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How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

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Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#651

Post by soraminazuki »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #583
soraminazuki wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of response reinforces the parent's concern. Expressing concern for the erosion of free speech rights doesn't make one a right wing fanatic just because they don't mention every other political issue in the exact same comment.

The free speech absolutists were always criticized because of their hypocrisy, not because of their ideology. At least the people saying there should be limits to free speech are clear and impartial as to where those limits should be, supported by laws and regulations.

> clear and impartial as to where those limits should be

This is a big claim. The crux of the problem is that it's virtually impossible to set a clear and consistent line. That makes it ripe for abuse by those in power, as we are witnessing right now. I think it's hypocritical to fail to even acknowledge this fact.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#652

Post by mmooss »

mychael wrote: post #561
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life-long classical liberal here. I don't know how you could arrive at these conclusions today.

I arrive at these conclusions the same way many of my classically liberal friends and fellow libertarians who support Trump do — by evaluating his actions through the lens of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal restraint: • DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority. • Freedom of Speech: Consistently opposes online censorship. Appoi…

Lots of this is incredible:

> Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

Mexico, Greenland, Canada, ... there's never been a more interventionist US president.

> DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority.

That doesn't make it align with classical liberal principles - especially when they discard the rule of law and do it as a dictator. Cutting government is an act of Congress, not the executive.

> Deregulation: Slashed hundreds of federal regulations across multiple sectors, reducing government interference in markets and individual enterprise.

Who intervenes more in business than Trump? For example, he is forcing them to abandon DEI and ESG; he is extorting law firms; he extorts funds and capitulation from other companies.

> Judicial Restraint: Appointed constitutionalist judges committed to limiting federal overreach and upholding individual rights.

The judges have eliminated many legal restraints on government, for example fabricating legal immunities for the President that are not in the Constitution.

> Freedom of Speech: Consistently opposes online censorship.

He's forcing independent, private universities to abandon freedom of speech, arresting people based on their speech - extremes never before seen.

People are widely afraid to criticize Trump for fear of retribution - that's never really happened with an US president.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#653

Post by RickHull »

gmueckl wrote: post #555
nine_k wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of these countries has a free speech provision in the constitution. To the opposite, both explicitly ban certain kinds of speech.

Germany does guarantees free speech in article 5 of its constitution.

My understanding is that insults are illegal as well as certain expressions of Naziism.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#654

Post by remarkEon »

nine_zeros wrote: post #46

I find it remarkable that Americans are ok with rule by executive order instead of rule by congressional law. I also find it fascinating that no federal judge has held any Trump administration officers in contempt or imposed sanctions/bans on officers who are continuously hurting constitutional rights. I assume that Americans have been sleeping at the wheel, unaware of the threat of slide into fascism. But is the vot…

Responding in good faith, here. As far as I can tell, what people who voted for Trump have a problem with - and are thus quite happy with as far as action from this Administration is concerned - is that while there are ostensibly only three branches of the Federal Government (the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial), there is in fact a fourth. This fourth branch is the administrative state, and it is (in their telling, not stating this as fact necessarily) an unelected branch that has overwhelmingly leaned left since Richard Nixon, and has an enormous amount of control over the direction of government. One example is USAID, which is a broad way for federal dollars to be spent on various pet projects, prioritized by career bureaucrats with expansive (and expensive) resumes. Trump exerting control over how these dollars are spent is something they like, because they think it's weird (and I see their point) that the executive branch spends a ton of money that the elected officers in that branch may not want spent in that manner. (Yes, I am aware, some or most of this money is congressionally authorized in some manner, debatable, and honestly it's good to have that debate). Anyway, some people like seeing a chief executive asserting control over the executive branch. It's not really more complicated than that, and pearl clutching about "fascism" is pretty boring, because that is a word with specific meaning. Unless you want to expand that meaning, I suppose.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#655

Post by mmooss »

sepositus wrote: post #217
dclowd9901 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you look at it from the perspective of faithless reporting like that from Fox News and Newsmax, the information pipeline has been selling a narrative that the left has been on an authoritarian tear since Obama. The newscasts are chilling: every one of them for more than two decades has taken a position that the left is an existential threat to the United States. With that kind of context, it's really no wond…

A lot of people don't like being told to what say/think/do. It turns out if you bully those people enough they elect a dictator. It wasn't and still isn't a surprise to me.

