Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

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I think it would be useful to take an example that nobody likes like ISIS.

Should ISIS be taken off the internet? What the heck does that even mean? Do people wear badges saying "I'm a member of ISIS, don't listen to me?"

I should hope not. The labels we put on people are probably not the same labels they put on themselves. Sticking people in boxes and beating the hell out of the boxes may feel good from the outside...but it sure sucks if you get stuck in the box and didn't want to be there.

So instead of this simplistic labeling of folks, how about we act based on behavior? That is, you're welcome to blow off steam all you want. Let's say I hate clowns (I do not. I love clowns.) I might get online and say something like "Those damned clowns! We should shoot every one of them!"

Now even if I were a clown-hater (I am not), this is not a call for violence. It's an angry person making poor word choices. If, however, I got online and started asking people to take action "Meet me down next to the circus in an hour...bring your water guns!" then I am no longer just talking.

America is fine with people just talking, and in the most hateful way imaginable. We are not fine with people encouraging or planning out violence. No matter what some idiot will tell you on the internet, we assuredly did not fight the Nazis in WWII. We fought Nazi Germany. Many of those same Nazis we fought stayed in power (after being vetted as being non-violent). Many of those same men who fought Nazi Germany came home to be policemen, protecting American Nazis while they marched in the streets saying all sorts of vile and hateful things. We're like that.

We're like that because we watched country after country go down the other route, where the government decided what was okay or not to say. It never ends well. In fact, it usually results in even more violence. You don't get rid of sick people by putting a muzzle on them. Get them out in the public square where they can engage with the rest of us. Who knows? Maybe some can be helped. That would be the best outcome, wouldn't it? To create a path for people who are angry and prone to violence (but haven't done anything wrong yet) to get better and become a productive member of society?

Your history lesson is a little flawed though. The right wasn’t unable to speak their minds in Germany, in fact they spent a good decade talking their hate, before they started using violence.

It wasn’t until after the war Germany started to censor things, and today they’re arguable leading the free world in terms of liberal values. The political views on individual rights and freedoms in modern Germany are a lot more similar to the American revolutionaries than those of modern day America after all.

I think ISIS makes such a good example because it brings out the flaws of the anti-censorship arguments. Almost no one is opposed to censorship as long as it’s for something they turly disagree with, and it’s really hard to defend ISIS in any level.

You’ll find some anarchists who want nothing to be censored, but you’ll find very few advocates of places like GAP that also defend the rights of ISIS, even though the rhetoric against entire religious groups like Jews is actually a lot worse on GAP than they are on ISIS twitter.

Don’t get me wrong, im not advocating for censorship, I just think the difference in opinion within the US is weird. I mean, how can you both want censorship for your opponents while simultaneously wanting complete freedom of expression for your own views?

It's editorial license. Yes, we must paint with a broad brush in order to get comments under three thousand words.

The allies made sure there were restrictions in Germany on what could be said and how political parties could act, just like we did in Japan. In fact our response was quite kind in comparison to the measures the Soviets took. We didn't want to have to come back and fight yet another European war. I believe we succeeded in that goal, perhaps with outcomes we did not anticipate.

I do not want censorship based on the content of ideas, and I'd argue -- strongly -- that other folks educated in the American tradition do not as well. We used to have plenty of civil liberties organizations, such as the ACLU, that would also strongly argue these points. You might recall that John Adams (the president) first gained notoriety by defending British soldiers accused of killing Colonists. We take these things seriously. There's a long, long line of historical and literary works that support this view.

I think what's happened, if anything, is the private, living-room idle chat of the emotionally-disturbed becomes instantaneously published world-wide for others to consume. And I'm not talking Nazis or ISIS here, I'm talking people who are shocked and angry about the things some of these people do. These folks, who constitute a greater threat to the Republic than a few terrorists ever did, are looking for solutions. Any solution. And they're willing to entertain drastic measures.

You read this from overseas and suddenly we want censorship for our opponents.

We do not. That's not saying that a lot of people won't say otherwise online, especially after something like this has happened. People say stuff online. With hundreds of millions of people, they say a lot of things. Cherry-picking is a bad habit to get into if you value introspection.

Nobody wants censorship. Those who do should not be holding public office, as it is impossible to hold such a belief and simultaneously protect and defend the Constitution.

Look, we've tried. Oh boy, we've made this mistake as well. The Sedition Act of both 1798 and 1918, for instance. These are laws we are not proud of. In fact, they almost started a second Revolution. But looking at the pattern overall, we're not those people. Hopefully we're not becoming them again either. Those were dark times.

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