Shut up and play nice: How the Western world is limiting free speech

I doubt the general public and the Supreme Court would accept your logic for a span of almost fifty years, whereas they don't seem to have had much of a problem with Justice Holmes'. I think that tells us quite a lot about how human psychology tends to work in these cases, though your opinion may differ. I suspect time will tell which of us is the more accurate, though I wish it wouldn't.

History is interesting sometimes.

As Chamberlain and Dalladier brilliantly showed with the Munich Agreement, it can be a good thing to appease a potential adversary which feels wronged for some reason by giving in to their demands and forgetting for a while about one's law or best interests - for a "greater cause". They did in fact avoid a war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement

But since the agreement was made possible by the fear of the potential alternative outcome (failed negotiations -> risk war), which was of different significance to the opponents (one could say, with hindsight, that one of the negotiating parties wanted an opportunity to go to war), an advantage could be gained by the party with attached less significance to the bad outcome.

The result was in fact positive for all the negotiators : they all got what they wanted. But the ones with an interest in a war were given the zone where the border defenses and the banks were - even if the result was positive for all, some gained more - and not just "more", but strategically more.

In other words, reaching an agreement failed to consider the strategic significance of the advantage that was given away.

Slippery slope? Maybe. The real problem is not just incentivizing a very destructive conduct, but it seems very similar - giving away one's best defenses in exchange of a short-lived peace.

Why ? Just like a pen is mightier than a sword, free speech is the best defense of democracy.

Why is no one interested in free speech? (in one of the posts: "I'd be willing to take that risk, the answer is no")

It looks like a public good - one which utility is the sum of marginal utility, with individual marginal utilities not enough to offset the cost of this good.

That's bad.

But there's something to learn - any group that can manage to make its adversary give them their best defense is applying a good strategy - so threatening violence works, while giving in to the demand of bullies with diverging interest doesn't.

(Please do not interpret this post as an endorsement of any party, faith, or country - the strategy here is just very interesting)

Most of the european news website are also censored, by law.

Moderators are paid to remove comments, or whole threads. Some words are banned. The purge is even worse that at CBC.

As you said, the real problem is you can't really guess what people think, or how many share a viewpoint, unless you have a bot fetching the page and watching the disappearing posts.

And that worries me too.

At least on HN you can see hellbanned with showdead (hello josephcooney! you may find this discussion amusing, I find it at least better than european style censorship)

> we're willing to pass laws and endure a certain level of self-censorship to avoid provoking violence out of these people

Benjamin Franklin addressed that issue "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Sometimes, I wonder what's the next target after free speech.

I don't think farmers are a strategic objective. If I had to make that call, I'd go after woman rights, and trade that against something strategically insignificant concession (say like "allowing" farmers to keep raising pork).

(EDIT: Fixed Franklin quote. human memory failure :-)

The WTC attacks were committed by people who were in the country legally, either at the time or they had overstayed a visa. Those attacks would not have happened if the individuals involved weren't granted visas.