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Comment by issa | Hacker News Reader

I have a foreign wife and it really drives home one truth: America is a very nuanced place. We have this idea of almost unlimited free speech. Which sounds great, but in practice, it is not really true. Because ultimately, Americans do not have equal rights. We see this over and over in different aspects of society. The Frederick Douglas example from Boston in the article is a great example of why free speech is good. But the truth is it is the same kind of people who are always preventing free speech in meaningful ways. If your takeaway from the speech is that "all kinds of speech need to be heard", you might be philosophically correct. But, again, in practice, the people in power do not allow free speech. And this is fundamentally different from most examples of cancel culture.

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I listened to a video from a guy who is most probably a white nationalist and most probably a fascist in the UK quite a while ago. While I find his view abhorrent he understands the free-speech debate better than anyone else.

To paraphrase him:

> Those who cry about free speech are weak, they don't have political power. Those that are strong (those in power) will censor.

His view of free speech is that whichever group doesn't have power and being censored will claim to want free speech. When they get power (culturally or politically) they will then start to censor.

I happen to think his framing of it is the most correct. I've personally seen happen over the years.

liberty and free speech tends to overly concern Americans when they have more pressing and bigger problems. The big mistake with the title is "way back to cultural health", stop looking backwards. If you do want to look back to the idea that founded your republic, look back and see a whole bunch of people trying to look forward. Do that. Fix your system of government, a two party system is bad for you, you've become religious about your politics and it has divided you along lines that don't make sense. You need much more varied representation so that free speech can manifest in political force, to represent the vast differences between the millions and millions of you. Just makes no sense that a 2 party system can represent that diversity.

Most have had the joy of building or organizing a thing and seeing their effort unfold. Some have enjoyed the same joy creating things with others. If there are nation wide efforts to accomplish something and people get to work at it themselves and marvel at the fruits of their labor the natural question is: What shall we build next? If a nation is overly focused on the self over the collective those efforts will decline and the question what to build next is drowned in the noise.

The new man, who talks in text over the internet, is rendered without the context a face to face conversation offers. Take how one can ask people to do something for you. 30 years ago I would frequently ask people to do things that took hours. I would buy something to drink, cook a meal, take them out for drinks or dinner or do something for them later. When I got online it took me quite some time to realize you cant ask random strangers for more than a few sentences worth of assistance or worse, they would get furious if I send them a pm.

Marveling at our collective accomplishments is now even further away. I'm not even going to ask anymore what we can do together to turn the tide or progress in some other way. I'm no longer going to offend anyone with the idea that if they are the one who can do something they are also responsible for the outcome.

This clip from coneheads was brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6ANOBnwpSA

This is who we are now.

Without their First Amendment rights, it is unlikely that Americans would even figure out if many parties might be a good idea. They'd also be unable to bring those into existence without it: freedom of expression, assembly, and the right to petition are the primary mechanism towards presenting a better future to others.

Americans should be super concerned about attempts at eroding dialog between its citizens. The government, corporations and activists have done everything they can to create a forced discourse.

why have parties at all? think about who the party serves and to what ends. is it for the people? no. it's for the politically ambitious to more easily coalesce power. parties are an indirection the populace doesn't need. it's something that makes campaigning easier and more centralized. centralization of power, whether in companies or in governments, is never for the betterment of the population, despite all the contrary rhetoric.

I’ve long wished the same, banning political parties. As you’ve said here, it makes not thinking about who you’re voting for easy, which is a negative.

When the constitution was written, less than 25% of the US population had the right to vote. Basically only White male property owners could vote.

That was a very different political culture to how it is today.

It’s also interesting to see how the reading scores of presidential speeches have changed over time.

Everyone always harps on the whole white male property owners thing but it misses the entire point.

It's probably more productive to think about it in terms of "the usual people who were given a voice back then, but only the subset of them who couldn't f-off without leaving behind a ton of their wealth if things went bad."

