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Comment by ThomPete | Hacker News Reader

It's not about absolute freedom or free market it's about free speech thats a very different thing.

Your logic is opening up for the ability for anyone to discriminate other people alone for their opinions, that's a box I don't think benefit anyone.

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But libertarians and true believers of free speech support the right of people to discriminate with their speech. For example, from the article, "Anyone doing so would be met by a unified front of academics, journalists, and cultural figures expressing their moral outrage, wrapped up in sophisticated words and scientific-sounding terminology like xenophobia." A true Libertarian would support their right to do and say this. One can disagree with it, but it's them using their freedom of speech.

I don't know what you mean with "discriminate with their speech" what does that mean? The point of free speech is to get the ideas out in the open so we can debate them.

The article says that SJWs are labeling holder's of certain beliefs as "bad people". I'm saying that is them using their free speech.

They aren't just labeling them, they are bullying them. Calling them alt-right to NOT have to debate them. Using Hecklers Veto tactics. That's not using free speech that's refusing to engage different views.

I'm saying isn't bullying and the Heckler's veto forms of free speech/the free market? As long as the government isn't involved in it?

It's a free market of propagandistic image-mongering and name-calling. It's not a free market of ideas worthy of the name.

As long as the government isn't involved in it?

No, free speech also requires people follow the spirit of the law, not just the letter of it. What if the mafia went around a poor neighborhood and intimidated everyone to vote for their candidate, or else, and they lied so convincingly about being able to tell how everyone voted, basically everyone followed their instructions? Would this be "free speech/the free market?"

Yeah that's a good point, although, that involves the threat of violence. What the article says SJWs do is threaten moral condemnation "and when someone does say something, they are met with a wave of sophisticated terminology backed by academic credentials that they have no way of parsing." Those both aren't violence, but I guess you can say the first one is bullying people into not speaking. However, I believe the only examples that the author provided of that was the firing of James Damore and the survey of Silicon Valley employees that showed conservatives are afraid to be themselves and reports in the survey that they are being purged from companies like Apple. I'd say that in a free market you can hire and fire anyone you like at your business. So the conservatives and libertarians that are supposedly being oppressed by SJWs are being suppressed by a system they support.

Yeah that's a good point, although, that involves the threat of violence.

The threat of losing your job, or effectively being "un-personed" in your career isn't so great. That's basically the level of coercion which Harvey Weinstein stooped to.

What the article says SJWs do is threaten moral condemnation

It's moral condemnation in bad faith. If there were principles at stake, then there would be room for discourse. This isn't that. It's coercion in the interest of power.

So the conservatives and libertarians that are supposedly being oppressed by SJWs are being suppressed by a system they support.

By actors in bad faith. It's much like democracies that elect governments that end up being totalitarian or theocratic. Short circuiting free speech itself is fundamentally the ultimate form of bad faith in a democracy. That one side thinks such a thing is in reach is a sign that they wish to shut down dissent and act as authoritarians. It was true of the right in the 60's. It's true now of the left in the 20-teens.

Let’s analyse what happens in practice on both sides. This seems to be a rather extreme example from the other side.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16418048

Clearly, tolerance for not interacting, even in the open marketplace, is not granted for political differences.

So as this is definitely forbidden for certain opinions, and I think very few people would disagree once they look at examples from both sides.

Dude, no one violated his free speech. His memo is still available for anyone to read.

That's not the discussion.

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