Comment by mikedilger | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikedilger | Hacker News Reader

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We must be able to discuss and even support things that are currently illegal, including discussion of acts of violence (but not carrying them out, just talking about them), to explore whether or not existing laws might need changes. So this cannot be the boundary between allowed and disallowed speech.

In this particular case, I would quickly argue "Hell no, storming the US Capital is illegal for good cause, and I will never condone such acts of violence." But I would allow the discussion. We have to allow the discussion. Because if you draw a line here, then you will be censored when you argue for things like marijuana legalisation and gay marraige while they are still illegal as McCarthyites will censor you based on inciting people to break the law.

This is why 'incitement' has such a high bar.

I could be wrong. Maybe "praise and support for /storming/" is incitement to violence. I'm glad I'm not a judge that has to make that call. So long as the line isn't drawn on the wrong side of the points I argued above.

You can argue that an illegal thing should be legal without inciting people to do it while it's illegal. Under your reasoning, any act of inciting violence could be dismissed as "discussion".

There's probably not a clear line in every instance. Whether you think "praise and support" crosses the line, it would be pretty hard to claim it made things better, and pretty easy to see how those words, from the most powerful person in the country, might make a person more likely to continue doing whatever it is they're doing.

I agree with all of that in spirit, but I don't think the "under your reasonsing" part accurately reflected my reasoning (maybe it reflected a inference or a poorly chosen word). Incitement intends the act to occur while illegal, and I didn't mean to argue that such a thing should be legal.

Sounds reasonable, thanks for clarifying.

> We must be able to discuss and even support things that are currently illegal, including discussion of acts of violence (but not carrying them out, just talking about them), to explore whether or not existing laws might need changes. So this cannot be the boundary between allowed and disallowed speech.

I strongly agree with this. I just don’t agree that you’re entitled to use other people’s publishing resources to do it.

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