In effect they limited voting to people who had settled down and had substantial skin in the game.

Why did they do this?

I've been listening to the revolutions podcast (very good) and was really struck by the idea that having "skin in the game" was almost universally considered superior to universal suffrage for a long time. I think there is something to the idea, although the implementation is what matters.

This is amazing to me, because I am also listening to the Revolutions podcast (just finished part 1 of the Russian Revolution, i'm sure this Stolypin guy will make some good reforms and Tsar Nicholas II will live happily ever after). However, I come away from these episodes with a completely different lesson: that the people opposed to universal suffrage were almost always the people in power who did not want to risk losing power, and so drew convenient lines to disenfranchise anybody who threatened their regime.

I very much do not think there is any merit to the idea that only those who claim to have "skin in the game" should get to vote. The grands blancs in pre-revolution Haiti - who owned lots of land, wealth, and people - often didn't even live on the island! In what way did they have more "skin in the game" than the slaves whose skin was being literally ripped to shreds in order to generate more profits? Not to mention the Black freedmen who owned property but still couldn't vote!

I think the mere act of being a citizen of a country - and thus being subject to the laws and policies of that country - gives you the right to a share in the governance of that country, no matter what your net worth, sex, race, etc.

Nah, Madison is very explicit in The Federalist Papers that the masses are a bunch of idiots. They were merely expressing the outlook of bourgeois British culture with its strong ideas of class, which doesn’t disappear in America until the 20th century.

Packing your things and fucking off was expensive and dangerous for the common man

What makes you think that people who don't own (maybe can't own) property don't have substantial skin in the game?

I doubt you will find any example where minorities suffered from too much free speech. The truth it that there are always some people who pretend to know better and put pressure on officials. These people are not friendly to any minority and should be disregarded.

The people in power currently try everything to restrict speech, but it is also welcomed by a certain sheltered demographic whose worst part of the day is that they have to read an offensive internet comment that doesn't agree with their world view.

>I doubt you will find any example where minorities suffered from too much free speech.

people of minority X are subhumans and should not be allowed the same rights as the rest of us!

Yes, minorities did not suffer from having free speech; they did suffer from others having it.

My ethnicity is often called subhuman on the internet. I don't mind it because those that utter such statements are punished enough with being themselves that I don't feel it a necessity to even react to it. I also don't have to read it. I don't believe their position is popular in a way that it is in any way relevant.

It doesn't phase me as much as others speaking in my stead or far worse, alleging a indemonstrable hatred or bias towards other ethnicities. People I like very much have been accused of hating me because some didn't like their politics. That is way more offensive to me than the usual vulgar bloke that tries to get a reaction for his self-confidence.

Whose speech do you think would have been censored though, the majority or the minority. Minority groups are always the ones who suffer from restrictions on speech. Supporting speech censorship will always lead to restrictions on minority groups, not the majority. I feel that there is confusion in this topic because there are so many people who think they are fighting hate-speech against minorities. Since it then feels morally superior to suppress speech that they don't agree with they think it's in the best interest of the minority. However the arguments and policies that are established to suppress free speech will inevitably lead to restricting the speech of minority groups. This is simply because the majority at any given point in time will only suppress the non-majority opinions. You see that now, none of these groups trying to restrict speech are trying to restrict popular speech that they agree with, only the minority opinions.

The majority will always have the freedom of their speech.

> Minority groups are always the ones who suffer from restrictions on speech.

Minorities generally suffer more from any restriction, not just on free speech. As an example, CA is slowly increasing the cost of gun ownership in the state. Rich tech workers won’t have a problem buying a gun, but poor and otherwise less privileged groups now can’t afford to protect themselves. Then crime in those areas tick up, then more restrictions and so on.

Didn't jewish minority suffer because of too much of free speech in Germany at some point?

What about too much of free speech Hutu enjoyed in Rwanda at some point?

