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Comment by nopenopenopeno | Hacker News Reader

It is new. Historically, the left aggressively defended its opponent’s right to freedom of speech and assembly on the understanding that legalized limits on free speech will ultimately be used against the left more than it will be used against the right.

An often cited American example is the ACLU defending the rights of Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members to speak freely and assemble.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html

The real story is that the historical left no longer exists.

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> The real story is that the historical left no longer exists.

Is there any left left in the US? From an outsider perspective, the US political scene seems to consist of right and far-right.

What would you consider left?

I don't follow a lot of the smaller proposals, but I believe some of the newer members have some "left" proposals. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be one to google.

I'm not from the US, but I would consider Biden to be a traditional left-liberal. Unfortunately, moderates like Biden seem terrified of radical progressives!

To be fair, I could consider Sanders as a traditional left-liberal.

Sanders is far more left than any government in Europe. His reforms include giving 20% of every public/large company to workers, make 45% of company boards elected by workers, the government will instruct large companies what their long term plans must be and they are legally bound to follow those rather than the owners wishes, companies restructuring their organizations must give even more ownership to the workers who were laid off during the restructure etc.

Those things are much more radical than anything you see in Europe, he isn't left-liberal, he is about as far left you can go without being outright communist. Note that I myself support left-wing liberalism very much, I want public healthcare, strong separation between religion and state, free speech etc, that isn't what makes Sanders far left, it is all the other things he also wants to do.

Everything I mentioned here is all on his homepage: https://berniesanders.com/issues/corporate-accountability-an...

> make 45% of company boards elected by workers

This is already the case in Germany: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany

Not 45%, no. Being a third and being 45% are very different in terms of power. A third means you have a voice but the other part still has twice the seats you have, 45% means you are basically equal to the other part.

Also, if it was just the 45% worker representation on boards and not the other things I'd consider him traditional left. It is a bit further than what you can find in Europe, but not overwhelmingly so, however all those combined is.

> The law allows workers to elect representatives (usually trade union representatives) for almost half of the supervisory board of directors. [..] It applies to public and private companies, so long as there are over 2,000 employees. For companies with 500–2,000 employees, one third of the supervisory board must be elected.

Ok, scratch that part. The other parts still stands. Also, Germany is relatively right wing in many other regards, cherry picking the most left wing part of every European country will still result in something far left of what you see anywhere in Europe.

I don't think most governments in Europe could be considered "left" at all, especially not right now, but most European countries have a quite healthy and significant presence of left-wing parties in their parliaments anyway, while in the US Sanders is on the very extreme end of what Democrats (who can't really be described as left-wing on the whole) have to offer already.

That doesn't apply to every European country though. I live in Poland, where left-wing parties have struggled to enter the parliament for many years now and the main fight happens between liberal right and far right. The US scene, although different in several important aspects, appears somewhat similar in this regard. We also have some individuals in the major liberal right party that could transfer into a left-wing party without raising too many eyebrows.

IIRC, Sanders specifically favors "socialism with Scandinavian characteristics".

I live in a Scandinavian country, we don't look at all like what Sanders proposes. We have high taxes and lots of benefits from the state, but we also don't have many regulations preventing businesses to run their company as they wish and we have plenty of billionaires. Sanders would be far left in my country, not just left.

Cancel culture isn't a pursuit of legalized limits on free speech, it's an expression of free speech. Only conservatives are currently pursuing anything of the sort, by attempting to regulate social media, banning critical race theory, the discussion of gender identity and sexuality, etc.

"Only"

Are they also banning religion/prayer in schools, or firearm education/imagery, etc? After Trump won, I seem to remember a lot of people supporting the idea of managing misinformation on social media. My point is that all sides do it.

No one has banned religion or prayer in schools. The Supreme Court ruled that public schools requiring the practice of a specific religion by students was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as public schools are government entities.

Granted, the campaign to ban coerced prayer in schools was led by a famous atheist activist, Madeline Murray O'Hair, but it's difficult for me to see the Supreme Court as more leftist than conservative in its decision making.

I don't know what "firearm education/imagery" refers to, all I could find was a case of a school banning gun imagery on t-shirts, but nothing about banning firearm education. I'd agree with you that this case seems egregious, but I don't see evidence that leftist ideology in particular is responsible. It's not as if the dress code only banned images of guns on shirts because the school board opposes the Second Amendment.

But even conceding that for the sake of argument - it still pales compared to what the right is attempting currently.

Yes, SCOTUS only did away with state sponsored prayer. However, the implementation of that decision tends to go farther. For example, prayer must be done privately, so most overt prayer is banned. Some schools have/tried banning religious items that would be overt, such as rosaries. So it goes farther than simply banning state sponsored prayer and becomes a 1st Ammendment issue if students are being told they can pray, but must not speak it.

For the gun topic. Some schools removed firearm education from the curriculum and even as an elective. So it's not an outright ban but a defacto one. Even when there is agreement that safety should be taught, there is a lot of debate about using a program designed by gun control groups or gun rights groups. What we also have seen are students getting in trouble for off-campus, non-threatening, lawful use of firearms. These discaplinary events are very egregious, and the schools has no basis for their actions in these cases. The only assumption that can be made is that the people making those decisions politically oppose that to the point that they are ignorant of the laws and overreact.

The issue of gun images is not a second amendment issue, but a first. School dress codes are only allowed to ban general things that would interfere with education. However, guns are usually explicitly called out. Not to mention the display of gun imagery in a manner that doesn't condone violence would not interfere with education.

"it still pales compared to what the right is attempting currently."

What is that?

I have never seen a public school that teaches firearm safety (aside from a coach teaching a marksmanship team), and never heard anyone try to claim (until today) it is some kind of historical core curriculum under siege.

But setting that aside, until recent decades schools were not routinely attacked by gun-wielding misfits, so as that circumstance changed perhaps celebrating gun culture in schools seemed like a poor idea—at least to those who don’t buy the NRA’s gun industry sponsored propaganda that the solution to gun violence is to make sure every fool is carrying one…

I'm curious, how is firearm safety education celebrating gun culture? And how is that linked to school shootings?

It wasn't a major part of any curriculum, but that's similar to D.A.R.E. It was usually (in my experience) a lesson or two on what to do if you came across a gun (and the opposite of celebrating it - don't touch it and leave to tell an adult; although some places let older kids take hunter safety education). But also, many schools (including colleges) used to have marksmanship teams. Many of those have been shutdown over the years. PSU used to have a team. They were regulated out of existence with nonsensical ever increasing demands (like everyone on the team needs to be a certified instructor or range safety officer, when in reality you only need one or two present).

How does carrying firearms fit into this? That generally has nothing to do with firearm safety education in schools. Perhaps this, and the language used, is an indication that this is a highly politicized issue.

God is not real, this is so stupid. No one supports Islamic prayer in school. This is a thinly veiled fox news argument that we should teach kids that Jesus is real and was conceived without semen.

Well, THAT went well...

The balance of power has now changed. Liberal positions are favoured by majorities; conservative positions are favoured by minorities.

Do you mean favored by minorities, or that the conservative position is the minority?

Sorry should have been clearer; conservative positions now tend to be in the minority.

The ACLU is only one segment, just as there are various segments in the other side. There are historical examples of liberals supporting restrictions on free speech going back decades (again, only some segments). For example, forced public sector union dues, various speakers being booed or intimidated to not speak, even school curriculum/speech (firearm education and images). Then there are segments that don't support those groups being able to speak, such as the SPLC.

So I don't really see much difference from historical examples. There are subgroups in both sides that may take opposing stances. To be fair, the historical versions of any party no longer exist. They evolve, that's what they do.

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