any grounds for the claim, it wouldn't be a lie, but there aren't. The courts have settled it, election officials of both parties have settled it, and frankly basic understanding of the election system has settled it. I'md dismissing his entire argument because he doesn't have one outside of delusions. So I'll say it again, if you give me any substantive grounds for the lie, I can explain how it's wrong.
        listenallyall 5y ago
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  You're obliged by dint of living within the same megatribe as the rest of us assholes. You're obliged to think for yourself, because the question free speech always, inevitably boils down to is this: who decides the propriety of speech? And the answer is that, because of human fallibility and malice and corruption, the content of speech must be left to the individual. The more you constrain speech, the more you restrict a society's ability to self correct. Censorship concentrates state power and should always be carefully exercised and limited to an absolute minimum. It is a tool that has never been exercised by a government or institution for the betterment of a society. It has been universally corrupted and used for authoritarian control throughout history. Trusting modern corporations to somehow competently manage such a historically treacherous and corruptible means of social manipulation is naive at best. So yeah, that means your signal to noise ratio is gonna have to be lower than you'd prefer, and you're going to have to trust yourself and others in society to muddle through. It's the least bad because it doesn't preclude intellectual and ethical advances via morals and tastes of the day. Strangely enough, the more liberal and unconstrained speech is, the better quality of life gets for that society. The clearest example of this is the abolitionist movement that led to the end of slavery. If the US had exercised censorship and projected the majority views as the filter of appropriate speech, history may have gone much differently. Instead, loud people made annoying speeches in public that offended and provoked society to address the problem. If the ability to overcome great evils like that means that society has to put up with qanon, anti vaxxers, and flat earth dweebs, that is a price we should be happy to pay.
- xupybd 5y ago
  You don't have to listen to anyone. You should be able to make that choice without prevent someone else the right to free speech. No one has the right to force to you to listen. Typically the the limits on free speech are base on the injury they cause another. If you lie about someone and it causes you harm you can sue them. If someone harasses you you can sue them.
smitty1e 5y ago
Sadly, 1984 seems more guidebook than warning in our day.
overeater 5y ago
How strongly does this hold in cases where the speech is actually effective? I'm genuinely interested in a discussion without taking a side, because I feel like when people advocate for free speech, they are mainly thinking about unpopular unconvincing speech. Say, someone with a new brand of Nazi-ism is actually converting most of the people they talk to, using a combination of half-truths? Or even what if they are converting people by using celebrity endorsements and charismatic language? So no misinformation, but rather salient anecdotes, facts, and science? What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored?
- caslon 5y ago
  Firm believer that private companies should be able to censor whatever they want here! > What if someone's speech is effective at making people afraid of exercising opposing speech? What if someone's speech convinces people to attack the capitol? Maybe they don't plan the attack itself, and it's merely implied that the state of the world is completely unfair in a way that only a revolution and changing of constitutional rights, could a better world be restored? The government should not be censoring this. Private companies, as always, should feel free to censor what they want, regardless of positions.
  - overeater 5y ago
    Thanks for that thought. So what if we're back pre-WWII, and people were on the public streets giving speeches about joining the Nazi party? You'd support their right to spread their message, knowing what would happen? And I'm really trying to get at the point that this speech is actually effective. Not sure why people are downvoting, because I don't think this has been discussed before.
    - ryanschneider 5y ago
      Painfully, yes, being pro-Nazi in the run up to WW2 was entirely legal: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323... As much as I deplore their views I don’t think they should be legally barred from expressing them. Of course MSG has every right to decline hosting the above event, but the government shouldn’t be the arbiter of who can say what when in public.
pjc50 5y ago
The problem is more serious when it's things that people desperately do want to hear but turn out not to be true.
neonate 5y ago
That's from the unpublished preface to Animal Farm (https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/07/06/hear-liberty/), in which Orwell warned his British readers not to be too pleased with his satire of the Soviets: https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go https://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go. It was omitted from the novel under ironic circumstances (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface - "For reasons unknown, no preface was supplied, and the page numbers had to be renumbered at the last minute") and only rediscovered in 1971. It is Chomsky's favorite Orwell piece, one he mentions all the time (e.g. https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/ https://chomsky.info/20101010_2/) and has probably done the most to popularize. https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface https://www.google.com/search?q=chomsky+animal+farm+preface
jollybean 5y ago
So what we 'need to hear' is academics calling each other the n-word? Or the 'c-word'? This is a misapropriation of Orwell. Why do people have difficulty with the difference between 'slurs' and 'ideas'? And the difference between 'civil rights' and 'private organizations'? -> An academic, talking about a 'challenging idea' maybe using data points that challenge public norms or 'trigger' people - should be allowed to do so. Probably, using a word - any word - to talk about that word - or in historical context, said by a character in creative expression - should be fine. -> But using racist slurs against other people in civil discourse is totally inappropriate. If I called a co-worker a 'negro' or 'slut' I would expect to be fired. And neither of those things have to do with Free Speech. If you're quoting Orwell, do it in the right moments, because the more oppressive types will point out that using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public, which is plain rude. Then they can discretid the entire range of people concerned about 'Free Speech' as just irrelevant radicals. When media companies, governments, corps and universities are banning people for having ideas they don't like (or saying 'verbotten words' even in a legitimate context) then you trot out Orwell and issues of Freedom of Expression.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > using the Orwell defence in these scenarios is literally tantamount to supporting intellectuals calling each other the n-word in public Please explain how this could be "literally tantamount"? I don't understand that phrase or how this statement could be true.
  - jollybean 5y ago
    The point is very clear and that someone is using Orwell to defend academics calling each other slurs in genteel settings. Obviously, that has nothing to do with Orwell, or even 'Free Speech'. As for 'literally tantamount' - the phrasing is poor, and would work better with only one of the two words, probably better just 'tantamount' or frankly neither. But it's completely moot. It doesn't change the fairly obvious implication of the statement. Free Speech is important, Orwell is important - but neither have anything to do with arbitrary ad-hominem slander among intellectuals in public. The author of the article is effectively making a personal plea, not really an intellectual one. Really what he's saying is 'I'm not that offended, don't dump this woman because she said something really raw'. Even if you remove the slur, the a statement such as "People think you're an idiot" is just terrible, playground rhetoric. Why would a University want to work with someone who makes arguments such as that that wouldn't even work well on Reddit? Use Orwell for where it was meant to be used.
lamontcg 5y ago
So what about a barrage of death and rape threats to women who dare to make youtube videos that are critical of sexism in video games? What about the racial abuse hurled over twitter at the black soccer players in the Euros who missed their pens? If you argue that people need to just suck that up, then you'll find that most people won't buy what you're selling. We're going to see freedom of speech curtailed because of problems like this where people won't self-regulate their bigotry at all. And I don't think its a good thing and you don't have to convince me that after they're done with the bigots that they'll come after the socialists. There needs to be a better argument than Absolutists-vs-Censorship though because I'm pretty sure censorship is gonna win that one.

