Getting a little tired of these 'exposure will cure-all' type of comments. The only thing accomplished by not quashing sites like Daily Stormer is desensitizing us to them which only leads to legitimizing.
To discuss does not legitimize. If you are fearful of an idea being debated, that says more about you than the idea.
So wait, when someone says "kill all Jews" that's an idea to be discussed, but when someone says "let's censor people who call for that" that's somehow worse, and not simply also speech you can also discuss?
Has anyone here ever actually been near a group of, say, more than two actual nazi skinheads? Would you discuss their ideas in their basement?
I'm not for censorship either, but I know what would be needed to confront such people -- namely, going past their "ideas" and to the root, their fucked up, impotent personality -- isn't even allowed on HN. If you get personal here, you're gone. So that's laughable from the get go in a way.
Yet if you discuss "ideas" with a Nazi, you're just in endless quick sand. I tried discussing with Nazis, and I'm still up for it (I even tried discussing with pedophiles, but I totally noped out of there because it also achieved nothing and it was even more depressing than the Nazis). But I know the murderous cold that lingers there, and how no Nazi stands on their own. If you win the argument, you get a cold smile saying "just you wait", and that's it. Then you're back to square one. But if you didn't even try that you simply don't know what you're even talking about.
edit: take the guy who murdered one person and wounded 19 severely by driving with their car into protesters. His father died early and his mother didn't know what he was up to. I'll just say, this family could used help 10-15 years ago. I don't know how or by whom, but in a magical fantasy world, that would have been the correct solution -- now you can do nothing, just look at the spilled blood. If you want to prevent more of that, look at the people who are growing up with pain today... but by the time their fist is clenched beyond a point, it will take something special or very big to change them, and otherwise they will just hate or even kill, just dwindle mentally or even suicide. Hitler wasn't random, he's the prototype. Stalin wasn't random, he's the prototype. Mental issues are the problem, fucked up childhoods are the problem, not "ideas". Don't assume everybody is that far gone, but also don't delude yourself thinking this is about ideas. And frankly, too many people here aren't even on to themselves enough to meaningfully look at anyone else's personality, and should deal with their own obedience and hiding behind abstractions first.
They care about power, and they're fueled by hate. Their genius is their ability to use words as weapons, to strike at the weaknesses of a civilization as they are doing now in this free speech 'debate'. They'll use truth, or lies, as needed to get what they want. They're not bound by the usual rules framing debate.
During the Charlottesville attack this weekend, these assholes were all over the internet claiming that the attacker was actually an antifa socialist, doxxing an innocent person in the process. After that turned out to be of course false, did they express shame or regret at their lies? Of course not. They went onto the next justification, claiming that the driver had been 'provoked' into driving into the crowd. Now they have the fringe Alex Jones element claiming that the Nazis at this rally were Jewish actors.
That's what we're dealing with here. People need to get that through their heads and stop thinking that fascists can be reasonable. They're inherently unreasonable and they use that to their every advantage. They're not ashamed of lies, and they will tell different lies and different truths to different people to sow chaos, confusion and inaction amongst those who speak against them.
After they've won, let's see exactly how much they hold up their reverence for free speech as they're claiming to do now. They don't care about free speech. In fact I wouldn't even say they're necessarily against free speech. They don't care about ideas - they'll just kill anyone who gets in their way. They're using our reverence for free speech against us.
In some twisted way you could almost say they really are more evolved. Just as we are able to control animals in large groups by understanding their behavior and manipulating it, fascists dedicate their energies to manipulating human emotions and behaviors, both at the micro and macro level. By driving out all compassion from themselves, they open themselves up to actions and manipulations that most people would be prevented from doing by their human shame.
- Jean Paul-Sartre, Anti-Semite and the Jew
By not letting people fucking recruit en masse, that's how.
> as someone who had multiple family members killed during the holocaust
Did you yourself ever try to actually discuss with actual Nazis, yes or no?
> Saying that the person who had to delete their response because of what "Nazis" said to them is even worse.
What? Where did I say that? I said they deleted their comment, probably because they realized they could be identified. Here's two bits of their comment (I wanted to reply to it that's why I had it open in another tab)
> when you try to discuss with Nazis, they will jump you and beat your ass and give the old college try to killing you if they are given a chance.
