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Comment by fixermark | Hacker News Reader

> And you must remain vigilant that they do not undermine your freedom.

By, for example, refusing to give economic support or a privately-owned platform of speech or press inches to fascists who are pushing an ideology that leads directly to genocide.

Inherent in the freedom of the press is the freedom to control what the press you own publishes, and inherent in the right to peaceably assemble is the right to refrain from assembling with those you do not choose to support (be that assembly one of common protest or simple commerce).

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Sure, that's something you could do. I'm wary because I believe that such behaviour tends to cut both ways, in the long run.

I'm old enough to remember, and remain disgusted by, that LGBT organizations struggled to import goods or coordinate with financial institutions.

Perhaps the act of suppressing wrong think is indeed cutting both ways, now. Conservatives are reaping what they sewed.

This is my perception. And ultimately, if a group is so isolated that their situation becomes actually indistinguishable from oppression or occupation, we have law for that; The Civil Rights Act was passed in part because letting the market decide doesn't work when an entire town or state is racist.

But society has a vested interest in people being judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin or their gender. Society has no vested interest in bolstering the strength of people who should be judged on the content of their character.

Avoid the error of logic that conflates the tool with the use of the tool. Societal censure and giving people no more than what the law says we must give them is a completely appropriate response to the bigot, the fascist, and the misogynist.

But to have our freedoms we must tolerate sharing them with those we don't like.

For instance, if right wing populism gains ground will the use of economic pressure turn upon progressive groups, without legal recourse?

The tools of oppression aren't necessarily bound by ideology, after all.

Of course; it already has. And this is expected, but the solution is not, I think, to try and take the tools out of the hands of the citizens at this time.

America is in the middle of a cultural revolution, not unlike the Civil Rights era of the '60s. It's a fight of ideas and opprobrium, and both sides will definitely use the economic, political, and speech tools at their disposal to win it. As both sides have for years; advocacy, call for censure, political and financial support of this or that cause or politician---none of this is new. What is modestly new is the frequency and "heat" of the battle, because too many obvious injustices have gone unpunished (I think to the perception of both sides of the political spectrum, broadly speaking).

I'm not in favor of any kind of removal of these powers from the people's hands at this time, though. There's a reason we protect public speech and economic censure in general: because if you force people's hands by taking those tools away, they reach for the next most convenient tool.

And America, thanks to the Second Amendment, has a lot of guns.

America has been undergoing continuous cultural revolution since the first settlers set shore. I'm with Utah Phillips on this: decades are just convenient rhetorical devices to coerce us to forget our past. The Civil Rights struggle never ended!

Canada has a lot of guns, as well, and far less gun crime and strong regulation in their acquisition and use. Most of the illegal and prohibited firearms are smuggled in from the USA. It would be neat if our southern neighbours could stop the flow of illegal firearms into our country...

Thanks for the pleasant conversation. :)

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