echelon 5y ago

I'm a liberal, but social media should be a common carrier. We can't amplify only approved thoughts. If we do, we'll wake up in a world where many of the things we think and feel are wrongthink and used against us. Edit: We're not done improving the world. Putting control structures in place now will freeze progress and make us slide backwards.

throwawayboise 5y ago
That is a very classically liberal point of view, in fact.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
geofft 5y ago
As far as I can tell, social media was acting like a common carrier here - the @racetrust account was not shut down by Twitter. They appear to have deleted their account on their own.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Social media can't be a common carrier without destroying social media's business model. We already had a "common carrier" model in the form of usenet, which turned into an absolute shithole when the average person was given access to post whatever he wanted.

geofft 5y ago

> No Platforming and censoring opposing voices only leads them to thrive underground. Frustratingly, the article offers no evidence for this claim. I understand the argument that censorship and deplatforming are bad because they are morally wrong - that it doesn't matter the effect they have because they are inherently bad tools to use. But I don't really understand the argument that they're bad because they're ineffective. When you drive something underground, it thrives less than it would on the surface, no? We have plenty of examples of censorship being effective. Take opposition to the US invasions of Iraq, for instance. Anyone who opposed it - even the Dixie Chicks, famously - was deplatformed and attacked in the media. There was no reasonable debate about whether it was a good idea. And it turned out it was not a good idea, and there were no WMDs, and it was a quagmire. But because opposition was pushed underground, it had no political power. Or take another superpower. The PRC has no moral objection to censorship. And certainly there are non-moribund underground dissident political and religious movements, coded ways of referencing 4 June 1989, etc. But could any argument be made that the PRC has made a tactical mistake in pushing these movements underground, that they're thriving because they were underground and would be less successful above ground?

