We Must Defend Free Thought • Hacker News Board

Re: We Must Defend Free Thought

#11

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:36 PM UTC

Decathect wrote: post #10

qball wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The First Amendment didn’t prevent our genocide of native peoples. Democracy didn’t prevent 100 years of slavery. ‘The marketplace of ideas’ didn’t keep us from torturing people to death or killing a million people in a pointless war. You don't seem to understand the function of the things you dismiss. The First Amendment, Democracy, and trust in the Marketplace of Ideas exist to make sure that society's mind can be…

I think you missed my point: all those things can be tools for accomplishing a just society, but they are not sufficient or an end in themselves. Slavery was ended by war. Labor rights were achieved by fatal street battles. The civil rights movement was legitimized by a growing threat of a domestic insurrection. Marriage equality was established by an unelected Supreme Court. Basically every time significant positive…

To deny any progress happens under democratic rule, is going too far?

Re: We Must Defend Free Thought

#12

Post by jhbadger » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 6:27 PM UTC

jesssse wrote: post #5

peatmoss wrote: post #4

I feel there is a gap between left goals and left means. It’s particularly distressing to me because I always viewed “our team” as the side that was cooler headed, would wrestle with uncomfortable ideas, and would keep trying to find the merit in people that we disagree with. But I find myself feeling that a portion of the left has retained the banner issues of the left, while adopting a shockingly tribal worldview a…

Why do you expect this stuff from the right? The right supports equal rights for individuals ala the US Constitution. The left supports special rights based on membership of a group such as race, gender, gender expression, sexuality, etc... It seems to me the left is behaving exactly as expected.

Traditionally at least, the American right has been very skeptical of concepts like free speech even though they are in the Constitution -- the two Red Scares (1920s and 1950s) wanted to silence Communists and even just labor activists even though their rights to express themselves were enshrined in law. This led to the creation of left-leaning organizations like the ACLU to defend the rights of free expression as guaranteed by the Constitution. So, yes, it is surprising to find a modern branch of the left that doesn't support free expression.

Re: We Must Defend Free Thought

#13

Post by Decathect » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

Decathect wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed my point: all those things can be tools for accomplishing a just society, but they are not sufficient or an end in themselves. Slavery was ended by war. Labor rights were achieved by fatal street battles. The civil rights movement was legitimized by a growing threat of a domestic insurrection. Marriage equality was established by an unelected Supreme Court. Basically every time significant positive…

To deny any progress happens under democratic rule, is going too far?

I mean, all those positive changes happened in an ostensibly democratic system and were later ratified by it. They just didn’t happen because ‘moderates’ were convinced by logical argument to grant people basic rights through the ballot box.

That’s the farce, that political change happens through some cosplay conception of an Athenian forum instead of the accumulation and exercise of power. It’s a fact that fascists know instinctively and the left has been waking up to. For liberals, who are enthralled by process and satisfied with the status quo, the threat of change is more serious than the reality of injustice.