Then they describe how they actually had Nazis try that on them, and finally
> That's why I'm entirely and unflinchingly okay with being loud and eating the downvotes and the flags (oh no, downvotes and flags) when these people pop their heads up here. They can't try to kill me here. But they would if they could. Caping up for a societal autoimmune disease, the kind that infects your structures and subverts them so that they can kill you, is profoundly, profoundly unwise.
Your "ancestors" don't give you the right to just go on about how someone is a wuss about "sharing an unpopular opinion" by virtue of making up shit nobody said. And I'm also not trying to "shame" anyone into anything, you're projecting. I'm asking you, did you actually try what you suggest on the real deal, because so far the one person who isn't a virgin agrees with my opinion about sex, so to speak.
That's what I thought.
> Der wahre Grund für die unabwendbare, prinzipielle Überlegenheit aller totalitären Propaganda über die Propaganda aller anderen Parteien oder Regierungen ist, daß ihr Inhalt - jedenfalls für die Mitglieder der Bewegung und die Bevölkerung eines totalitären Landes - nichts mehr mit Meinungen zu tun hat, über die man streiten könnte, sondern zu einem ebenso unangreifbar realen Element ihres täglichen Lebens geworden ist, wie daß zwei mal zwei vier ist. Die Vorteile einer Propaganda, die sich niemals nur auf sich selbst und ihre Argumente verläßt, sondern zu der von vornherein "die Gewalt der Organisation hinzutritt", in der sie durch Gewalt ständig und unmittelbar verwirklicht, was sie sagt, sind so außerordentlich, daß es fast schon eine gefährliche Unterschätzung ihrer Möglichkeiten ist, sie noch mit dem Namen Propaganda zu belegen. Alle bloßen Argumente gegen sie, die ja aus einer Wirklichkeit stammen, welche die Bewegung ohnehin zu ändern verspricht, sind bereits im vorhinein dadurch disqualifiziert, daß die Massen die wirkliche Welt weder akzeptieren können noch akzeptieren wollen. Totalitäre Propaganda ist keine Propaganda im üblichen Sinn und kann daher nicht durch Gegenpropaganda widerlegt oder bekämpft werden. Sie ist Teil der totalitären Welt und wird nur mit ihr zusammen vernichtet.
-- Hannah Arendt, "Elemente und Ursprünge totaler Herrschaft", page 537
I'm dog tired, but here's my attempt:
> The real reason for the unavoidable superiority in principle of all totalitarian propaganda against the propaganda of all other parties or governments is, that its content - at least for the members of the movement and the population of a totalitarian country - has nothing to do with opinions about which one could argue, but have become an equally invincible real element of their daily life, just like two and two making four. The advantage of a propaganda which never depends on itself and its arguments, but is ab initio "joined by the violence [or power] of the organization", in which it manifests through violence continually and directly what it claims, are so extraordinary, that it is nearly a dangerous underestimation of its possibilities to still call it propaganda. All mere arguments against it, which stem from a reality which the movement promises to change anyway, are already disqualified because the masses can't and don't want to accept the real world. Totalitarian propaganda isn't propaganda in the usual sense and therefore can't be fought or refuted with counter propaganda. It is part of the totalitarian world and gets destroyed only together with it.
I'm not saying she would support anything else I said, but she did write the above, in a book that should be mandatory reading but is not. Those who have ears and all that. Good night and good luck.
Then you can pretty easily ask: civil rights protests? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract. They tolerate all who extend that contract to them. LGBT activists? Using speech--and violence!--but not violating that contract. They tolerate all who extend that contract to them.
The daily st-literalnazipropaganda-ormer? violating that contract. Suppress it. Destroy it. No platform should allow it. Nazis in Charlottesville shouting "Jews will not replace us"? violating that contract. Suppress them. Make them fear. They do not tolerate all who extend them that contract.
I think that, while tolerance works well as a vague social value, trying to define it and draw a border around what it is or isn't will only result in destroying the rights of one's opposition. The word can be used in a variety of way in a variety of contexts; I would propose that any use of violence against someone for holding another idea is a form of intolerance, and from your comment it clearly seems that you disagree. The only "clear social contract of tolerance" is one that is tainted by everyone's political views. Where you would advocate for the removal of those who stand against LGBT rights, a religious Christian/Muslim/Jew would advocate for the removal of you for denying their right to speak their minds.