Isn't the dictator telling people what to say/think/do far more than any government leader in US history?

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#656

Post by silverliver »

Raed667 wrote: post #488
whatever1 wrote: post #268

As a European for decades in the US, it is the first time in my life that I feel fear for expressing my opinions. Ps does HN offer the capability of completely deleting the account and all of the comments ?

HN is archived by tens of 3rd party DBs (for better or worse) so requesting a full deletion is a step but it won’t scrub everything

Doing something is better than nothing.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#657

Post by mmooss »

sepositus wrote: post #322
NotMichaelBay wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we know about disinformation shows people don't have to actually be bullied, they just have to think they're being bullied. Disinformation is cheap and apparently yields great returns.

I mean, this is exactly the kind of thinking that got us here. We just attribute everything to disinformation and throw our hands up as if none of this was avoidable. I'm convinced that people on the right were called Nazi's long enough that some people literally think _every_ one of them is a literal, actual Nazi. To the point where they think there's no hope in ever reaching them. I saw this coming years ago. The r…

Leaders and others on the right have been embracing white (male) supremacy and Nazis, including Musk. It's not subtle; it's often brazen.

> some people literally think _every_ one of them is a literal, actual Nazi

I've never heard that. Can you give an example?

I think much of what you say comes from the right-wing disinformation machine - it's their talking points, and doesn't reflect anything I've experienced. Can you provide some evidence for any of it?

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#658

Post by mmooss »

barfingclouds wrote: post #252
dclowd9901 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you look at it from the perspective of faithless reporting like that from Fox News and Newsmax, the information pipeline has been selling a narrative that the left has been on an authoritarian tear since Obama. The newscasts are chilling: every one of them for more than two decades has taken a position that the left is an existential threat to the United States. With that kind of context, it's really no wond…

The left has been authoritarian. Rewind the clock to 2018, and speak your mind freely on a college campus and at some point you’ll say something that makes you lose your job. That’s one of many examples of the left being actually authoritarian. I’m not saying two wrongs make a right and I’m not justifying the current administration. But if we look to how we got here, that’s a lot of why, if not mostly why.

The right, as they have for decades, would find something to demonize - it has nothing to do with campus politics.

Also, you can't compare their power to a US president, congressional majority, and Supreme Court justices. How many people live on campuses and how many are in the country? And finally, they didn't seek to take power from others, but to empower them - whether or not you like to see that happen or their strategies.

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#659

Post by dkh »

mychael wrote: post #561
knowaveragejoe wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life-long classical liberal here. I don't know how you could arrive at these conclusions today.

I arrive at these conclusions the same way many of my classically liberal friends and fellow libertarians who support Trump do — by evaluating his actions through the lens of limited government, individual liberty, and fiscal restraint: • DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority. • Freedom of Speech: Consistently opposes online censorship. Appoi…

> DOGE and Fiscal Discipline: The goal of cutting $1 trillion from the federal budget, a major libertarian priority.

Is the result all that matters, and not how it is reached? Life-saving funding for various programs around the world through USAID? Cutting the budgets of the NIH, reducing what the National Cancer Research has to work with by $1B? Suspending student loan repayment programs?

I understand that your belief might be that the US government should never have been doing any of these things to begin with. Fine. But since we have been doing them, often for a very long time, and with so many programs, organizations, and literal lives now depending on them, is just yanking all of it with no notice, no time to adapt, practically overnight, really the ideal way to handle it because it saves more money faster?

> Freedom of Speech

Pulling AP's press credentials for not acknowledging the Gulf of America? Detaining/deporting people in the USA legally for expressing pro-Palestinian views? Suing media companies for coverage that you just didn't like? Punishing law firms for once taking up causes against you or that you didn't agree with?

> Non-Interventionist Foreign Policy

We're going to take the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada?

Re: How each pillar of the First Amendment is under attack

#660

Post by PartiallyTyped »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #611
gmueckl wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany does guarantees free speech in article 5 of its constitution.

It also states it might be limited by law. So you can’t promote nazism and call it free speech.

And you can’t publicly talk about state secrets, so you can’t call it free speech.
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