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Comment by thebooktocome | Hacker News Reader

You do kinda have to reckon with them, somehow, when they start vandalizing electrical substations, forming armed militias, and the like.

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You keep a close eye on them and then throw them in prison once they commit an actual crime.

that is clearly not speech.

It never ends with 'just speech'.

Sure... but that has nothing to do with free speech. They've moved past it into the realm of illegal acts. Which are illegal.

But Free Speech does end with speech - vandalism and terrorism are already illegal, do we really need to prohibit everything that could potentially be a step on the path to illegal acts?

That’s getting darned close to precognitive law enforcement…

Also, a person with crazy ideas with no one to talk to but other similar people due to restrictions on speech and debate is not likely to become MORE sane or LESS resentful.

These are the weirdest strawmen, really.

Free speech can be used as the crowbar to motivate enough people to commit acts of vandalism and terrorism. Yes, those are illegal. Do you need something that can prohibit that? If you don't want to have a '6th of January' groundhog day every couple of years then that might make some sense. Let's see what the final outcome of that is. My prediction: if it isn't dealt with forcefully the only thing that will happen is that it will continue until they get it done.

~200 years of American history disagrees with your premise that Jan 6th is inevitable ‘every few years’.

The problem with deciding that ‘nazis’ don’t deserve free speech is that you won’t always get to decide who is a ‘nazi’ or what ‘nazi’ speech looks like.

In case you failed to notice: the last 8 years have been a very serious departure from the last 200 years as a baseline.

Note that the parties that are arguing hardest for free speech are exactly the ones that are the subject of discussion. You might wonder if they have a stake in the outcome of that debate. Personally, I'm not at all concerned that 'the state' will meaningfully abridge my speech (in part because there is no history of them doing that without a very good reason and in part because NL never had absolute free speech to begin with though we do have the concept of 'freedom of opinion'). But I am concerned with the speed with which wannabe Nazi groups and actual Nazi groups are able to convert people en masse to their cause, including voting them into public office where they are already doing damage. If you haven't noticed that then you're forgiven but realize that in many countries this is not just a theoretical debate but harsh reality.

And this is why history keeps repeating itself, everyone thinks it's different this time.

Stalin-ism should not be a case study so you can do it right the next time, it should be a warning that you can't, even with the best of intentions.

I think one large part of history that you are forgetting is Stalin isn't the only one that fought Nazis, it was a great American endeavor as well.

I hope we can take some lesson from Neville Chamberlain; that some ideologies are not worth arguing or negotiating over.

There's a difference between refusing to engage and actively trying to suppress.

Yes, Neville Chamberlain did the first, Churchill and FDR did the second.

> it was a great American endeavor as well.

And British, Canadian and many other countries besides.

America was founded by vandals and terrorists committing illegal acts.

> Free speech can be used as the crowbar to motivate enough people to commit acts of vandalism and terrorism.

you mean like dumping tea into the ocean to protest taxes and standing up a militia to rebel in order to establish a new government?

we definitely wouldn't want that to happen!

Nice strawman. Really, what's up with that? The second one in this thread.

A 10 second detour through Wikipedia to have a look at what Nazism is would have saved you typing that out.

It rarely ends with anything else. Most people are all talk and will back down if confronted in a nonphysical way. If they are going to resort to fisticuffs they are going to wind up in jail for it.

Not when they are in groups. And that's the first thing these people do: get organized so they're not longer just by themselves when aiming for confrontation.

That’s where the whole metaphor breaks down. Those are actions that law enforcement is supposed to deal with. Any aforementioned bar patron who just let “the Nazis” at the bar exist is in no way culpable for not having stopped them somehow.

"the cops will protect us against authoritarianism" is quite the sizzling hot take, even by HN standards

I don’t understand what you are getting at.

Preventing literal fascists from seizing power is a collective responsibility that cannot be offloaded - both morally and practically - to any single institution. Especially law enforcement.

Then why not comment with this instead of calling my comment some sizzling hot take? This is far more direct and articulate.

Whether stated plainly or satirically, the point should honestly be obvious.

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