...the next word is "that", a qualifier. And that qualifier answers literally all your questions?
There is no successful formulation of absolute free speech, because then you must allow intolerance, which takes over. This isn't a new question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1...
Let's apply my test: What happens if someone's religion mandates intolerance? Then they are violating the social contract of tolerance--we should not allow that to be done.
> a religious Christian/Muslim/Jew would advocate for the removal of you for denying their right to speak their minds.
They can speak their minds about anything they'd like, so long as they don't advocate for the suppression of the rights of others. That is the thing that is not allowed. Their right includes that qualifier; it is not an absolute right to speak. This qualifier is the safety net that stops a tolerant society from being eaten by intolerance.
(I am not saying that free speech as outlined in the US constitution, for instance, meets this formulation from a legal standpoint; I am saying that social mores do and should, and certainly private speech and private platforms should be formulated in this way.)
And one would posit that you could speak your mind about anything you'd like, so long as you don't advocate for suppressing their rights. From their perspective, what they are doing isn't even suppressing anyone's rights -- in their eyes, their God has mandated that doing so is _not_ a right. Everything is a matter of viewpoint, and in an alternate reality someone would be advocating for you to be silenced on the same basis.
What's your solution?
I gave a nice, uniform principle that allows as much as tolerance as is possible without eroding all of it. Many before me have offered it too. Again, it's not a new idea.
You pick it apart, claiming that in some (specifically intolerant of others) religious person's point of view, their magical god favoritism allows them to stigmatize people, so therefore my principle just doesn't work.
You're right: my principle excludes people. It excludes the intolerant, where intolerance is identified by the simple test I outlined. And that's it. That is all it excludes. It excludes people for their choices to harm others. But your hypothetical (again, specifically intolerant) person's magical god-favoritism instead excludes people for who they are. That's the difference.
So, we as a society can choose one of these ways or the other. And I argue we continue to treat tolerance as a social contract for the simple reason that the other option, free speech absolutism ...breaks. It erodes down to an intolerant society, where a violent few pry away the rights of everyone else. But if you treat tolerance as a social contract, the result is stable.
I hold a bit of a strong view, here. Criminalize actions. In all but the rarest if cases, speech should be protected.
If somebody tells you to go punch a Nazi, they shouldn't get in trouble. You should, if you go punch a Nazi. Not that I like Nazis, but that you shouldn't assault them when they aren't being violent or an immediate threat to your physical safety.
I only think speech should be punished when you can show demonstrable harm. Libel, slander, credible threats, and things like that. Some idiot yelling about gassing Jews isn't a credible threat, even if reprehensible. However, if they happen to have a gas chamber, and amassed a bunch of Jews, that's a credible threat - though I am going to guess their speech is the least of our concerns, if they got that far.
I don't want speech to be illegal, in all but the rarest of circumstances.
You can say that now because you're on the other side of the history.
But put yourself in the dorm room of someone organizing one of the first lunch counter sit-ins. That organizer is using their speech to convince a group of people not to tolerate the segregation that made it illegal for them to sit non-violently in a public place.
Now imagine a potential activist who agrees with your first paragraph hears the speech of this organizer. Do you really think it's clear that potential activist will end up participating in the sit-in?
edit: clarification
Let's see... whose speech is this organizer advocating intolerance against? It appears to be the business owners who say "some people cannot be here, because they are black."
So, the business owners are violating the social contract I outlined: their actions are intolerant. The organizer is, therefore, not breaking the contract.
Someone who followed the principle I argue for would land on the side of the protestors in this case.
Someone has to determine what constitutes 'inciting violence'. There will be some websites that are targetted for shut down while some won't be; there is no way to get around this. What gets targetted will be the ones that go against the group who has the ability to choose the targets (a government agency or perhaps a private ISP).
Second, what stops a false flag from getting a site shutdown? If a site allows comments, a person hostile to the site could post a violent comment, and then you would have justification for shutting the site down.
