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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

I support the government silencing people causing egregious harm (which the government has the burden of proof to prove). “Fire!” in a crowded theater. Calling them out and providing the truth doesn’t work. Ask the 42 year old who tried to break into the Cincinnati OH FBI office and is dead after a shootout with police. There is a significant amount of the population where there is simply no inoculation against conspiracies and other incoherent reality models.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cops-get-into-shootout-with-ar... (Armed Man Who Stormed FBI Office Said He Wanted ‘War’ After Mar-a-Lago Raid)

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I think this is a really naive view. Attempting to expand the "fire" in a crowd limitation to many other speech areas is reckless. The government are just humans, and humans are conniving and motivated by politics. That road leads to an obvious end.

You list small examples of when free speech goes bad but I can assure you not having it goes bad in a bigger way for many more people.

What you call naive, I call rational and pragmatic. Your mistake is giving too much credit to the average human. I encourage you to consider the position when you’re at the business end of a barrel held by someone who isn’t functional enough to think critically/rationally (of course I don’t wish you actual harm if that’s in question). Its easy to pontificate from safety. I was previously a free speech absolutist, but realize the operating environment has changed over the last decade and my beliefs have changed accordingly.

I believe that the government must be held accountable and to a high burden when rights are in question, but I also can demonstrate with receipts that there are a lot of batshit crazy people out there.

"Your mistake is giving too much credit to the average human" again the government are just humans. You seem to think its a single point of godly knowledge and wisdom void of mortals. Its just a small group of people who control a larger group of people and they have private motivations often times not in the public interest.

The government (small group of people with outside interests) is constantly wrong and biased on many topics, I would never want them to have a monopoly on free speech or decide what is truth.

Government is run by a collection of humans. Why do you give them the benefit of the doubt when you do not give such benefit to the commoner? I can understand giving bother or neither the benefit of the doubt but to pick one seems capricious. Perhaps it is you that is pontificating from safety.

It's a good thing your opinion doesn't override the US Constitution.

A piece of paper written hundreds of years ago is always up for interpretation. The rule of law is interpreted by the living, not the dead (with my apologies to Thomas Jefferson).

I too am curious how this specific court case will shake out.

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