zanethomas 5y ago
> No Platforming and censoring opposing voices only leads > them to thrive underground. > Frustratingly, the article offers no evidence for this > claim. See Gab, Rumble, Locals, Bitchute et al ... that's where people banned/censored by big tech can still be found.
- tstrimple 5y ago
  If only the rejects from other platforms congregate on gab, they can’t mainstream their toxic views with the general public. That’s an example of deplatforming working.
  - hello_marmalade 5y ago
    The problem is that it causes those people to become more extreme because they get put into an echo chamber. It’s like putting a petty thief in with hardened criminals. They’re not coming out better than they went in, they’re coming out much, much worse. It’s the difference between seeing people say racist things on Twitter, and having someone shoot up a church. Extremists aren’t created out in public.

rvz 5y ago

> The university also cited another tweet in which she used the word ‘coconut’. Now she is suing the university for breaching her right to free speech. Isn’t it funny how the woke left suddenly supports free speech whenever its free speech is under attack... Whatever it is that has attracted the critics attention to the author for them to resort to name calling and ad hominems which are also racist, they have now realised that they have to see themselves out. Very ironic for the Twitter account of the Race Trust. > The real shame is that Khanom or the Race Trust did not try to challenge my politics or arguments. .... These attacks haven’t persuaded me to alter my worldview... To resort to ad hominems probably means that they can't challenge the author or change his mind with convincing and logical arguments. They have done an own goal and proved the author's point once again. EDIT: You do realise that they deleted their Twitter account? That's why I said 'they have to see themselves out.' Also I don't see 'name calling' or 'ad hominems' as a useful way of a convincing someone else since that is not an argument [0]. Instead, that was the first own goal. Now the second own goal by the 'Race Trust' is in the main argument that the author makes which is cancel-culture which he disagrees with. This issue has now transcended into real life and the university cancelled the author of the tweet. Regardless of the viewpoints of the 'Race Trust', such cancellations just makes the situation even worse than it was before. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. It's against the site guidelines because it makes threads tedious, nasty, and predictable. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the rules more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Edit: we've had to ask you this numerous times before. Eventually we ban accounts that keep ignoring these requests.
- rvz 5y ago
  I edited and clarified my comment with context and added some substance to it and deleted another one in a different thread. Perhaps you'll now find that my comment is more 'thoughtful and substantive' and the rest of the comments in this thread have already descended further into mini flame wars. The worse thing about it is that some don't even have any evidence to substantiate their own comments. Oh dear.

mayankkaizen 5y ago

I am 41 years old. And I feel like in last 6-8 years, people have become far more intolerant regarding free speech. It is just not possible to say anything which is unpopular without inviting vicious attacks or even real threats. In part social media platforms are to be blamed. They somehow bring the worst out of everyone. The guy who is/was willing to listen to me patiently is now issuing death threats to anyone on Twitter. Somehow these trends are now transgressing to real life. These days people just don't think. They only react.

cjensen 5y ago
Your claim that people have become intolerant of free speech is unclear. For example, speech which generates "vicious attacks" in response is still free speech. The responses are also free speech. True threats should be reported to the police. That's not intolerance, that's just plain illegal. On the other hand if by "real threats" you mean hyperbolic threats, those are also free speech. Free speech is not a guarantee that others must listen, or that they must listen patiently. That is not now, nor has it ever been, the definition of free speech.
- beervirus 5y ago
  The big platforms will silence you for saying things that clearly fall under free speech.
  - dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 5y ago
    The big platforms have no ability to silence anyone. They have the ability to limit your use of their resources, which is well within their rights.
    - beervirus 5y ago
      It’s within their rights (currently…) but it’s still problematic.
      - 5y ago

zanethomas 5y ago

Thanks for that! So many people fail to appreciate the value of free speech. We put up with stupid, ignorant, crack-smokin crazy, bigoted speech so we can hear the voices of people outside the mainstream who have something valuable to say.

CraigJPerry 5y ago
I don’t know, i mean in theory i love that view. Also, if someone says something wrong, instead of silencing them, how about we just use evidence to show why they’re wrong? But then on the other hand you have, to give a random example, someone like Andrew Wakefield - he might be bat shit crazy but he is smart enough and functional enough to gain a medical degree and become a qualified doctor, a seemingly well respected one until he went off the rails and committed fraud in his research in order to claim an autism link to mmr vaccines. To me it seems he’s not stupid, he’s not crazy. He’s passed the same qualifications as his peers, but he is a fraud. A fraud that has caused who knows how many child deaths, albeit indirectly.
- zanethomas 5y ago
  I regularly smack the anti-semites on gab upside the head with a cluestick.
  - CraigJPerry 5y ago
    It was 10 years ago when “Rumors, Truths, and Reality: A Study of Political Misinformation” was published. Among other things, That was the study that tried debunking “death panels” and the affordable care act. The outcome was entrenchment, more people believed in death panels after hearing the fact check. Since then this study has been repeated 10s if not hundreds of times. That fact checking doesnt change minds is not in question. It simply does not work to change someone’s mind.
- nradov 5y ago
  Andrew Wakefield's medical credentials were revoked and his falsified research was retracted. The system worked.

