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Comment by UncleMeat | Hacker News Reader

> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

People say this, but I've never seen it. Free speech absolutists weren't out there defending protest rights, lgbt activism, or union advocacy. The speech rights of the powerless have been consistently crushed by the powerful while the first amendment is used as a power defense of those who seek to harden existing power structures.

This quote often feels like a justification to support the speech rights of bigots while dodging the question of moral responsibility.

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> I’ve never seen it

A Jewish lawyer at the ACLU famously fought for the rights of Nazis to demonstrate in Skokie, Il.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_...

The other way around. What I want is to see a Nazi free speech absolutist defending the rights of Jewish people.

And what about the Palestinians?

What do you mean?

My claim is that "free speech absolutism" is more consistently used to protect the rights of those belonging to traditional power structures than the rights of the downtrodden. I am skeptical of it as a viable ideology when there are populations who enjoy the benefit of this ideology who'd waste no time throwing me in prison if they were granted a legislative majority.

This is why I don't find examples of historically oppressed groups (Jewish people) defending the rights of historically powerful groups (white supremacists) to be a compelling argument that free speech absolutism will actually protect my rights if it came to that.

There are no Nazi free speech absolutists, even if some Nazis pretend they are for pragmatic reasons. Freedom of speech is not valued highly in fascist belief systems relative to nationalism, social cohesion, etc.

That's rather the point, though. There are many who hold it essential to defend free speech for Nazis, even though Nazis would remove their freedom to speak. If you balk at that thought, then you don't support free speech at all, just speech within your personal boundaries of acceptability.

I conclude something of the opposite. I question the effectiveness of our current approach to free speech to actually protect people's lives. Mass violence can absolutely be enacted by fascist groups without ever crossing 1st amendment protections. And I would not expect to be granted the right to speak out against a fascist regime should it ever have a legislative majority.

Hate speech scales more effectively than individual threats of violence. The 1st amendment will do nothing to protect me.

> Mass violence can absolutely be enacted by fascist groups without ever crossing 1st amendment protections.

But there are many other laws that prevent people from "enacting mass violence". Speech is not violence. Violence is violence.

Plus, the same laws that would lock-up fascists for inciting violence could be used against BLM and other left-wing groups. The 1st amendment ensures everyone can say what they like. Speech limiting laws can be abused to suit the preferences of whoever is in power.

Prospect of violence is enough to keep people in check.

It hasn't been that long since gay people could be thrown in prison for having sex. This was mass state violence against an entire population. The law failed to prevent people from "enacting mass violence" for ages. Progress is made over time, but this history of the US is the history of the law failing to prevent the powerful from enacting mass violence against the weak.

We already have laws that are abused against BLM and other left-wing groups. I'm not confident in the ability of the state to protect these groups, despite the state claiming that the US stands for certain values. This makes me skeptical of the free speech absolutist claim that the policy helps all groups equally.

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