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Comment by trasz | Hacker News Reader

How about a thought experiment: in "communist bandits", replace "communist" with derogatory name for some other nation or social group.

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Another one: "I hate onions". Now, replace onions with a derogatory name for another group. We can't prohibit negative words on account they can be used to express negative opinions about other groups of humans.

In the case of communist bandits, it's a criticism of a political ideology, and in particular here one party. Criticism of political parties and ideologies is completely fine, even when expressing insults to them. Expressing threats of violence or other crimes isn't permitted or moral, but expressing dislike or disrespect is perfectly valid. Can anyone say they've never expressed disrespect to any ideology or political party in their life?

No, "communist bandits" obviously refers to a group of people, not ideology. Furthermore, while you could argue it's about some particular organisation, it's often being used to refer to chinese citizens in general.

"Republican bandits."

Does that offend you?

All over social media, all day, every day, people accuse others derogatorily of being fascists. Both are political ideologies.

Would you be as happy to see fascism protected from negative commentary online, as you clearly would communism?

Is the word "fascism" used to refer to current citizens of a particular country, which don't have anything to do with the stuff we hate fascism for? Because the word "communism" is - the comments in question don't attack "communist ideology"; they are derogatory comments aimed at one particular nation.

Italy?

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