Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevindqc | Hacker News Reader

What do you mean? Is the left jailing people for talking? That's news to me.

As far as I know, people are still free to say what they want? Doesn't mean they don't get any consequences though. Or that other people are forced to give them an ear.

Take Laura Ingraham. She's free to make fun of the Parkland survivors and she did. She's also losing her advertisers as a consequence of being a poor excuse of a human being. Also I would never invite her to come talk to anything I would organize (if I was organizing stuff). Would I be infringing on her free speech then by not giving her a platform? Why would I be obligated to give her a platform?

View on HN

In the free society I want to live in, we ought to let people voice their opinions even when we disagree. There are limits to freedom of speech besides those put in place by the state.

Taken to an extreme for purely rhetorical purposes: if you get fired, black-balled, and publicly shamed for voicing any opinion, then do you live in a society with freedom of speech?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty#Of_the_liberty_of_t...

If you live in a society where thoughtful, rational discourse is drowned in a sea of shouted opinions, then you do not have free speech either. Free speech is not the freedom to say anything you like, but the freedom to express any idea you like. You are not free to express it how you like to whoever you like.

And there aren't many liberals willing to censor people for controversial opinions presented in a self-aware, carefully worded, and relevant manner abounding in due consideration for the facts. They do censor people who like to peddle propaganda and wave their victimhood around like pariahs.

No you aren't obligated to give her a platform. But if you go stage a protest so unruly that you block her from speaking at a College Campus for instance you have effectively negated her right to free speech. Are you really so infantile that hearing her words will ruin your life? Are they really so dangerous that you can't engage in a debate instead? I am a staunch liberal and the arguments about this coming from the left are truly mind boggling and very troublesome.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com