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Comment by offby37years | Hacker News Reader

Yes, expedited the decentralised, uncensorable web by 3-5 years. Then we're back to square one with no recourse.

Where is the line? Do we defend free speech as violent mobs incited on false pretense attempt to overthrow the government to install their wannabe dictator back into power? If that happens do you think freedom of speech will survive? If Trump were to succeed with his coup and be put back into power do you really think the constitution survives in its current incarnation at all?

Freedom of speech is one thing but when it finally translates into violent action it's a different animal.

Yes, that's exactly when we defend free speech — when it is unpleasant, disgusting, even hateful — because that's when precedents are set that will affect us all.

The allegation is not that it's merely unpleasant, but that it threatens the future of free speech itself.

If "defending free speech" takes us to a world where free speech doesn't exist, then you didn't actually defend free speech at all.

(You might disagree that free speech is at risk from people enacting violence against the government in an attempt to overthrow a democratic election - if so, make that argument, instead of repeating platitudes about how it's important to defend free speech you don't like.)

So you're saying, "Destroy free speech to defend free speech"? That sounds a lot like "Destroy the republic to save the republic." I've heard a lot of both recently, and I don't agree with either.

You don’t seem to be making much of an attempt to understand.

(Which is ironic, because the point of free speech, one would hope, would be to try to understand new viewpoints instead of yelling your slogans into increasingly loud megaphones. Free speech advocates who treat speech as an end in itself rather than as a means to some obviously useful goal like improving society are a large part of why there isn't as much of a public commitment to free speech as you would hope.)

Restricting speech that calls for the lynching of the Vice President is “destroying free speech” in the same way that restricting the ownership of nukes is “destroying the right to bear arms”. Prohibiting people from yelling fire in a crowded theater is not “destroying free speech.”

I’d advise you to read about:

- the paradox of tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

- the “imminent lawless action” standard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

I feel like you read the parent comment too quickly. In short, the argument is that if we tolerate the intolerant and they come into power, our freedoms will be gone as well. This is why Germany bans Nazi symbols and propaganda.

I understand what might make you feel that way, but I don't agree that banning the speech of those you disagree with is the way to keep them from power. Instead, oppose them with your own, better speech. That way you don't give them the validation of making you look too afraid to let them be heard, and you haven't set the precedent of banning political speech you don't like.

If you can't allow an idea to be expressed, you are admitting that idea will overcome your ideas if it is heard. Can you really say that about the ideas that led to the Capitol fiasco? I hope not.

Germany learned the lesson that to prevent fascist sentiments growing in the population, you have to 1) make sure the common person does not face undue hardship, which could let reactionary sentiments fester, and 2) come down hard on the symbolism and rhetoric of fascism.

Lately over the last couple of decades, there has unfortunately been a new rise in fascism in Germany, due to financial crises and austerity policies. Further, the embers of fascist sympathies especially in the police and military have not been snuffed out like they should have been.

Germany did those things, but even your description of the situation suggests it was not the right choice. Doesn't the resurgence of fascism from "embers of fascist sympathies" suggest to you that shutting down fascist speech didn't do the job it was meant to do, i.e. extinguish fascism? The speech is a symptom; the ideas are the disease. To combat the disease, you need to supply better ideas, not shut down the speech.

You can't completely extinguish reactionary ideas, there will always be people hungry for power, angry at other people and susceptible to lies and misinformation. As in many other contexts, you cannot completely kill an idea, you cannot purge thoughts from people's heads.

Keeping those ideas from hurting a society requires vigilance and effort, especially in history education and education of why reactionary ideas are morally and ethically reprehensible. Germany didn't try to hide away what happened or cover it up. There has always been a focus on education and telling the story of what happened, with historical references.

What was/is actually banned was the uncritical dissemination of reactionary and fascist symbols, ideas and beliefs. That's why you're not allowed to simply hang a swastika flag from your balcony, but you are very much allowed to hang it in a museum in a historical context that explains what it is, who used it and what it stood for.

That's why id Software was not allowed to distribute Wolfenstein 3-D in Germany with the original textures, because it was entertainment and not in a factual historical context.

Besides, if the best argument you have for saying something is "I have the right to say it" and not the actual content of what you're saying, maybe that says something about what you're trying to say. Ideas, not speech.

I’m not sure what’s more intolerant than censoring the other side from even having a voice.

Rounding the other side up and disappearing them to containment/reeducation/concentration camps. Which seems to follow when a democracy is overthrown by a coup.

You talk more, not less when the guns start getting drawn. That they got drawn in the first place means you weren't talking when you should have been.

Communication, the lack of it, and the amplifying nature of that lack on social disorder is well supported relationship in modern history.

There is no going back now. Imagine. It's 2024, Biden is re-elected under contested circumstances. Tens of millions of (mostly armed) patriots that again feel disenfranchised, though this time vindicated through four years of censorship and with unencumbered communication channels.

Remember, Hitler's first coup failed too.

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