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Comment by Nbox9 | Hacker News Reader

> Personal conscience and conviction used to be held sacred in the US […] it has become politically incorrect to have a personal principle or conviction that contradicts the approved viewpoint, or otherwise goes against the grain.

I think you might have a grandiose mental image of America’s past. The 1798 Sedition Act ‘made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government or its officials’[0]. A congressman went to jail for speaking critically against President John Adams. President Nixon tried to suppress the 1960s cultural revolutions. The US has always had a bit more of an authoritative twist than the American History books write.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams#Alien_and_Sedition_...

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I am fascinated by this sort of thing. So many people perceive there to be some great American democratic republic tradition being aborated in recent years... but we didn't even get majoritarian democracy until the mid-20th century, and there was certainly not the sort of strong deference to the bill of rights historically that people seem to imagine.

I feel like this mythical conception of the history of America has been increasing with time.

It probably helps that the US spent half a century fighting a propaganda war against the Soviet Union.

The 1798 Sedition Act - during the second Presidency in the history of the country - expired in 1801. Which does a better job of debasing the point you're trying to make than supporting it. It was less than a blip.

> I think you might have a grandiose mental image of America’s past.

And your attempt to use the historically trivial 1798 Sedition Act in the manner that you did indicates you may have the opposite and mistaken mental image. If anything the US learned from the Sedition Act and became better for that very short-lived mistake.

You've dismissed only one point that parent commenter made. And if the country held personal conviction to such a high esteem, 1798 Sedition Act as well as the other things parent commenter mentioned should have never happened. But we know they did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrams_v._United_States

etc etc

On the 1918 Sedition Act

> It forbade the use of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces or that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted under the act generally received sentences of imprisonment for five to 20 years.[2] The act also allowed the Postmaster General to refuse to deliver mail that met those same standards for punishable speech or opinion. It applied only to times "when the United States is in war." The U.S. was in a declared state of war at the time of passage, the First World War.[3] The law was repealed on December 13, 1920.[4]

Holy moly! Land of the free indeed.

Could you imagine being at war with Europe and having free speech about the war limited?

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