No, that was certainly not the reason, on the contrary.

Speech was severely restricted at the time and Germany also had hate speech laws. That probably had a severe negative effect because people became more radical as they were disallowed to vent their grievances. Those that demanded restraint often did it because of their own vanity.

Open hate speech with government propaganda which discriminated against Jews came later. At that point the Nazis already felt justified in their actions.

I cannot say anything to Rwanda because I don't know the conflict. I tend to disbelieve those that said it was because of hateful speech.

> Speech was severely restricted at the time and Germany also had hate speech laws.

Nope. It had way too weak protections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany#Weimar_R...

> The Weimar Republic maintained a number of criminal provisions for hate crimes and anti-Semitic expression.

> The aim of censorship under the Nazi regime was simple: to reinforce Nazi power and to suppress opposing viewpoints and information

I believe Goebbels said something that the mistake was giving them free speech in the first place. He didn't like free speech at all, but he was also a propaganda expert and knew that some people would again try to censor speech which would work in his favor.

When Nazi regime came to power it was already too late.

And protections against ant-Semitic expression were too weak as evidenced by Nazi regime coming to power by being elected in democratic process.

Another source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propa...

"When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Through decrees and laws, the Nazis abolished these civil rights and destroyed German democracy. "

But I concede that there are exactly opposite views.

After all it's history so anyone is free to make stuff up about it that fits his narrative.

> "When the Nazis came to power in 1933, the German constitution guaranteed freedom of speech and freedom of the press."

Note that these rights were not at all guaranteed pre-1919. Censorship of speech and of the press was practically institutionalized in the German Empire. It makes no sense to argue that the rabid anti-Semitism of late-19th c. and early-20th c. Germany was a result of too much freedom; on the contrary, it was directly carried over from previous authoritarian government, The Weimar constitution ultimately came too late to really improve on that state of things.

What was too little too late was not the freedom of speech, but laws against anti-Semitic expressions. They were too limited and mellow. Goebbels was sentenced for anti-Semitic expressions which didn't stop him at all.

The fact that those laws were even on the books is in itself notable given that, again, anti-Semitism had largely been endorsed by previous governments.

And it wasn't just Germany either. Remember the Dreyfus Affair? That was in France pre-WWI. Dreyfus was framed by the authorities for a crime he did not commit, and initially got a life sentence before widespread public opposition led to a reopening of the case and ultimately to his exoneration. This whole ruckus shows that the very idea that anti-Semitism was something that should be opposed could be considered radical and anti-authoritarian at the time even in "civilized, developed" La Belle Époque France, never mind Germany! The mindset was wildly different from what we'd expect today.

You're ignoring entirely the devastating economic impact of the treaty of Versailles and claiming it was all about free speech. Totally off the Mark ;)

I never said it was the only reason. Free speech is a tool. Generally wonderful invention, like a knife. But when wielded by wrong people in troublesome contexts it helps them in achieving disastrous goals. Along with plenty of other tools.

The Rwanda civil war was partially the outcome of colonialism by Germany and later Belgian administration, creating a class society where the rich minority group of Tutsi ruled supreme over the more poor Hutu. Belgium introduced identity cards classifying each individual as Tutsi, Hutu, Twa or Naturalised.

Pretty obviously, such state of affairs wasn't stable. After world war 2 there were several riots and violence, and the Belgium administration attempted to switch side and promote Hutu over Tutsi. A Hutu government emerged and declared themselves independent, and started to purge the Tutsi population. After a few years of wars with nearby countries, instability, and displacement of Tutsi, the Tutsi population formed a armed military force and a civil war broke out. After a couple of years of guerilla wars and temporarily peaces, with neither side winning, the Hutu army/administration decided on the idea of genocide as a final solution to the conflict.

Where in this process did free speech cause the genocide?

In open, freely expressed incitment to genocide that led to it and extended its scale.

