Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#601

Post by Siira » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 11:17 AM UTC

AHappyCamper wrote: post #78

I understand that there are a lot of people who are hurting right now, and I empathize with their pain, but how can we share out most wonderful and beautiful ideas with each other or convey important information to the public if we believe there might be serious reprisals against us if we "say the wrong thing". For example, I personally helped work against slavery on the Black Market in the Middle East, and I wanted…

The Middle East IS a hellhole. Speaking directly from there. Rich people in the West just don’t want to admit that, so they can do nothing for their fellow humans and still take the moral high ground. The current left survives only on privilege.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#602

Post by lilbaine » Sat, Jun 27, 2020, 4:42 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #502

klyrs wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By destroying less efficient social structures it promotes long term progress and reduces inefficient practices like slavery. Sorry, what? Slavery was never "inefficient." The problem is that humans have rights and holding slaves deprives them of those rights. To the contrary, slavery was, is, terribly efficient for the slaveholder.

Slavery definetly is inefficient on the labor level long term. Especially as a generational state that cannot be worked and bought out of. Slaves are effectively encouraged to work only hard enough to avoid punishment and their individual efficency winds up being ignored. There isn't really any reason to try to get better over time except at plotting escape or how to murder every last master around you, even the chil…

Agreed! Alexis de Tocqueville had similar arguments about slavery and it's economic inefficiencies. Sadly part of his argument was not based on civil liberties and rights rather his argument was the expense of the "up keep", housing and feeding slaves, versus an individual worker who is free has to provide their own cost of living for which that burden is then lifted off the master/owner. The business owner simply pays the worker for his/her labor, and no more feeding and housing. It saves expenditure burden on the owner and transfers the cost to the worker, maximize profits.

Wonder what he would say to the mechanization of labor through technology and its benefits of ending the institution of slavery and providing owners cheaper or eliminating labor expenditure?

So just another view point on the issue of "inefficiency of slavery" argument.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#603

Post by Sarah_Giggs » Sun, Jun 28, 2020, 10:28 AM UTC

ngngngng wrote: post #177

I argued with a family member about this just the other day. She was trying to get a faculty member at a local university fired for saying something offensive on Twitter. I asked her what happens after we get him fired? Can he earn back the worthiness to again feed his family? Will he need to denounce his views or just stop spewing them publicly? Will he just need to collect unemployment for the rest of his life now…

The issue isn't necessarily that he doesn't deserve to have a job, but he certainly doesn't deserve to take advantage of what is demonstrably a position of power and influence over others to spread hate in a public forum. Freedom of speech is treated as this unassailable privilege in any arena but if the speech in question is, for example, a violent fatwa calling for the death of an author, as in the case of Salman Rushdie, I think it's entirely justified for a public forum to suppress that. Let those who want to spread violent or damaging ideas find a private platform for it and leave it to them to find an audience.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#604

Post by burfog » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #243

burfog wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no switch. Go look up members of congress who switched political party during that era. Wikipedia has a list. You'll find two, one in the house and one in the senate. Had there been an actual switch, you'd expect to see numerous members of congress switching sides. The "party switch" narrative is a lie. It's to cover for the fact that the republicans kept voting for civil rights until they were finally able…

It wasn't a switch as in politicians jumping ship from party to party in most cases, but instead a high level policy switch of voters, purging politicians from one party, and gaining new ones on the other as Dixiecrat voters felt betrayed and were welcomed into the Republican party as a new policy shift of that party. Framing this as the civil rights act being solved and now voters focusing on other issues is ahistor…

The "party switch" is ahistorical, and essentially just propaganda.

Republicans, who for years had been fighting to pass civil rights laws, didn't one day suddenly decide to become the party of Jim Crow, KKK, and slavery. That's democrats, who even today (now that the old stuff is unacceptable in public) have low expectations for some races.

Purging politicians from one party would be great. We can start with the Virginia governor who went to a party in blackface, with his fiance in classic KKK garb. We have pictures, matching pictures of him in the same plaid pants, an awkward admission of guilt, and still he remains in office. This is 2020. He is in office.

Next up would be Biden. There is plenty of video of him saying... that word... to rudely refer to black people. Oh wait, he's the party's presumed 2020 candidate for president!

Nothing deep has changed. It's just being smarter about public relations.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#605

Post by cglace » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

CraigJPerry wrote: post #528

cglace wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go back to the original parent of this thread. The concept was he self censored due to the fear of someone being offended.

Thats not true - where does he self censor? > So what should I do? Just shut my mouth and don't say anything? Then the slave trade will continue to operate freely... All speech besides threats of violence needs to be free, or we can't progress as a society.

Okay, you got me, he didn't self censor but he was talking about considering self censoring and chose not to. QED no one has ever self censored out of fear of reprisal.

Re: Those who exercise free speech should also defend it even when it’s offensive

#606

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #456

klmadfejno wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most famous moments was the waving of an imaginary list with known communists embedded in the government. Regardless of your view on the 'realness' of those who actually were communists, the point is that it was largely speculative who was part of them. The concerns of the BLM protestors are not that there are hidden racists, but overt bad actors with tangible track records of oppressive behaviors.

> Regardless of your view on the 'realness' of those who actually were communists, the point is that it was largely speculative who was part of them. No, the argument was that "the threat" was "mostly made up". I assure you, it was not.

The list was made up.