4 ms·

Not 100 years ago, you'd be stoned for being a socialist, or being black in the wrong public setting. No one was going to protect you. Protected free speech is

by mouse_ 3y ago

Not 100 years ago, you'd be stoned for being a socialist, or being black in the wrong public setting. No one was going to protect you. Protected free speech is a myth, at best.

hotdogscout 3y ago
In 1924? What? Socialism was extremely popular in academia during that period. The US had the Espionage Act but I cannot think anywhere the stoning of socialists would happen, let alone in academia. Stoning black people was never a thing as far as I know. Do you have any pointers?
- defrost 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre was 1921 and was a little more excessive than stoning. Lynching and posing with corpses for collectable postcards was also a thing of the times. Technically none of this is stoning but it's easy to imagine church gowing people that are willing to lynch black people were very likely to stone them also. Addendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer Beginning on July 27, the Chicago race riot marked the greatest massacre of Red Summer. Chicago's beaches along Lake Michigan were segregated by custom. When Eugene Williams, a black youth, swam into an area on the South Side customarily used by whites, he was stoned and drowned. There's even some photos there from 1919 of people posing with stones in hand over people that they've stoned during the following riots.
  - hotdogscout 3y ago
    That's a far cry from the context he painted. Socialists were absolutely not under that kind of violent lynching level of abuse and it was quite the opposite in Academia. [Just to be clear, did not know about Red Summer and I concede that point.]
    - defrost 3y ago
      I haven't looked at the treatment of socialists - I just addressed the stoning of blacks. IIRC union busting in the US was quite violent and sometimes involved the police and | or military aiding in charging and beating strikers with clubs and occasional deaths, frequent injuries. Again, not stoning but would count as violence towards socialists | communists | workers. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th... 1916 - 1925 seems to be a peak time of extreme violence toward unions.
      - hotdogscout 3y ago
        I wouldn't say unions are socialist at all. In fact unions are the first thing to go out the window under socialist governments. (The relevant part of the Wiki article is highlighted) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China#:~:text=Independent%20unions%20are%20illegal%20in,in%20the%20world%20since%202009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China#:~:....
        defrost 3y ago
        You have a narrow view of socialism - it's a broad tent and in many ways neither Russia and the USSR nor China during the great leap forward are representive of what most socialists aim for. Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, 100 years ago in the USofA : Unlike the American Federation of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World opposed the First World War. The American Protective League (APL) was a pro-war organization formed by wealthy Chicago businessmen. At the height of its power the APL had 250,000 members in 600 cities. In 1918, documents from the APL showed that ten percent of its efforts (the largest of any category) were focused on disrupting the activities of the IWW. The APL burgled and vandalized IWW offices, and harassed IWW members. Such actions were illegal, yet were supported by the Wilson administration. a quarter million self described capitalists were openly attacking self described socialists. Industrial Workers of the World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl... The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements. Neither of us get to "yeah, but..." and redefine what the wobblies a century ago described themselves as, nor what their opponents used as a slur.
- komali2 3y ago
  > Stoning black people was never a thing as far as I know. Do you have any pointers? Lynchings of black people continued well into the 1900s. https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-l... And in particular during the civil rights movement, there was extraordinary violence against black people for daring to do nothing more than speak. Check out the library of congress: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-era.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-e... The State helped - the FBI tried to convince MLK to kill himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette... > Socialism was extremely popular in academia during that period. For about 5 minutes until McCarthy and friends started chucking people in prison. This is such common knowledge I'm honestly not sure what to link other than simply the wikipedia article on McCarthyism lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism While it's not stoning, I consider arbitrary imprisonment also an unacceptable form of State violence and suppression of ideas. So until the State or something as powerful as it starts literally imprisoning conservatives, or angry mobs start lynching them, I don't really care about the whining about "cancelling" and "deplatforming." Go to a protest, the cops still buddy up with the Proud Boys. They still beat us for kneeling. Conservatives and their ideology are perfectly safe.
  - hotdogscout 3y ago
    If you look at any right leaning pundit online you'd see substantial instances of violence against the right. Look at Andy Ngo's Feed. 1924 preceded McCarthyism by 3 decades. I conceded that the stonings did happen against Black people and I didn't know.
putzdown 3y ago
I think you're saying that because a century ago some people oppressed other people (in America?), therefore free speech was never protected. If that's what you're saying, I don't see that the conclusion follows from the premise. It is possible for a society to protect free speech in general but to fail to protect it in specific instances. That's a deplorable inconsistency for a society to have, but it doesn't make free speech a "myth". It makes it an inconsistently protected right. And, if that's what you're saying about 100 years ago, then what is your point about the present? If the idea of free speech is a good thing, then let's make it not "a myth" by supporting it. If the idea of free speech is a bad thing, then let's crush it and silence everyone we disagree with. But what are you saying? How is it being "a myth" relevant?
- mouse_ 3y ago
  Inconsistently protected rights are not "rights".
  - putzdown 3y ago
    You must surely realize that your statement is nonsense. If it were true then there would be no rights. No right or law is ever protected with perfect consistency. The right to life, the right to make personal choices, the right to determine one's own identity—whatever right you may believe in, it is never protected consistently. All rights are "inconsistently protected." Therefore, by your statement, there are no rights. Are you saying you disbelieve in rights altogether?
    - mouse_ 3y ago
      Correct. The power structure and its "rights" exist exclusively to protect themselves.
      - putzdown 3y ago
        So, to make sure I understand, you’re saying that there are no rights, and no one should have any rights. So if a government declares that it can imprison anyone indefinitely for any reason at any time, that’s a good thing. There is no right protecting people’s freedom. Governments can and should be able to do anything they want. Is that it?

