4 ms·

I believe the point is the actions above "smell like" attacks on a certain group of people's right to speech and assembly ... even though it wasn't the governme

I believe the point is the actions above "smell like" attacks on a certain group of people's right to speech and assembly ... even though it wasn't the government doing these things, and even though these things were legal at the time (I assume). It may be legal for me to harass, intimidate or silence my opponents, since I am not the government ... but it's certainly not in the spirit of promoting free discourse on ideas, which free-speech-loving Americans are all generally in favor of. (or think they are)

dfc 13y ago
So essentially "Here is an arbitrary selection of evil in the pre-CRA'64 south." With such a long list of shameful events I guess I was expecting "This event is particularly relevant to the discussion because..."
- makomk 13y ago
  It's relevant in the sense it demonstrates who benefits and loses out as the result of this narrow view of "free speech". Taking "free speech" to mean only freedom from government restrictions and and making it the norm not to criticise non-government restrictions on speech benefits the powerful at the expense of the less powerful. Constitutionally, those African Americans had just as much right to carry out economic retaliation against racists as vice-versa, but in practice they were in no position to do so. This doesn't just apply to evil in the pre-CRA south either. A less dramatic example of this is online feminist communities - all the popular ones have systematically excluded women of colour, trans women, etc, often deleting any criticism of the fact they've done so. (This is also why the hover text is frankly offensive. It doesn't matter how good your arguments are if no-one hears them - many did have arguments other than "free speech", but as far as the rest of the community knew they didn't because the community owners said they didn't.) It took until the rise of so-called "Twitter feminism" that wasn't controlled by a particular community owner before those women could get their voices heard online, and even now I think there's some pressure on Twitter to shut them up again.

dfc 13y ago

So essentially "Here is an arbitrary selection of evil in the pre-CRA'64 south." With such a long list of shameful events I guess I was expecting "This event is particularly relevant to the discussion because..."

makomk 13y ago
It's relevant in the sense it demonstrates who benefits and loses out as the result of this narrow view of "free speech". Taking "free speech" to mean only freedom from government restrictions and and making it the norm not to criticise non-government restrictions on speech benefits the powerful at the expense of the less powerful. Constitutionally, those African Americans had just as much right to carry out economic retaliation against racists as vice-versa, but in practice they were in no position to do so. This doesn't just apply to evil in the pre-CRA south either. A less dramatic example of this is online feminist communities - all the popular ones have systematically excluded women of colour, trans women, etc, often deleting any criticism of the fact they've done so. (This is also why the hover text is frankly offensive. It doesn't matter how good your arguments are if no-one hears them - many did have arguments other than "free speech", but as far as the rest of the community knew they didn't because the community owners said they didn't.) It took until the rise of so-called "Twitter feminism" that wasn't controlled by a particular community owner before those women could get their voices heard online, and even now I think there's some pressure on Twitter to shut them up again.