Free speech apart from its all wonderfull qualities is an excelent tool for demagogues. They all are pro free speech of things they like.

>They all are pro free speech of things they like

So they're not for free speech.

About as for free speech as Fox News.

And CNN, WaPo, and basically every other news org out there. But it’s nice that you just called out your enemy!

I'm not from USA so I don't really care. I just named the station that most often contradicts science, defends itself in court by saing they shouldn't be taken seriously because they are entertainment organisation not information organsation and boldly defends free speech when it allows for voicing same manners of idiocies as they do.

Ok well intro to news in America, I can point to an instance where every major news organization in this country has disregarded facts. News in America is about selling newspapers, not distributing facts. They’re more like supermarket tabloids (if you don’t know what those are, those are the real fake news, things like lizard people are discussed there). All of them are guilty of the exactly this problem. Which is my point. Yet lefties like yourself only call out Fox News, ignoring CNN, waPo, et al. Not to mention is a bit passive aggressive. You’re not gonna get people to stop watching Fox News, so why spread more passive aggressive hate?

CNN recently, because of all of their “factual reporting”, lost about 90% of their viewership. Trump left, people got bored of Jan 6, and they had nothing else to sensationalize, so their viewership tanked. Interestingly they lost their viewers to Fox News. This is the state of news media in America, and if you’re actually interested in facts and not promoting your side of the narrative you’d easily acknowledge as much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9vision_Lib...

The civil war predated the radio station by several years, and the colonialism that shaped the conflict occurred 50-100 years before the radio station was built.

This seems a bit like blaming the atom bomb for causing world war 2.

We should remember that the term free speech was coined many hundreds of years ago. During that timeframe, talking against the current ruler could lead to one’s death.

What you say still has consequences. Those might not be ideal at any time. The question is if you should be allowed to say it. If the line would be drawn there we must then discuss what you are allowed to think.

The problem today is that when what one says doesn’t have the desired consequences of some group, they then attempt to change the rules and stifle speech. This is why the line, which I acknowledge there is a legal line of free speech, should be clearly enumerated (which it is). And any company moving the line should be held accountable.

>But, again, in practice, the people in power do not allow free speech. And this is fundamentally different from most examples of cancel culture.

Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech. Hate speech laws are tremendously vague and are really not used to prevent anything bad. Sure the Westboro baptists have their 'god hates canada' stuff but realistically speaking it's never used to prevent anyone who is promoting genocide. Literally not once.

Instead the hate crime laws have 99% of the time been used against political opponents. This has created an environment where every single right-wing leader has been labelled a white supremacist. Not because they are in fact white supremacists but because this would put them at odds with hate speech laws and can then be silenced.

Just look at this trucker convoy. The media smeared them as white supremacists and fringe minority. This weekend there was solidarity protests and they were labelled 'nation wide insurrection' and 'occupation'. Ottawa declared a state of emergency and has started arresting and ticketing peaceful protestors.

This is the justification for Gofundme to seize the donations and disperse the money to charities of their choosing.

In reality many truckers are Indian and certainly not white supremacist.

https://twitter.com/QTRBlackGarrett/status/14876208353639833...

https://twitter.com/vonbrauckmann/status/1487614201845600257

My favourite: https://rumble.com/vu5aom-two-indian-freedom-protestors-have...

Those Indian men are the white supremacists!

Yet there were pictures of nazi flags right? Yet here we are unable to determine who that was. It seems like this flag was counter protesters trying to label these Indian truckers as white supremacists.

This is why freedom of speech is important. When you create exceptions, political opponents use these to silence politics.

> It seems like this flag was counter protesters trying to label these Indian truckers as white supremacists.

That's quite a claim to make w/out providing evidence.

>That's quite a claim to make w/out providing evidence.

There's literally 3 links providing evidence in my post.

Furthermore, the onus is on the claimant. The claim being made that these Indian truckers are white supramacists and nazis; or that their friends and fellow protestors are nazis? That literally doesnt make any sense.

