Hacker News Reader

Comment by rmc | Hacker News Reader

There's a difference between Stormfront, a neo-nazi site, and "a conservative bent"

There is an increasing (and worrying) trend among liberals to call racist or misogynist anyone who doesn't demonstrate enthusiasm for the cause of the day. Concerns about being censored when accused of racism isn't exactly irrational paranoia.

A recent example of what appears to be a moderate, democrat voting professor experiencing it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4546704/Professor-ca...

> There is an increasing (and worrying) trend

No there isn't. That's like saying there is an increased trend among conservatives in general towards being Nazis.

There is an increase in the activity of the lunatic fringes on both sides. Ranging from hardcore tea party people to "OMG white people are the worst" morons all the way to antifa and neo-nazis.

> That's like saying there is an increased trend among conservatives in general towards being Nazis.

Someone compared the election manifesto from the British National Party (who are basically neo-Nazi) for the 2005 UK election, and the 2017 manifesto from the Conservative party, the main centre-right party in the UK.

And there were an awful lot of similarities which the Conservatives wouldn't have put in before.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2017/04/23/compared-tories-polic...

There is an irony in you posting two answers within minutes, one likening a british political party to neo-nazis, and the other highlighting that you make a distinction between neo-nazis and other forms of racism.

The British National Party used to be called the British Union of Fascists. Nick Griffin was leader for 15 years, until 2014, and is a holocaust denier. Until 2010, they had an official "whites only" membership policy. It's illegal for police, fire frighters, and prison officers in the UK to be a BNP member. The Church of England forbids it's priests from being members. It's not much of a stretch.

If you're not British you might think "oh they are just another political party", that's not true at all.

That's the Daily Mail, a newspaper that supported Hitler during the 1930s, and today is not accepted as a source in Wikipedia due to "the Daily Mail’s reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication"¹. So you'll forgive me if I'm skeptical.

Secondly there is nothing in that article about neo-Nazism, so I don't know why you brought it up? I'm talking about neo-Nazi sites, not general racism/etc.

--- ¹ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia...

If reading the daily mail offends you, there was a long column in the FT last week end about this phenomenon [1] but you will find references in various newspapers [2] [3] (and dozens others if you google it).

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/902581a0-99ff-11e7-b83c-9588e5148...

[2]https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/education/edlife/internet...

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/student-protestors-and-t...

> If reading the daily mail offends you

It doesn't offend me. It's just not a reliable source.

And those links don't address my second point. There is no reference to neo-Nazism. I'm suggesting neo-Nazi website be taken offline/

Define it. Then define it in such a way that everyone advocating this censorship will agree too. Then pledge that when people start pushing for additional censorship you'll vehemently push back.

You can start off with the definition in German law:

publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism .. publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying, or justifying National Socialist rule of arbitrary force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#...

So obviously people like Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, Donald Trump, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Charles Murray, and George W. Bush don't qualify. So just reply with some links where you've been defending their right to speak as loudly as you've insisted Nazi censorship won't impair it. Because surely no decent person you would insist on clear lines of censorship and then quietly disappear as violent rioters use that reasoning to slander and silence people.

Edit: I'll take that downvote as a sign of "I casually claim censorship can be limited while doing nothing to stop its expansion."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com