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Comment by majormajor | Hacker News Reader

Crackpots and nutjobs have always been with us, their existence doesn't tell us anything about today vs yesterday. A claim that today is "more dishonest" than times in the past is also tough to substantiate.

The useful part of the debate today is if there is a responsibility for those who have ended up as potential gatekeepers to either help promote those people or to limit their audience by moderating platforms. Historically, the unhinged got distributed only as far as they could personally manage to coordinate; should we be handing bullhorns out to everyone? Free speech vs personal responsibility vs whatever other buzzword you like.

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A claim that today is "more dishonest" than times in the past is also tough to substantiate.

It's like how PBS has been pounding in its promos for the last few months that "We're a country divided like never before." Well, not really.

Yes, American politics is terrible now, but it's nothing like back in the 1800's. Posting some of the campaign literature that was distributed back then would get you banned from any modern electronic medium today.

Eh, I'm ok with a little commercial puffery. It is an election year, after all. When the Olympics roll around this summer the promos are going to say "it's that time when America comes together".

Divided like no time in the past 80 years would be true I think. Maybe not the last 100?

That time we sacrificed 58,000 Americans in the Vietnam War was pretty controversial.

Right. If people think BLM is controversial, check out the Black Panthers. BLM just wants a kinder gentler capitalism, the Black Panthers wanted to overthrow the shit and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

That whole 10-year period, really.

The past 80 years include not just Vietnam but also the most significant legislative period of the Civil Rights movement. I'm not even that old but my dad was born before legal segregation was ended.

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