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Comment by KirinDave | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry, is it empathy to agree with folks that, "yes" it is okay to kill? Should we not call that act of violence and act of violence?

This seems to me like a category error that you're making here.

It's possible to be upset about treatment of citizens in China but also strongly disagree with racially motivated violence in the United States. People walking around with torches chanting blood and soil art literal, not figurative, Nazis. They have a very clear agenda. That agenda claimed a life and injured many others. Daily Stormer then supported it. This doesn't seem like a very grey zone to me.

I'm also not entirely sure that I agree with your characterization of the Chinese government has a fascist government. There are degrees of Badness in the world.

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> I'm sorry, is it empathy to agree with folks that

I may not be able to understand where White Supremists are coming from, but I fully appreciate their right to free speech. I also don't understand people who prioritize limiting speech, but respect their opinion. That's the empathy I refer to.

> I may not be able to understand where White Supremists are coming from, but I fully appreciate their right to free speech.

These two facts are connected. Another example would be not being fully sure what bleach exactly is, but being all for drinking it.

Bluntly, people have a right to hate, as long as they're not committing assault and battery.

I'll take the world where that exists before I live in a world with thought police.

If people have a right to hate, then your ethos demands private companies can mute anyone they want.

It seems difficult to have it both ways.

Edit: it seems my debate partner deleted a telling comment. Too bad.

I didn't think we're debating? I'm just expressing my views within the HN bubble.

Anyway, I agree with you that the current legal framework allows private companies to discriminate. Ideally, government regulation will fix this; otherwise, as soon as the pendulum swings, I'm sure you'd be displeased with progressive websites being dumped off of internet infrastructure by corporations run or owned by those with conservative leanings.

Maybe, but there is a clear difference in magnitude between the celebration of murder to quash speech and the historical debate about the direction of this country.

Very few folks are confused when they see a group of white men fly Nazi flags, then murder and maim, then cheer it on as an act of heroism.

Which is probably why your "Free speech actually means freedom from any and all consequences" is going over here like a lead balloon.

> I'm just expressing my views within the HN bubble.

And for the most part being treated civily, even though you seem to be trying your best to defend the cause of literal fascists and their literal endorsement of spontaneous and fatal violence.

I'm surprised an advocate of "free" speech devoid of consequence can tolerate and support those who engage in violence against that very principle.

Ignoring the issue about calls for violence which are not always protected, how has their right to free speech been affected? CloudFlare is not the government and the first amendment doesn't generally obligate a private company to provide service. They're still free to speak all they want, run their own servers, etc.

You yourself have called it a position of hatred and spontaneous and fatal violence. A spontaneous violence that is unrepentant upon it's exposure, that claims it has to kill to make it's point and that those who stand against it deserve killing.

And not even the cold, calculated murder of widespread cultural warfare which you yourself demand we awknowledged uniquely. It's the unstable and white hot murder of people so indignant at the existence of opposition that one spontaneously murdered one and injured over a dozen more as his fellows cheered him on.

This is all what you've agreed they are. And it sums up to a picture of danger. I think you understand them quite well.

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