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Comment by bratsche | Hacker News Reader

I feel like the rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence are not really what this is all about. The US isn't saying you can't write derogatory things about it online, so it's not denying any rights. But non-citizens don't automatically have a right to enter the country, correct?

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spot on: the right to enter a countries borders is not granted to all individuals. The right to free speech may be, but it comes with a cost if you say things people don't like. You are still free to say them though.

Free speech is granted to the people. So probably not. Note right to bear arms is granted to 'people' therefore by deduction if you are barred arms you are not a person. Aliens are not typically considered 'people' in a constitutional context.

> "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

is semantically different from

> "The right of each person to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".

A group can have a right in the general sense that is restricted from individuals in that group. Note that this is a different construct than is used in the First Amendment (and I have a hard time believing that the framers took their semantic decisions in drafting these phrases lightly):

> "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech"

DC v Heller makes clear the present day interpretation of the people conveys individual right. People is also said in the fourth amendment, surely you're not arguing individuals have no fourth amendment rights.

In the first I'm specifically referring that it says the right is to the people to petition grievances. The wording pretty clearly doesn't prohibit congress from stopping non-people from assembling/petitioning.

If you can't have a gun you are necessarily not a person based on the present day interpretation of the courts. Therefore most aliens are not people and law can prohibit their grievances (derogatory posts perhaps) and assembly and abridge their protection from search and seizure.

Note:

>> "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech"

Lol you purposefully chopped off the part where some of that was explicitly qualified to 'people' rather than to anyone!

> Lol you purposefully chopped off the part where some of that was explicitly qualified to 'people' rather than to anyone!

You mean the bit after the clause I cited, which applies to a different thing than the freedom of speech?

My objection, to be clear, is your insistence on bending over backwards to justify the assertion that the denial of one right necessarily implies the denial of other rights based on a strange inversion of the idea of "personhood".

My assertion is people are people. If the Constitution says the right is to people then people have the rights if people. If you have no right to bear arms you're not a person and the first contrary to your claim does explicitly tailer congresses limitations on assembly and petitioning to 'people' just as the second tailers to people.

If authorities and those with power will apply a "cost" to you for doing an action, you do not have freedom to do that action. This is what freedom means.

Otherwise, what does it mean to you? Is your view that simply being physically capable of doing something means you're 'free' to do it?

Do you think people in North Korea have freedom of speech? After all, they can say whatever they like. It just comes with a cost (life in a labor camp).

Every possible human action has some cost. By that standard, 'free speech' has never existed and never will.

Which seems a bit silly, most people understand it to mean 'free' above a certain underlying threshold.

I dont think it's about threshold. It's about some consequences being ok to apply and some not being ok. But some of the ok ones may actually be bigger than some of the not-ok ones. For instance the love of your life breaking up with you. That's big. But ok. Or a $20 fine. That's small. But not ok.

A $20 fine for speech in a restricted area seems to be fine?

e.g. swear words in a kindergarten

>Every possible human action has some cost.

Every possible human action does not have a punishment or a deterrent applied by those with power.

Freedom to do X means there's no punishment for doing X.

> Every possible human action does not have a punishment or a deterrent applied by those with power.

Since every living member of society has some non-zero amount, it would still be the case that free speech is practically impossible, if you set the bar too low. As the chances of that applying to at least 1 person out of 8 billion is pretty close to 100%.

So then the question is, how high exactly is the bar above zero?

But if the "non-citizens don't automatically have a right to enter the country" logic holds up, then what rules should be used to allow or deny entry?

Would it be okay to deny entry to a foreigner because they're black? Or gay? They don't have a right to enter anyways, so I guess it's okay.

This is really about "how does the negative things they say about the US affect how they'll improve the US by being there, if at all" which is really the general rule for most immigration; how can this person help and improve the country they're entering.

I don't know. This feels really easy to abuse. Like, say I wrote something criticizing China on some issue on facebook, and then China denies a future visitor visa. Is that right? Is that reasonable? Is that good for China?

Likewise, I expect that it is not in the USA's best interest to do this, let alone fair to the person who would immigrate into the the US.

This is exactly what China does today. How is it not in a country's best interest to deny a visa to aliens that hate the country?

> How is it not in a country's best interest to deny a visa to aliens that hate the country?

Is this meant as a straw man?

When does criticism become hate, and how to do you judge speech anyways. Reminds me of that guy in Hong Kong who was given a huge fine and banned from trading in the HKSAR because he said Evergrande would go insolvent. Obviously a hate crime.

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