Hacker News Reader

Comment by damiencarol | Hacker News Reader

Yeah! We need something to stop all those 'crimethinking' things...

Paradoxically, if you want to defend freedom of speech, you can't allow ideologies that are anti-free speech to spread "e.g. the new resurgence in authoritarianism and fascism"

Sure you can. In fact, you must. As long (and this is very important) as it remains speech.

Exactly. People confuse allowing people to express anything and passivity. But first:

- you can react to hate speech by positive actions to counteract it;

- you can forbid hate that goes beyond speech.

At what point did fascism in Italy and Germany turn from speech to action?

At what point would you have been OK with suppressing fascist speech? (A lot of people answer "September 1st, 1939" to that question.)

At what point was it too late to stop? ("September 1st, 1939" was years too late.)

What makes you sure that it doesn't cross that point, before you have the moral consensus to suppress it?

We've been down this road once before. The last time around, it killed fifty million people. In politics, the line between speech and action is far murkier then these absolutes.

The line between speech (ideas) and action is perfectly clear. Don't pretend it isn't.

No it isn't. Speech is action. It has consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance

So, I ask you - at what point fascism in Europe could have been stopped? At what point did fascist speech, rallies, and demonstrations turn into action?

Was it after they seized power? They were so appreciative of free speech, that they immediately repressed it.

Fascism in Europe could have been stopped in the 16-1800's when Britain and France gobbled up the world as colonies. They could have left a piece for Germany and Italy to occupy as these societies unified some years later. Or they could have not colonized at all.

Alternatively maybe it could have been stopped by preventing the industrial revolution. Or by preventing Germany and Italy from uniting as countries at the end of the 1800's/early 1900's. Or by preventing banking interests from lending to industrialists. Or by preventing the Viking invasions. Or preventing the collapse of international papal authority. Or by preventing the rise of papal authority in the first place. Or giving the Chinese first dibs on East Asia. Or giving native Africans gunpowder. Or by any number of other means.

Point being, you seem to think 1)Fascism in Europe during the second world war is the worst event to happen to mankind ever and attempting to prevent it re-occurring justifies any means, even those with potentially worse outcomes. And 2)Fascism arose strictly because some guys popped in out of nowhere and started talking.

What about Pol Pot? What about Stalin? What about the church during the Middle Ages? What about the conquests of Islam? What about the massacres in Medieval China? Events very simply don't happen in a vacuum, (in spite of the popular culture/ public school view of history).

The dangers of those who want to prevent free speech because it offends someone far outweigh the dangers of letting the marketplace of ideas decide which ideas are worth considering. I don't find the rise of the alt-right (which I don't support btw) nearly as alarming as I find the number of young people who think offensive speech should be legislated against or banned. Which is truly an authoritarian and disturbing trend.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com