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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

Democracy requires freedom of speech, and to abridge that freedom is to destroy Democracy.

A building does not a government make. Whatever people harmed, windows broken, our government is not any worse off functionally than it was the day before. Yet this will be used to pass harmful laws, and like 9/11 it will do infinitely more damage to Democracy than whatever the original attackers did.

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For God’s sake, they were chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, make no mistake this could have been way worse if it wasn’t for the Secret Service and some brave police officer who mislead the mob away from Senate.

Your post reads as if it's downplaying the significance of Wednesday's failed coup attempt, and the incredible ramifications of it.

It is downplaying. What happened was unprecedented political violence and the only reason to make an argument like the parent is because you cannot admit it deserves a serious, judicial response.

> What happened was unprecedented political violence...

Well, there were the little matters of the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. And a few others of varying scope in this incomplete list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rebellions_in_the_Unit...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_Conspiracy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%93Baxter_War

(This isn't to disagree with you; or to downplay the seriousness or support the events of the sixth.)

Edit: List formatting

Did we lose the Senate? What about the house? Do we have an enemy force occupying our capital? Are our nation's leaders kidnapped? Are there insurgents fighting in the streets?

All three branches of the government are whole (and save the executive, functioning, but the executive wasn't functioning before the coup either) and business is moving on. That doesn't mean we shouldn't respond with physical security, press charges appropriately or react - but calling it a coup attempt is something that not even the NYTimes supports: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/world/americas/what-is-a-...

> Did we lose the Senate? What about the house? Do we have an enemy force occupying our capital? Are our nation’s leaders kidnapped? Are there insurgents fighting in the streets?

I see you understood the word “coup” but the “failed…attempt” surrounding that word.

Attempted murder doesn’t stop being a serious offense because no one died, and attempted coup doesn’t become a minor event because only a handful of people died and the attempt to improperly seize power by force failed.

A successful coup or a failed coup, is still a coup. We can argue semantics but based on what happened it's clear this was a poorly executed attempt to undermine the government and seize political officials.

We didn't lose any branches of government, but the proceedings of the legislature were disrupted for most of a day. I'm sure if they had been working on an emergency thing and not a formality that it could be continued in a bunker but it still feels like a huge deal to me. Maybe it's mostly symbolic, idk.

I agree though, it doesn't seem like a coup since they got in and then had no plan for what to do once there. It was just unfocused anger.

Do all Western democracies guarantee Freedom of Speech like in the US? I seem to remember reading this is actually a US-centric view that isn’t universally shared. Eg nazi slogans in present day Germany.

Do we actually need to guarantee universal Freedom of Speech to have a democracy?

Mostly what you need is sensible people that value democracy. That's all that's really required. If you have that the rest tends to work itself out, if you don't have that then nothing else matters.

All Democracy's, including the United States, have limits on freedom of speech. Try publishing Harry Potter fanfiction in book stores in America and see what the court system does to you. Try showing female nipples on network television and see what the legal system does to you. Try sticking the Apple logo on your product without Apple's permission and see what the court system does to you.

Free speech= democracy isn't a very nuanced view.

The US does value freedom of speech greater than pretty much every other country on the planet.

Just because it’s not absolute doesn’t mean it’s not true.

> Try showing female nipples on network television

I think this is the US specific part :p.

The rest I all agree with

England has been pretty notoriously abridging the "right to offend" for years now. And as you point out, there's Germany.

> Do we actually need [FoS]?

It probably depends on how much you trust the government to be "self-regulated" in prioritizing the liberty of the people over time. Democracy is not the natural state of things by any means.

Rights and democracy are in conflict.

In a real democracy, the majority could decide to lock you up simply because they didn't like you.

In a rights-driven system, everything is ultimately decided by the courts, which are run by elites.

Confusingly, Bill-of-Rights "Freedom is Speech" is really a right rather than a freedom. You can brazenly violate the live-and-let-live principle and still be safe.

    Do we actually need to guarantee universal Freedom of Speech to have a democracy?

My view, no. If anything the Bill of Rights is the source of the rift that is pulling US democracy apart. Through the bill of rights, the judiciary became an unelected and unwieldy legislative body. US politics has been distilled into a vicious contest about who gets to make Supreme Court appointments. No other country has this dynamic.

In Germany, it is contextualized. You can show a swastika flag in a film or anything remotely educational but not to promote Nazi ideology. So, no, there is no absolute FoS in Germany.

Whether Germany can be ranked as a democracy is debated: the extreme left and right believe it is a US protectorate, QAnon believes it is run by lizard people/Jews/Freemasons/5G chips... If you go by a freedom of press index, human development index, democracy index, it usually ranks below the Scandinavian countries but in a decent place.

The usual paradox of tolerance applies: if you don't censor some speech, you might be the one who will have zero free speech.

Democracy requires people to put a very high value on the preservation of democracy. It requires work, more than any abstract principles. Hiding behind those principles to excuse doing things that directly endanger democracy is shameful.

> A building does not a government make.

That sounds like something someone in an abusive relationship might say. "Yeah, he burned my wardrobe but I didn't like those clothes anyway". Please seek help.

Speech that incites imminent lawless action is not protected speech, for good reason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

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