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Just for the record, your "first amendment protected behavior" means the government can't prosecute you for said behavior. It doesn't mean anyone else has to t

Just for the record, your "first amendment protected behavior" means the government can't prosecute you for said behavior. It doesn't mean anyone else has to tolerate you or your nonsense, including major financial organizations. Or are you saying you want that ebil gummint to impose your will on others?

zen_1 4y ago
To quote GP: > Financial providers shouldn't be issuing moral judgements. It seems to be more common too.
bioemerl 4y ago
It is absolutely reasonable to expect that freedom of speech involves the preservation of being able to make basic purchases. This "freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences" line is exactly the sort of attitude people take in the countries in which the government does suppress free speech, and they think it's just perfectly fine. You have freedom of speech and every country then, the consequences just going to jail. There's a limit to this. There should be consequences for you saying things that are wrong, lying to people, spreading hatred, and so on. However, protecting basic human decency in the ability to continue to participate in society is incredibly important to preserving free expression across our nations. Being able to purchase things, being able to post to the internet, are both aspects of this. It's fine to have this attitude when they're is a strong diversity of companies that allow you to participate and is likely that not all of them can collude with each other. We have two payment processing companies. Four social media companies, and those four all literally live in the same city. The patj you tread is a path leading to suppression of speech, and the point of free speech is to ensure that people are able to speak without fear of undue consequence.
- zajio1am 4y ago
  > This "freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences" line is exactly the sort of attitude people take in the countries in which the government does suppress free speech, and they think it's just perfectly fine. You have freedom of speech and every country then, the consequences just going to jail. There is even old communist-era joke about that: Is here in USSR the same freedom of speech like in western countries? Yes, there is freedom of speech, but in western countries there is also freedom after speech.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
User23 4y ago
The first amendment recognizes a natural right, it doesn’t create it. Granted, its protection of that right is limited, but the right still exists even when it is not legally protected.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  There is no such thing as a natural right, other than the fact that the strong are able to enforce their will on the weak. Everything else is just things we, as a society, believe are important for everyone to have. And we generally band together to enforce that people _do_ have those rights; effectively increasing our strength to enforce our will anyone that disagrees. That's a good thing, and it's kind of _why_ society exists. But the fact that our society values a right doesn't make it "innate to the universe" in any way. Rights are "discovered", they are "defined and desired".
  - SuoDuanDao 4y ago
    That's not how Lockean ethics sees it, and if results are what we care about they're a pretty effective worldview to hold - assuming we want a free and prosperous society.
tristor 4y ago
Every. Single. Time. Every time someone mentions that what they are doing is protected free speech, there is someone on HN that feels necessary to make "Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences" as an argument. Sure, at it's most simplistic this is true. However, if exercising a right results in you being homeless when your behavior was legal, and protected as a matter of course by the law, then there is something wrong. What you are missing, and what everyone who makes this argument is missing, is that Freedom of Speech isn't /just/ a law, it's also a social more, and that social more has shifted, which means speech is now a universally dangerous behavior, regardless of whether or not you will be prosecuted. This isn't just a collective decision of society, it's a consequence of our more interconnected world, the concentration of wealth and power, and how that wealth and power unequally is applied to people based on whether or not they're liked by the wealthy and powerful. Multi-national corporations, that literally hold charters to sit on the boards of central banks, that are deeply interconnected with the US government, while actively extra-governmentally, do not get to go "muh consequences" when they penalize citizens in life-altering ways for doing legal activities. Banking isn't exactly a right, but you should not be stripped of your ability to bank for doing completely legal things. Being forced to be unbanked, being unable to take payment for your work, and/or being fired from your job are not "muh consequences", they are an attempt by the wealthy and the powerful to utterly suppress speech they don't like, and to oppress the people, the individuals, who dare to utter, write, or share things they disapprove of. In many ways, these are more material than government action. Anytime someone tells me they care about marginalized communities while also trotting out "muh consequences" has told me that they don't care about marginalized communities. When making this argument you always envision somebody on Twitter you enjoyed being part of the mob to pillory, but those aren't the people who suffer "muh consequences" the most, it's always people at the margins. It's the lady who is forcibly unbanked because she became an online sex worker to pay for her insulin. It's the guy who turned his life around in the legal weed industry, but has to deal with cash accounting and risk of robbery, and is unable to access retirement services, because he's forcibly unbanked. It's the person who runs the local community center but had felonies, and has unsavory prison tattoos they keep covered up, that's forcibly unbanked. Your "muh consequences" destroy people's lives, people who are just trying to survive, and doing so by participating in legal activities in their own communities, and by saying, writing, and sharing things which are legally protected. You can always justify "muh consequences" when you create a boogeyman to target it at, but the reality is that free speech that is not free from life-altering consequences meted out by global institutions with near unlimited power /isn't free/. Freedom of association for businesses stops when the business is nearly more powerful (or maybe actually is more powerful) than the government. It's still oppression and it's still immoral, even if it's not the government doing it.
belorn 4y ago
Money is inherently interconnected with government. It is the government that issues money. It is government that demand that taxes is paid using their money. It is government that issue regulations for finance, and it is government that enforce laws that protect money and the processes around money. It is governments that generally insures banks. I am perfectly fine with banks being exempted from first amendment rules if the bank has no relation with governments and when the government do not depend on banks to operate the financial system within the nation. Otherwise the bank is just an extension of the government, indistinguishable from a government department.
SuoDuanDao 4y ago
This is the basic tactic of fascism - government power circumvents the freedom guaranteed by the open market, corporate power circumvents the freedom guaranteed by the constitution. It may be necessary to revisit the fascist question - we certainly seem to be revisiting the socialist one so horseshoe theory pretty much guarantees we will - but I will not entertain any fascist positions unless the person arguing for it acknowledging that that's what they're doing.