by mouse_ 3y ago

Not 100 years ago, you'd be stoned for being a socialist, or being black in the wrong public setting. No one was going to protect you. Protected free speech is a myth, at best.

hotdogscout 3y ago

In 1924? What? Socialism was extremely popular in academia during that period. The US had the Espionage Act but I cannot think anywhere the stoning of socialists would happen, let alone in academia. Stoning black people was never a thing as far as I know. Do you have any pointers?

defrost 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre was 1921 and was a little more excessive than stoning. Lynching and posing with corpses for collectable postcards was also a thing of the times. Technically none of this is stoning but it's easy to imagine church gowing people that are willing to lynch black people were very likely to stone them also. Addendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Summer Beginning on July 27, the Chicago race riot marked the greatest massacre of Red Summer. Chicago's beaches along Lake Michigan were segregated by custom. When Eugene Williams, a black youth, swam into an area on the South Side customarily used by whites, he was stoned and drowned. There's even some photos there from 1919 of people posing with stones in hand over people that they've stoned during the following riots.
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  That's a far cry from the context he painted. Socialists were absolutely not under that kind of violent lynching level of abuse and it was quite the opposite in Academia. [Just to be clear, did not know about Red Summer and I concede that point.]
  - defrost 3y ago
    I haven't looked at the treatment of socialists - I just addressed the stoning of blacks. IIRC union busting in the US was quite violent and sometimes involved the police and | or military aiding in charging and beating strikers with clubs and occasional deaths, frequent injuries. Again, not stoning but would count as violence towards socialists | communists | workers. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_union_busting_in_th... 1916 - 1925 seems to be a peak time of extreme violence toward unions.
    - hotdogscout 3y ago
      I wouldn't say unions are socialist at all. In fact unions are the first thing to go out the window under socialist governments. (The relevant part of the Wiki article is highlighted) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China#:~:text=Independent%20unions%20are%20illegal%20in,in%20the%20world%20since%202009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_relations_in_China#:~:....
      - defrost 3y ago
        You have a narrow view of socialism - it's a broad tent and in many ways neither Russia and the USSR nor China during the great leap forward are representive of what most socialists aim for. Regardless of your thoughts on the matter, 100 years ago in the USofA : Unlike the American Federation of Labor, the Industrial Workers of the World opposed the First World War. The American Protective League (APL) was a pro-war organization formed by wealthy Chicago businessmen. At the height of its power the APL had 250,000 members in 600 cities. In 1918, documents from the APL showed that ten percent of its efforts (the largest of any category) were focused on disrupting the activities of the IWW. The APL burgled and vandalized IWW offices, and harassed IWW members. Such actions were illegal, yet were supported by the Wilson administration. a quarter million self described capitalists were openly attacking self described socialists. Industrial Workers of the World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_Worl... The philosophy and tactics of the IWW are described as "revolutionary industrial unionism", with ties to socialist, syndicalist, and anarchist labor movements. Neither of us get to "yeah, but..." and redefine what the wobblies a century ago described themselves as, nor what their opponents used as a slur.
komali2 3y ago
> Stoning black people was never a thing as far as I know. Do you have any pointers? Lynchings of black people continued well into the 1900s. https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-l... And in particular during the civil rights movement, there was extraordinary violence against black people for daring to do nothing more than speak. Check out the library of congress: https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-era.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-e... The State helped - the FBI tried to convince MLK to kill himself https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_letter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI%E2%80%93King_suicide_lette... > Socialism was extremely popular in academia during that period. For about 5 minutes until McCarthy and friends started chucking people in prison. This is such common knowledge I'm honestly not sure what to link other than simply the wikipedia article on McCarthyism lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism While it's not stoning, I consider arbitrary imprisonment also an unacceptable form of State violence and suppression of ideas. So until the State or something as powerful as it starts literally imprisoning conservatives, or angry mobs start lynching them, I don't really care about the whining about "cancelling" and "deplatforming." Go to a protest, the cops still buddy up with the Proud Boys. They still beat us for kneeling. Conservatives and their ideology are perfectly safe.
- hotdogscout 3y ago
  If you look at any right leaning pundit online you'd see substantial instances of violence against the right. Look at Andy Ngo's Feed. 1924 preceded McCarthyism by 3 decades. I conceded that the stonings did happen against Black people and I didn't know.

putzdown 3y ago

I think you're saying that because a century ago some people oppressed other people (in America?), therefore free speech was never protected. If that's what you're saying, I don't see that the conclusion follows from the premise. It is possible for a society to protect free speech in general but to fail to protect it in specific instances. That's a deplorable inconsistency for a society to have, but it doesn't make free speech a "myth". It makes it an inconsistently protected right. And, if that's what you're saying about 100 years ago, then what is your point about the present? If the idea of free speech is a good thing, then let's make it not "a myth" by supporting it. If the idea of free speech is a bad thing, then let's crush it and silence everyone we disagree with. But what are you saying? How is it being "a myth" relevant?

mouse_ 3y ago
Inconsistently protected rights are not "rights".
- putzdown 3y ago
  You must surely realize that your statement is nonsense. If it were true then there would be no rights. No right or law is ever protected with perfect consistency. The right to life, the right to make personal choices, the right to determine one's own identity—whatever right you may believe in, it is never protected consistently. All rights are "inconsistently protected." Therefore, by your statement, there are no rights. Are you saying you disbelieve in rights altogether?
  - mouse_ 3y ago
    Correct. The power structure and its "rights" exist exclusively to protect themselves.
    - putzdown 3y ago
      So, to make sure I understand, you’re saying that there are no rights, and no one should have any rights. So if a government declares that it can imprison anyone indefinitely for any reason at any time, that’s a good thing. There is no right protecting people’s freedom. Governments can and should be able to do anything they want. Is that it?