Sorry but the yellow journalism or, might i even say it, the propaganda asserting these protestors are nazis is a failed narrative.

> the onus is on the claimant

It seems the claim to which glial was referring was the claim that the Nazi flags were some sort of false-flag operation, that these flags were carried by counter-protestors in an effort to falsely implicate the protesting truckers. What is the evidence of that specific claim?

There are links but they don't provide evidence of the claim you're making that protesters are 'false flag' plants.

> Here in Canada we actually removed freedom of speech.

Canadian here. Whether one sympathizes with the truckers or not, or has a more nuanced opinion, claiming that free speech was removed (implying some official stance) is hyperbolic. I will concede that the Charter is more vague than I'd like on where the boundaries of free expression lie.

As for GoFundMe, wasn't their decision - whether you agree with it or not - the decision of a private company that's free to choose with whom it conducts business?

I don't understand, didn't GoFundMe take money but refused a service that was paid for? If they decided to ban that particular campaign, they should return money to the donors not donate it to some other cause, no?

I am not super knowledgeable about the situation, apologies if I misrepresented something.

They have since decided to auto-refund.

That doesn't change that they first tried to misappropriate the money.

>Canadian here. Whether one sympathizes with the truckers or not, or has a more nuanced opinion,

Sure, lets put the trucker sideline aside for discussion.

>claiming that free speech was removed (implying some official stance) is hyperbolic. I will concede that the Charter is more vague than I'd like on where the boundaries of free expression lie.

The gymnastics of your following sentence proves my point.

Lets look at this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

There are exceptions to free speech. Defamation/Libel, incitement to suicide, false advertising. I find all these exceptions to be reasonable or exceptions to speech. False advertising or fraud in general isn't the speech but rather something beyond the speech. Even obscenity in which porn or even death videos are not obscene. The obscenity exception is very tight.

So there can be legitimate exceptions.

In fact, in our law we criminalized 'advocating for genocide' which I suspect both of us agree can stay. Mind you, it has literally never been used. Literally only attempt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugesera_v_Canada_(Minister_of... but wasn't even proper. Though perhaps we can agree deporting him was a good idea?

The very next rule is the problem. "wilfully promoting hatred'

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

Supreme court ruled that it did violate freedom of speech but section 1 they made the exception against this scumbag. This is what we call 'best of intentions' and its good to stop that dude but what did it open?

When Charlie Hebdo shooting happened in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo#2015_attack

There was a reaction, especially on reddit, to stand up together against these terrorists. You will find however, NOBODY in Canada stood up. The few who did ended up in front of hate crime tribunals for promotion of hatred. Of which lets be realistic, this armchair not-lawyer... they were guilty. The problem was that hate crime tribunals know the line they walk. They dismissed virtually all these guilty cases because they knew when they go over the line they lose this tool. There was a unique feature of these hate crime tribunal cases. Every single group attacked were Conservatives.

What happened there? Standing in solidarity with victims of terrorists was indeed promoting hatred of islam. It was discovered in 2015 that you can use the hate crime tribunals to silence political opponents. Suddenly the Conservatives were all racists.

How about Comedians who make dark jokes? https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55959133

Sorry, but Mike Ward isn't some white supremacist or something. These laws aren't about making people good people. This isn't about making people less mean jerks.

Free speech is officially dead until this is fixed.

I’m a bit confused. Is your wife from a more less equal/free place than America?

Most places according to incarceration rate is more free than USA

Why is this a metric we should use to understand if a place is “free”?

It seems like a pretty good one. To truly answer the large question you need to answer smaller ones like "do citizens have opportunities aside from crime"? That seems relevant to how "free" a country is.

My wife is from Germany. My point isn't really about how "free" Germany is compared to the US (that is an entirely different debate). It is about America and how nuanced things are. It's very difficult to explain a different country's history and sense of self and how that influences daily life.

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