Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

shingetsunewsagency.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 494 posts

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#411

Post by bzbarsky »

jrgoff wrote: post #389
jhbadger wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just Canada. "Free Speech" is no longer a part of modern left-of-center policy in general. Even the American ACLU no longer defines itself as a defender of free speech the way it used to. The argument (for what it's worth) is that the far-right is defending hate speech through the concept of free speech and so free speech is no longer worth defending as an ideal.

Would you mind linking to a source about the ACLUs changing relationship to free speech? I just looked at their website and it seems like they are still centering free speech as one of their major issues and a list of actions they have taken in recent years includes support of e.g. the NRA and an anti-muslim group.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html is one such source.

Note that the shift has been quite recent (more or less since 2017) and not uniform; the ACLU does still take up free speech cases, while avoiding others, depending on various things.

Related, but not mentioned in the above articles, are tweets from prominent ACLU lawyers calling for banning certain books (see https://reclaimthenet.org/strangio-shrier-free-speech-suppre... for a reference, but this was quite widely reported). On the one hand, said lawyers have a right to their own opinions on their own personal twitter accounts. On the other hand, the ACLU never bothered to say that this opinion does not represent the ACLU organizational position....

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#412

Post by simonebrunozzi »

tkgally wrote: post #5

The linked article ends with this: “Why the Japanese media has refused to identify the ‘religious group’ that formed the motive for the killing must remain as speculation at this juncture, though it reflects very poorly on Japan’s status as a democratic nation.” It’s important to note that the Japanese media is not monolithic. It’s true that the major newspapers (Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi, Nikkei, etc.) and the broadc…

Unification Church of the World Peace [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#413

Post by hatenberg »

naniwaduni wrote: post #374
dmurray wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An amusing one that I remember is when a magazine was not allowed to include the term shōgi daoshi—literally, “falling over like shogi pieces” An amusing one on multiple levels. Standard shogi pieces don't fall over! They're not miniature statues like in Western chess, but flat reversible tiles [0]. It's like it was written by a Western journalist who needed to translate his idiom into Japanese. [0] https://upload.…

Western chess pieces don't fall over like dominoes either, since they're usually kind of rounded...

Western Chess, they got cowboy hats? Asking for a Persian friend...

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#414

Post by [deleted] »

mellosouls wrote: post #396
dang wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's directly relevant to the point (by a Western journalist) about Japan's "status as a democratic nation" which can presumably be turned right back on us.

[deleted]

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#415

Post by cma »

jhbadger wrote: post #376
eloff wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada wants to implement this under the Trudeau liberal government. It's been a little disturbing to watch a Canadian liberal government take steps in the direction of totalitarian control since the beginning of the pandemic. When was the last time the political right has positioned themselves in opposition to the left in defense of free speech and individual rights and freedoms? Strange times.

It's not just Canada. "Free Speech" is no longer a part of modern left-of-center policy in general. Even the American ACLU no longer defines itself as a defender of free speech the way it used to. The argument (for what it's worth) is that the far-right is defending hate speech through the concept of free speech and so free speech is no longer worth defending as an ideal.

The right campaigned on cancelling Kaepernick and right-wing religious universities are notoriously against free expression.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#416

Post by jrgoff »

spinach wrote: post #408
jrgoff wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind linking to a source about the ACLUs changing relationship to free speech? I just looked at their website and it seems like they are still centering free speech as one of their major issues and a list of actions they have taken in recent years includes support of e.g. the NRA and an anti-muslim group.

You can tell by their twitter that their actions don't match their stated stance. They've become a woke social justice organization like many other institutions, repeating mantras such as: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1269413639464849409

While I can see why that tweet leads you to categorize them as "woke", I don't personally see how that has anything to do with their actions matching their stated stances, particularly as it relates to free speech.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#417

Post by andrekandre »

jhbadger wrote: post #376
eloff wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada wants to implement this under the Trudeau liberal government. It's been a little disturbing to watch a Canadian liberal government take steps in the direction of totalitarian control since the beginning of the pandemic. When was the last time the political right has positioned themselves in opposition to the left in defense of free speech and individual rights and freedoms? Strange times.

It's not just Canada. "Free Speech" is no longer a part of modern left-of-center policy in general. Even the American ACLU no longer defines itself as a defender of free speech the way it used to. The argument (for what it's worth) is that the far-right is defending hate speech through the concept of free speech and so free speech is no longer worth defending as an ideal.

  > modern left-of-center policy in general
serious question: were "liberals" really very much "left" in the first place? maybe culturally left i suppose, but economically and politically?

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#418

Post by csdreamer7 »

guerrilla wrote: post #49
thematrixturtle wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about "licenses to exist", but access to the press clubs (kisha clubs). Basically, if the government doesn't like what you print/say, you get frozen out the clubs and hence out of all government news. https://freespeechdebate.com/discuss/an-impregnable-fortress...

This is the same in every country, including the US where entire agencies will just stop talking to you if you piss them off (especially police departments.) It's one of the ways we get all this propaganda even though we have a nominally "free" press.

Yes and no.

Trump actually had a reporter's white house press credentials revoked and a court reversed it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-reporter/u-s-ap...

The court does recognize the government has a right to prevent unruly behavior. But once it creates a forum with rules on who attends; it simply can not target those who disagree with it's speech.

Yes, American agencies have stonewalled in the past but the 1st and 14th amendments do place restrictions and practices the governments must follow or their acts can be blocked and that American courts do uphold. As far as I know most countries do not have these practices.

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#419

Post by andrekandre »

maire wrote: post #316
brightball wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran it through Google Translate because I was curious. It appears to be something called the Unification Church? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church > The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely known as the Unification Church or Unificationism, is a new religious movement whose members are called Unificationists and sometimes colloquially Moonies.[2] It was officially founded on 1 Ma…

Moonies used to be a big deal at college campuses in California. When my husband and I went to Berkeley in the 1970s, the Moonies were everywhere. They did many questionable things before fading away. My husband is 4 years older than me - so he was not as aware of their recruitment practices. He said he was invited to dinner by a very attractive young woman who kept flirting with him all through dinner. She then invi…

  >  She then invited him to a weekend retreat. He said he became suspicious and did not go
great article about that (infiltrating the moonies in san diego)

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/1980/may/08/cover-revere...

Re: The Crime That Killed Shinzo Abe

#420

Post by jrgoff »

bzbarsky wrote: post #411
jrgoff wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind linking to a source about the ACLUs changing relationship to free speech? I just looked at their website and it seems like they are still centering free speech as one of their major issues and a list of actions they have taken in recent years includes support of e.g. the NRA and an anti-muslim group.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html is one such source. Note that the shift has been quite recent (more or less since 2017) and not uniform; the ACLU does still take up free speech cases, while avoiding others, depending on various things. Related, but not mentioned in the above articles, are tweets from prominent ACLU lawyers calling for banning certain books (see https://reclaimthenet.org/st…

Thank you - unfortunately I don't have access to the nytimes article (and am not willing to subscribe to get it). However, your comment did help me find other articles that seem relevant to this discussion.

In case it is of value to others, one such article is https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/10/26/why-the-aclu-is-rig... - it definitely has a pro-ACLU slant, but I thought it did a reasonable job of explaining the dynamics of the recent discussion/shifts within the ACLU with respect to free speech

Post reply on HN