Third, you will get false accusations. Take, for example, the civil rights movement in the sixties. You don't think state governments in the south wouldn't have accused the various protest groups as inciting violence? It doesn't matter that they were peaceful protests, they would have certainly argued that organizing sit ins and protest marches was a form of violence. While we might say, "Well clearly those were peacful and would be allowed to have their protest", that doesn't mean a court run by that same government wouldn't see differently. You don't think a southern court in the 60s would have sided with the government when they accused the civil rights groups of being violent?
Once you give the government an out to get around free speech requirements, they will take it whenever they can.
The current "out" is to let private companies run the entire infrastructure of speech itself. That's worrying.
Calling humans "monkeys" is not debate.
Why should Cloudflare be morally obligated to offer free speech to Daily Stormer, when Daily Stormer doesn't offer free speech to non-racist non-murderers?
Freedom of speech is a core democratic principle. You can't have a democracy without freedom of speech. It doesn't really matter if the censorship is done by a few big corporations or the government. The effect is the same. If some ideas become wrongthink and can't be distributed or discussed, democracy dies.
Sure, it starts with the most extreme, least defensible things. Like stormfront. But it won't stop there. Before you know it any speech even mildly critical of immigration is silenced and you get the situation going on in Europe.
What happens when the next red scare happens? Politics is like a pendulum - it goes back and forth. Just a generation ago Communism was the persecuted ideology. People on the far left were blacklisted, silenced, and discriminated against. Was that ok with you? You want it to be 10x worse next time, by establishing a culture with no tolerance of differing opinions? Because that is where we are heading.
Defending freedom means defending undesirables first. Because undesirables are always the people who benefit most from freedom. Copyright violaters are the first people to adopt torrents. Pedophiles are the first people to adopt tor. Hackers and drug dealers are the biggest adopters of bitcoin. Undesirable extremists are going to be the group to benefit the most from free expression.
This seems... odd. I don't think right now there's any (western) European country where this occurs. Sure: it has occurred and has contributed to a backlash against 'political correctness'. But this doesn't sound like a description of the Europe I live in. Just the stereotypical Europe shown on some american TV, where muslims run a lot of cities and all ghettos are offlimits to non-muslims.
Free speech isn't responsible for genocide; the electorate is.
Then how, as an American, do you justify Ag_gag laws?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag
It seems to me that free speech values in the US are not quite as absolute as you make them out to be. Especially when the interest of powerful people or big corporations come to play.
Pointing at them is classic whataboutism. We have problems in the US. We mostly confront them headon rather than pretending they don't exist. Suppression of speech is pretending they don't exist.
Another example: Americans are constantly blasted by Europeans for racism. Racism is a very real problem in America - That's why groups like Black Lives Matter exist. We deal with these problems with speech, like the aforementioned group. As such, some fairly basic indicators, like the public opinion on miscegenation have been trending in a good direction - Less than 20% of America disapproves of it[1]. The data is not quite quantified in the same way, but there's an argument that in Germany, that number is more than 40%[2]. Across the EU, 35% of people would be upset if their child were dating a black person. The numbers are not directly comparable - The US numbers are about interracial marriage as a whole, not personalizing it about "your child", and I've seen firsthand that there's a difference. But those aren't numbers that swing that far. It might be equally bad, it might be a little worse in the US. It's not the sea change that it's so often presented as - Racism is a global problem, not a US one.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_Un... [2]http://www.equineteurope.org/IMG/pdf/ebs_437_en.pdf
I don't think that my comment was whataboutism. Not when I reply to the following quote:
"As an American, I look down on the limits of speech in Europe with disdain"
Which implicitly puts an absolute to free speech in America. Which it's most definitely not.
I come from Italy, parents in Italy are upset even if you ask them what they think about their children marrying someone from the village 2 Kms away from theirs
But then they won't shoot anybody who does it
It's not really racism.
it's old people being old
I don't, and they have been repeatedly struck down by our courts. Checks and balances between overzealous legislators and our judicial branch.
Excuse me while I enjoy the benefits of our fascist socialism.
And most Americans are opposed to shit like the Hobby Lobby crap, just like most Europeans are opposed to what Russia does.
Also, cut out the whataboutism. It's dishonest.
No, you shouldn't if they are based on hate
Countries that allow this kind of "political support" are idiotic.
The main difference between Europe and USA is that we Europeans have learned from our past mistakes
If money wasn't speech, the government would easily be able stifle speech simply by limiting what advertising and promotions a corporation could do. So the ruling and legal precept are prefectly valid.
