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I am not saying that it has always been perfectly implemented, right leaning politicians have been guilty in myriad ways of censorship over the years. But the i
by Dig1t 3y ago
I am not saying that it has always been perfectly implemented, right leaning politicians have been guilty in myriad ways of censorship over the years. But the ideal that we define as a culture is what I stated, and if we all agree that's what we want then we can work every day towards the ideal. It has been the ideal since the founding of the United States in 1776.
I know this to be true because my parents and grandparents told me that that is what their generation valued, and what they thought the definition of free speech should be.
If the majority of the people in a culture decide that they care about free speech then the minority of censorious bad people in power can be overcome.
How do you think the left got the power they have today? By being allowed to write whatever they want in opinion columns, make movies that insult corrupt politicians, write plays about evil industrial fat cats poisoning the water supply, marching through the streets with megaphones dissenting to war mongers.
Now we are saying it's okay to silence these people as long as we label them as "harmful" or "bigots" in some way. Even being anti-war is now somehow becoming associated with the alt-right taboo people that must not be talked about.
What we are seeing now is a generation of people who do not share the ideal of free speech, and are okay with censorship and an ingroup/outgroup by default.
- foldr 3y agoIt's trivial to find historical examples of censorship in the US that wouldn't happen today. Here is one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bertrand_Russell_Case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bertrand_Russell_Case Can you imagine a situation now where CUNY was unable to appoint someone to an academic position because the Catholic church canceled them? As another example one might mention the vast reduction of censorship in movies. Movies can be shown now that would have been unthinkable in at least the first half of the 20th century. Granted, there may also be instances of present day censorship that wouldn't have happened historically. But it's naive and completely ahistorical to see any past period as some kind of bastion of free speech absolutism. Believe me, lots of people in your grandparents' generation also wanted to restrict free speech (particularly with regard to e.g. sexually explicit content, or anything that might be vaguely connected with Communism).
- hellojesus 3y agoCan we at least agree on the premise that free speech should be absolute? The parent pointed out that the implementation has never been perfect, but the objective was correct? Conditional upon that, why wouldn't we strive to correct the implementation? The opposite seems to be happening.
- foldr 3y agoWhat’s the point in having a debate on HN about whether or not free speech should be absolute? I doubt there’s anything new to say on the topic.
- hellojesus 3y agoMy comment was in response to your initial response that nitpicked the OP's point that free speech was considered absolute in the past, contrary to the current climate which seems to be trying to do away with it and replace it with white listed speech. The OP was discussing the ideology of free speech, not the implementation. My response was an attempt to bring the topic back to the ideology of whether free speech should be allowed in absoluteness, in contrast to your deviation towards implementation.