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Comment by sdwa | Hacker News Reader

The trespassing and sacking of the capitol is precisely a sign of backsliding on traditionally liberal ideas from the enlightenment, much more so than Twitter banning the number one inciter of the aforementioned insurrection.

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The outrage it's generated from all corners of American society seem to run against that idea. Just because a relatively small mob of determined extremists can raid a building for an afternoon does not indicate some kind of earth-shattering, society-changing transformative event. Popular social media platforms using shaky, uneven, and arguably unjustifiable logic to ban both speech and people from their respective shares of the public sphere is, however, indicative of an ever-growing attack by monopolized social platforms on exactly those traditionally liberal ideas that makes such amazingly diverse and open-minded communities to begin with.

I don't disagree with anything you said. But terrorist violence & sedition are not protected speech. Whether they banned him for the right or wrong reason, he still needs to be banned.

It's true that terrorism & sedition is not protected speech, but it's also true that the logic Twitter is invoking here to connect the tweets to terrorism & sedition is questionable at best. Regardless, why should we accept Twitter banning people for the "wrong" reasons?

> why should we accept Twitter banning people for the "wrong" reasons

I think this confuses "you" with "we".

You shouldn't accept it if you feel it is unfair, and you should express that if you feel the need to, subject to the rules of whatever platform you use to express it.

But "we" (as in the people of the United States), via the powers of government, have no right under the Constitution to compel (or if you prefer, to "not accept") Twitter to allow him to tweet on their platform.

It had been this way with private moderation basically since forever. What makes you think the owners need your acceptance?

Sedition is protected speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seditious_libel#Seditious_spee...

> as long as it does not indicate an "imminent" threat.

You missed a pretty pertinent qualifier here, but that was interesting, thanks for sharing.

“a building“

It matters a lot which building they raided, and who praised them for doing so.

True. All the more important we can't let attacks on our important national symbols cloud our judgement and allow vague claims and anger to steer our decisions.

“important national symbols”

It’s not just a symbol.

The entire chain of succession was in that building. Both houses. VP Pence. Pelosi. VP-elect Harris.

And the insurrectionists came for them.

It was 9 justices and 1 President short of a State of the Union address.

actual insurrectionists would've have done more than take selfies, commit petty vandalism and wander around in a daze for a couple of hours. it was a boomer chimpout.

the people who are using the language of insurrection/terror etc are doing so with the purpose of creating casus belli to enact retribution on their political & cultural enemies and to turn the war on terror inwards. if we have learned nothing about restraint in the years after 9/11 then we are heading for a nightmare scenario.

>>the people who are using the language of insurrection/terror etc are doing so with the purpose of creating casus belli to enact retribution on their political & cultural enemies and to turn the war on terror inwards.

Seems that way to me too. Time will tell, I guess.

Like killing a police officer and bringing pipebombs and zipties?

> actual insurrectionists would've have done more than take selfies, commit petty vandalism and wander around in a daze for a couple of hours. it was a boomer chimpout.

Because they were foiled - their targets were successfully evacuated. They sought out Pelosi and Schumer's offices specifically - the ones outfitted in military tactical gear I mean, not the grandma that needed help getting back down the stairs. They built a gallows and were chanting "Hang Mike Pence".

“actual insurrectionists would've have done more than take selfies“

Perhaps they would have if the evacuation had been unsuccessful, or if the certified electoral college results had still been around.

Restraint and appeasement are two different things.

> the people who are using the language of insurrection/terror etc are doing so with the purpose of creating casus belli to enact retribution on their political & cultural enemies and to turn the war on terror inwards. if we have learned nothing about restraint in the years after 9/11 then we are heading for a nightmare scenario.

I can see how the actions seem relatively harmless if you consider them in a vacuum.

But this is just goalpost-moving, and it's happened every time something awful has happened over the past 4 years.

Perhaps it will help if you consider the totality of the scenario; the plans to travel, the bombs and munitions created and acquired; the calls to violence from the president just before the actions; Rudy Giuliani asking for "trial by combat" as the crowd prepared to march on the Capitol. The repeated quotes *from the insurrectionists themselves* announcing that "this is a revolution" and talking about hanging people, coming for their heads, overturning the election.

Quite simply, if you read the definition of insurrection, there's no way to NOT apply it to these events, and sedition to apply to the president and Rudy among others.

So, you'd rather have a despot than to censor a potential despot?

Congress asking for help and the president ignoring it. Governors asking if they could send in help and the executive said no. It took Mike fucking Pence, whose job is NOT to activate the national guard, to activate the national guard before extra help was sent over. What the fuck happened January 6th?

The pure inaction of everyone involved surrounding the situation in the Capitol building should terrify you. The rioters never should have even gotten inside the building.

All valid points. At the very least this mess provides a case study of the potential consequences of reducing law enforcement presence in favor of optics

I think most of that has actually been disproven.

At a minimum, the mayor de-escalated and restricted the national guard before the march started, and the capital police turned away initial offers of help (they're segregated from other federal police due to separation of powers, and Congress wants it that way).

But yes, can you blame them for not wanting to deploy the national guard, when he got crucified 6 months ago for... Wanting to deploy the national guard to protect the White House from repeated attacks?

The worst outrage based on pathological lies.

>Just because a relatively small mob of determined extremists can raid a building for an afternoon does not indicate some kind of earth-shattering, society-changing transformative event.

It absolutely does indicate that. Read up on German history.

It hasn't generated outrage from all corners of society - in a YouGov survey[1], 45% of Republican voters supported the storming of the Capitol and 68% did not view it as a threat to democracy. That still doesn't make it a transformative event per se, but maybe more like a transformatively revealing symptom of a larger problem that already existed?

Edit: not to throw just one party under the bus. Same survey showed 21% of voters overall approved and 32% didn't see it as a threat to democracy. That's still a lot more than an isolated few Americans.

[1] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

The fact that this was incited by President of US for whom about 70 million voted for despite him showing all these tendencies for pay 4 years would mean that this is intact a huge event. How the hell can any sane person call this a trivial event?

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