Hacker News Reader

Comment by recuter | Hacker News Reader

Such an absolutely basic thing and yet notable and increasing numbers of Americans don't seem to grasp this or are downright hostile to it now. Some strange mindfog going around convincing people these concepts are held dear by "Republicans" and therefore bad.

I never would have imagined a few short years ago we'd be here.

View on HN

You’d think the population would be moving the opposite way when you look at the UK and see people being arrested for rude tweets. Or that one UK woman arrested because the police suspected she controlled an account which posted a mean post on kiwifarms (she didn’t, and the police had no evidence to begin with).

If I break a fingernail it is a tragedy –– if a piano falls on you it is a comedy.

Most Americans probably either don't care or fundamentally disagree with the right of Nazis to say shit, but the legal system prioritizes consistency and their specific brand of morality over the public desire, that's why we have law and not chaotic lynch mobs.

But there is no "benefit" to unfettered free speech other than the fact that we have unfettered free speech; it's very straightforward. Some people won't care about it.

The benefit is we find solutions to objectionable ideas by discussing them. The alternative is a chilling effect where people are hesitant to discuss problems for fear of getting into trouble for even coming close to saying the illegal thing.

The benefit is to deprive the government of the power to decide which speech is allowed, which will likely depend on which party is in power, and how the cultural winds are blowing. Which might be in your preferred flavor today, but not tomorrow. If you're a progressive, do you really want to risk curtailing speech on the possibility that religious conservatives will get a chance to wield that power? We've seen what that's like in the past.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com