pjc50 5y ago

Polite reminder that "Spiked!" is the journal formerly known as Living Marxism, after a phoenix rebrand when they were sued out of existence for libelling ITN over the Bosnian genocide. Polite request that if you believe in free speech at any cost, don't downvote this comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_Marxism

valec 5y ago
hacker news only cares about free speech when it can be used to dunk on "the left"
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  This is a left libertarian (leaning of the editor of Spiked) dunking on the left, so it still applies. Not surprising, to be honest. The mainstream left is increasingly less libertarian (especially because of cancel culture). Can't say HN feels particularly pro free speech though.
  - pmyteh 5y ago
    Spiked! is not a left-wing outlet, libertarian or otherwise. They're a group of former doctrinaire Marxists who swung to the equally-doctrinaire libertarian right after the fall of the Soviet Union. There's a whole nexus of organisations around them, and they have made a good living out of being professional contrarians. Their influence in British politics has been nearly wholly malign, both when they were on the left and now they're on the right. They are excellent self-publicists. Their funding is probably the same US right-libertarian dark money pools as the Tufton Street groups, though it's hard to be sure as their finances are characteristically opaque. Speaking as someone is is on the libertarian end of the British left, these guys are not our allies.
luckylion 5y ago
I fail to see the point of this comment. Are you suggesting the opinion of Calvin Robinson should be disregarded because it's published on a website you don't like?

cjensen 5y ago

Worth noting that in the US, this could not have happened. The First Amendment covers academia which receives Federal Funds. There's even an organization which is dedicated to defending this principle in court[1]. [1] https://www.thefire.org https://www.thefire.org

throwawaygh 5y ago
> The First Amendment covers academia which receives Federal Funds This isn't true. 1. Private colleges and universities that receive federal funds (e.g., the form of Pell Grants, government-originated student loans, or even research grants) have no obligation to offer faculty any amount of intellectual freedom. (Tangentially, this is highly unlikely to change as long as evangelical Christians are a non-trivial bloc within the GOP; tons of bible colleges, religiously affiliated colleges/universities, and seminaries rely on federal funds in one form or another. The evangelical world has a vested interest in maintain the financial viability of these institutions without sacrificing their character.) 2. Even at public universities, this still isn't true. Government employees enjoy asoundingly expansive free speech rights compared to private sector employees, but, crucially, only in their capacity as private citizens! Public statements made in pursuit of official duties are not generally protected under 1A. NB: the tweets came from an official account.

throw3849 5y ago

I do not really care about western politics. But by your standards it is one racist calling out another racist. I just wish there was AI filter to scrub this stuff from my feed. Author wrote this on twitter: 》Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory are political and do not belong in schools. https://celebpie.com/calvin-robinson/ https://celebpie.com/calvin-robinson/

dang 5y ago
Could you please stop routinely using multiple throwaway accounts? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=community%20identity%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

bob229 5y ago

Critical race theory is cancer

emerged 5y ago

It really does us no favors to hide the things people want to say. All their thoughts and intentions are still there except now we don’t know it.

risedotmoe 5y ago

I feel like if anything should be learned from this era, it’s that censorship does not work.

ordiel 5y ago

Tho I agree in some part with whats stated, a title containg something as "even my bigoted critics" making it personal only takes credit away from this type of publications taking it from... "Meh they have a point" to... "Meh just another flower complaining" if you want to make something objective you take yourself and your "experiences" (whatever that means) out of the equation. Who are you to tell they are the biggots, who is there to say that by enclosing larges grops of people and giving all them a sort of group mentality out of "your perception" of them (all) sharing a similar mindset the autos is not itself becoming a biggot.... (I am just trying to point out how much this type of things depreciate the value of writing something meaningful)

JohnHaugeland 5y ago

I'm so tired of everyone acting like freedom of speech means freedom from consequences Yes, yes. You were a racist in public, you got fired, and something something first amendment Can we stop acting like this would pass muster in a grade school? It's downright embarrassing