Aside from that, "based on hate" is a completely meaningless phrase. It's great for creating stuff like "blasphemy laws" though, I suppose. In your opinion, should I not be able to insult Scientology? Is criticism "hate?" Are insults? What about making a negative documentary about Catholicism, or any other religion?
>The main difference between Europe and USA is that we Europeans have learned from our past mistakes
Are you sure? Europe doesn't seem too stable lately.
Political influence reform is a whole separate issue and I think the problems are structural and go much deeper than just "corporate money in politics."
Personally, I think the idea of a "representative" democracy is simply outdated and problematic. Representatives can be bought, and that will always be the case. I'd prefer to see more direct democracy (with constitutional constraints.) I believe you'll see society gradually transitioning towards that, as in California.
Of course you can
But then you have to suffer the consequences if what you said is against the law
For example if you say that scientology is a cult, it's your right to say so
If you say that members of scientology are pedophiles without any proof, it's not
When a right has no limits it's not a right anymore, it's a privilege
> What about making a negative documentary about Catholicism, or any other religion?
Seriously, if you don't get the difference between criticism and hate speech, I can't help you.
BTW, you can't say lightly anything bad about Scientology for the same reason Citizen United is a threat to freedom
They can throw an enormous amount of money to "the problem"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_law#Cases_in_t...
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/09/us/scientology-s-puzzling-...
http://www.sptimes.com/News/32899/TampaBay/Hardball.html
> Are you sure? Europe doesn't seem too stable lately.
Still not killing each other in the streets over a stupid statue
You're obviously pro-free speech. But surely, if speech is so important, it is also important to make sure it can be effective. If one waters down definitions like that, the ability to speak effectively against dangers diminishes.
I'm an european, way too young to have seen WWII. But I deal with its broad consequences, that still permeate society and psyche in subtle ways, daily. To see the evil of fascism repurposed to mean something else, just makes me sad. Don't screw up our heritage please.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1357
Free speech isn't just a paragraph in the American Constitution that appeared there out of nowhere. It's a larger cultural norm that allows you to share your ideas and, much more importantly, allows you to hear other people's ideas without censorship. Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.
Right.
> Whether censorship comes from the government, university, or some megacorp is completely irrelevant to whether it is an infringement on free speech.
Wrong, unless you mean a university or corporation literally physically censoring you from communicating something. See sib response by dragonwriter. If a university disinvites a speaker or a corporation stops hosting someone customer's website, nobody's right to free speech was infringed upon. Sure, you may accuse them of acting against the spirit of the value of free speech, but that's their prerogative and they are in fact simultaneously exercising their own right to free speech by choosing not to host/amplify another's speech they find repugnant.
The consequence is that the private sector is a huge and critical part of how China censors information. Actual direct government censorship is relatively limited: it's all based on distributing vague principles to the private sector combined, with punishments for failure to comply. The result is people interpreting the principles in the most aggressive way possible.
In the west, governments have egged on progressive agendas and passed laws that punish various kinds of speech (e.g. "hate speech"). But most of the censorship is done by the private sector, who are trying to interpret vague principles in ways that'll avoid them being targeted for punishment. The fact that in the west the media and various ideological groupings have as much to do with it as a government agenda doesn't change the fact that most of the ensuring censorship is still run and managed by the private sector.
Sometimes that's true, sometimes it's not. If Google and Bing both decide to delist your website because they think it's "hateful" or some other reason you're out of luck. There are only two major English-language search engines.
If your Wordpress hosting provider doesn't want you, well, that's inconvenient but not the end of the world.
One problem with encouraging a culture of "free speech doesn't matter if you're a company" is that the type of speech that requires the most defence is the most unpopular kind, which means you can end up with all the offensive or challenging material lumped under one or two providers ... who are then vulnerable to other forms of attack by people who wish to crush speech they disagree with. It's really a lot more robust if everyone agrees that "I disagree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it".
I totally agree. I wasn't encouraging that attitude per se, but rather pointing out that free speech protections as they are implemented in the US protect the rights of private individuals/corporations to take either attitude towards the speech of others. And FWIW I can't really envision an alternate implementation that insures people abide by the robust interpretation of the value of free speech - at a certain point it falls to the public to continue to embrace free speech as a positive value.
