Comment by Natanael_L | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Natanael_L | Hacker News Reader

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Why is this question even being asked?

The answer is everybody, in their own respective spaces.

It's not me but not others. It's me AND all others.

If I run a bar, I get to kick out customers who voice despicable opinions. Exact same thing applies if I run a shop, a web forum, or a conference for that matter.

All of us gets to kick out people who behave badly from our own private spaces, nothing obligates me to tolerate abuse.

Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. It does not mean the right to an audience. It means you get to say your opinion without the government interfering - and then other people get to decide how to react to it.

Freedom of speech without the right to react and respond to what others say would a horrible idea. Partially because it entirely invalidates the reason for why speech is supposed to be free. If you can't change things based on what you learned from what you heard, why even bother letting people speak?

If this means somebody else bans me from their space for being offensive, then so be it.

> If this means somebody else bans me from their space for being offensive, then so be it.

I suspect that if I banned the followers of a religion I found "offensive" from an establishment I owned, you'd be writing a very different post. The problem with the free association argument from censorship proponents is that they've never consistent about it. They're happy to talk up the rights of institutions to exclude right up until the moment that they themselves are excluded.

A functioning society is one in which you don't put your livelihood at risk by agreeing with 50% of the population on a matter of public importance. Violating this principle is tyranny, and I don't care what elaborate justifications anyone comes up with to explain it away. You don't get to try to win political fights by personally ruining regular people on the other side.

Not really. It would be quite illegal in most places, sure, but I simply wouldn't want to go there in the first place if you banned people like me.

Of course that becomes a problem is a large part of society does the same. Which is why such laws against the exists. But I wouldn't be the one pursuing this.

Especially for online spaces. There's just too many options for it to be reasonable to be pissed about getting banned from just one or a few places. It's always possible to create your own online space, if necessary. And right to speech isn't a right to an audience. You get to speak your mind, but people will only listen if they want to.

But keep in mind that there's a bet good reason for why most antidiscrimination laws deliberately limit the contexts in which they're applicable and what groups they protect. Very few jurisdictions protect opinions on their own.

I don't care if an antivaxxers works at a bakery. I'd be pissed if I hear one worked as a nurse at a hospital I go to, and that they refuse to carry out vaccinations. Some opinions are dangerous when held in certain contexts, and requires a reaction. This is simply about safety and protecting society. You can hold an opinion that terrible opinion elsewhere, where you don't hurt people.

At some point, you have to understand that the person putting their livelihood at risk is the person themselves, and that firing them is just as justified as firing a drunkard from a machine shop.

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