zen_1 4y ago

To quote GP: > Financial providers shouldn't be issuing moral judgements. It seems to be more common too.

bioemerl 4y ago

It is absolutely reasonable to expect that freedom of speech involves the preservation of being able to make basic purchases. This "freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences" line is exactly the sort of attitude people take in the countries in which the government does suppress free speech, and they think it's just perfectly fine. You have freedom of speech and every country then, the consequences just going to jail. There's a limit to this. There should be consequences for you saying things that are wrong, lying to people, spreading hatred, and so on. However, protecting basic human decency in the ability to continue to participate in society is incredibly important to preserving free expression across our nations. Being able to purchase things, being able to post to the internet, are both aspects of this. It's fine to have this attitude when they're is a strong diversity of companies that allow you to participate and is likely that not all of them can collude with each other. We have two payment processing companies. Four social media companies, and those four all literally live in the same city. The patj you tread is a path leading to suppression of speech, and the point of free speech is to ensure that people are able to speak without fear of undue consequence.

zajio1am 4y ago
> This "freedom of speech isn't freedom of consequences" line is exactly the sort of attitude people take in the countries in which the government does suppress free speech, and they think it's just perfectly fine. You have freedom of speech and every country then, the consequences just going to jail. There is even old communist-era joke about that: Is here in USSR the same freedom of speech like in western countries? Yes, there is freedom of speech, but in western countries there is also freedom after speech.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

User23 4y ago

The first amendment recognizes a natural right, it doesn’t create it. Granted, its protection of that right is limited, but the right still exists even when it is not legally protected.

RHSeeger 4y ago
There is no such thing as a natural right, other than the fact that the strong are able to enforce their will on the weak. Everything else is just things we, as a society, believe are important for everyone to have. And we generally band together to enforce that people _do_ have those rights; effectively increasing our strength to enforce our will anyone that disagrees. That's a good thing, and it's kind of _why_ society exists. But the fact that our society values a right doesn't make it "innate to the universe" in any way. Rights are "discovered", they are "defined and desired".
- SuoDuanDao 4y ago
  That's not how Lockean ethics sees it, and if results are what we care about they're a pretty effective worldview to hold - assuming we want a free and prosperous society.

tristor 4y ago

Every. Single. Time. Every time someone mentions that what they are doing is protected free speech, there is someone on HN that feels necessary to make "Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom of consequences" as an argument. Sure, at it's most simplistic this is true. However, if exercising a right results in you being homeless when your behavior was legal, and protected as a matter of course by the law, then there is something wrong. What you are missing, and what everyone who makes this argument is missing, is that Freedom of Speech isn't /just/ a law, it's also a social more, and that social more has shifted, which means speech is now a universally dangerous behavior, regardless of whether or not you will be prosecuted. This isn't just a collective decision of society, it's a consequence of our more interconnected world, the concentration of wealth and power, and how that wealth and power unequally is applied to people based on whether or not they're liked by the wealthy and powerful. Multi-national corporations, that literally hold charters to sit on the boards of central banks, that are deeply interconnected with the US government, while actively extra-governmentally, do not get to go "muh consequences" when they penalize citizens in life-altering ways for doing legal activities. Banking isn't exactly a right, but you should not be stripped of your ability to bank for doing completely legal things. Being forced to be unbanked, being unable to take payment for your work, and/or being fired from your job are not "muh consequences", they are an attempt by the wealthy and the powerful to utterly suppress speech they don't like, and to oppress the people, the individuals, who dare to utter, write, or share things they disapprove of. In many ways, these are more material than government action. Anytime someone tells me they care about marginalized communities while also trotting out "muh consequences" has told me that they don't care about marginalized communities. When making this argument you always envision somebody on Twitter you enjoyed being part of the mob to pillory, but those aren't the people who suffer "muh consequences" the most, it's always people at the margins. It's the lady who is forcibly unbanked because she became an online sex worker to pay for her insulin. It's the guy who turned his life around in the legal weed industry, but has to deal with cash accounting and risk of robbery, and is unable to access retirement services, because he's forcibly unbanked. It's the person who runs the local community center but had felonies, and has unsavory prison tattoos they keep covered up, that's forcibly unbanked. Your "muh consequences" destroy people's lives, people who are just trying to survive, and doing so by participating in legal activities in their own communities, and by saying, writing, and sharing things which are legally protected. You can always justify "muh consequences" when you create a boogeyman to target it at, but the reality is that free speech that is not free from life-altering consequences meted out by global institutions with near unlimited power /isn't free/. Freedom of association for businesses stops when the business is nearly more powerful (or maybe actually is more powerful) than the government. It's still oppression and it's still immoral, even if it's not the government doing it.

belorn 4y ago

Money is inherently interconnected with government. It is the government that issues money. It is government that demand that taxes is paid using their money. It is government that issue regulations for finance, and it is government that enforce laws that protect money and the processes around money. It is governments that generally insures banks. I am perfectly fine with banks being exempted from first amendment rules if the bank has no relation with governments and when the government do not depend on banks to operate the financial system within the nation. Otherwise the bank is just an extension of the government, indistinguishable from a government department.

SuoDuanDao 4y ago

This is the basic tactic of fascism - government power circumvents the freedom guaranteed by the open market, corporate power circumvents the freedom guaranteed by the constitution. It may be necessary to revisit the fascist question - we certainly seem to be revisiting the socialist one so horseshoe theory pretty much guarantees we will - but I will not entertain any fascist positions unless the person arguing for it acknowledging that that's what they're doing.