Private censorship of what is transmitted by the censors' own resources is not only not an infringement of free speech, it is central to the essence of the concept of free speech.
Likewise, criticism of others' speech and advocacy against others amplifying or supporting it is also a central part of the idea of free speech.
It was the result of a weak, young democracy that couldn't/wouldn't stop political parties raising private armies and beating the crap out of their opponents, combined with deep seated cultural problems (resentment at the outcome of WW1, latent anti-semitism etc).
If you really believe suppression of free speech stops dictators committing horrible crimes, explain Stalin.
The communist rise to power was an actual civil war. Hitler rose to power by democratic election (assisted by violent thugs and demagoguery and ultimately corruption but still an election).
Some of the unwritten standards by which we judge an election democratic or not are things like "do people get beaten up for campaigning". When we see violence and then a leader who wins 97% of the vote in places like Africa, we don't hesitate to call it a sham democracy. Why would we do differently for Germany?
May 1924: 6.6%
December 1924: 3.0%
May 1928: 2.6%
September 1930: 18.3% (second largest party)
July 1932: 37.4%
November 1932: 33.1%
March 1933: 43.9% (last free election)
November 1933: 92.1%
March 1936: 98.8%
April 1938: 99.1%
Also note that by that point the government had been destabilized since the 1920s, ruling only with an absolute minority of the votes.
In 1930 the left-wing parties (KPD and SPD) actually campaigned against ever having another war with very successful demonstrations.
The NSDAP campaign in 1930 was the first campaign organised by Goebbels. It was based on conspiracy theories like the economical crisis being an international conspiracy against Germany, appeals to national identity, scaremongering against communism and capitalism. They actually toned down the anti-semitism on Goebbels' orders.
This was a "small government" democracy in action. An unstable one, yes, but the elections were democratic. The Nazis exploited the instability of the government and the economy and they used scaremongering and demagoguery to get the relative majority, but they won democratic elections and they had a significant share of the votes before being in a position to force the outcome.
Even in the last election you label as "free" the Nazis had stormtroopers on the street, no? And a significant reason they were able to win the Enabling Act was because they simply blocked other politicians from turning up at all, and violently threatened the ones who did? Or am I misremembering history?
By the time the 1933 election happened, Hitler was already chancellor and NSDAP thugs were openly assaulting political opponents. The reason I pointed it out as the "last free election" is that it was the last election that at least offered people the option to vote for someone else.
Starting with the election of 1930 the NSDAP had enough popular support to slowly force its way into dictatorship. Maybe this could have been prevented with a more stable political climate (i.e. a strong majority government and a less fragmented Reichstag) but there's no way around the fact that many millions of people voted for the NSDAP.
This is why every German who's familiar with their history is uncomfortable with the popularity of the right-wing nationalist AfD today. They may not be the NPD but they're certainly at risk of being enablers. This is also why openly anti-constitutional parties can be banned (but also why it's so difficult to do so).
EDIT: Let me reiterate my point for emphasis: While Hitler's rise to power wasn't exactly democratic, the NSDAP was only able to get him into that position because millions of people voted them into the Reichstag. How many people didn't vote for Hitler doesn't matter -- most Americans didn't vote for Trump either.
Democracy and freedom of speech are the primary bulwark against people like that, not the cause of it!
Note that while Germany does censor specific nazi symbolism to prevent a direct repeat of its own history, the constitution is actually written in a way that is not simply aimed against nazism but to uphold human dignity.
If you allow for humans to be dehumanised in political speech, for in-group/out-group rhetoric to be pushed to such limits that other humans are portrayed as subhuman or inherently worthless or evil, it doesn't matter whether you're a nazi or a communist or an anarchist.
Saying free speech is important because Hitler got rid of free speech is a false equivalency. It's like saying free trade is important because Stalin got rid of free trade. It's not either one or the other. You don't have to allow people to incite hatred in order to protect a society's freedom.
"If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."
- Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney vs California
Perhaps this is because not enough people are stepping up?
When was the last time you challenged a proclamation from some Fox News ditto head? When was the last time you looked at someone in your family spouting racist garbage and called them out on it?
"Exposure cures all" only works if someone is also willing to take on the challenge of creating the exposure.