Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tristor | Hacker News Reader

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Free speech is a philosophical concept, it happens to be enshrined in law in the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America to prevent the government for imprisoning you for your speech, but it is first and foremost the philosophical concept, not the law. That concept used to be part of the social mores of the United States and much of the Western world, it isn't really any longer as your own commentary here demonstrates.

The social mores have shifted, and while you may not be imprisoned, real tangible consequences (which are arguably unfair and inappropriate) can occur for trying to have a real meaningful conversation with someone based on your own honest beliefs. You are arguing essentially that those consequences are not only acceptable, but laudable, because you see it as "just desserts". Trying to distract from the serious philosophical issue by hyperfocusing on the legal non-issue is a common tactic of people who endorse bullying and "cancel culture" tactics to suppress other's speech. Your arguments here have been subtly insulting and not in good faith, and I don't think are the way people should behave on HN, but ironically, I'm responding to you in good faith because I fully support (philosophically) your right to say those things and you are acting within the rules.

You clearly have a narrow view of the history of the United States because before the 1960's a black person could be murdered by a mob for saying the wrong thing to a white person. And those mob murderers would not be prosecuted. You call that a philosophical protection of free speech inshrined within the culture?

Also, you ever hear of anyone in America being punished for saying they're a communist or homosexual? Or is that fiction to you as well?

To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men. And now it is that same group who coincidentally seems to complain the loudest that they no longer can say exactly what they wish without consequences.

> To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men.

This is true, and unsurprising given the historical context. In fact, the Constitution was written as such with the original intention of providing those freedoms primarily to the benefit of not just white men, but land-owning white men. Crofters, smallholders, and other types of land-owners wanted to be put on the same tier of political power as others, when previously they were stifled under the aristocracy. That was the defining feature of the American Revolution and the things which followed.

But your reply to me is primarily just a form of whataboutism and fails to refute or respond to my core point. My view of history is neither narrow nor incomplete, insofar as it applies to the racial and gender injustices that existed in the US. This also has pretty much nothing to do with the philosophical basis of free speech.

It’s not whataboutism because the fact that the value of free speech was only granted to a privileged few addresses your argument that the USA once valued free speech and things have changed. If free speech was only granted to a privileged few why should we ever think of it as some societal value that was lost? It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the the people who are angry their speech is criticized. We all still have free speech by the definition of the constitution but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful. And there is popular sentiment supporting that criticism.

> It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the the people who are angry their speech is criticized.

Free speech is a civil right, as civil rights have grown in the US it has been extended to those that civil rights have grown to encompass. It's not just the privileged few (or even the privileged majority) that are angry about a loss of this social more.

> but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful.

What you are calling "the powerful" seems to me to mostly be average normal people who just happen to not agree with the current sentiment in vogue. Most of the people who've found themselves on the wrong end of the consequences meted out for attempting to exercise freedom of speech would hardly qualify as "powerful" under any lay definition.

The public square is supposed to belong to everyone, and freedom of speech is the social more that ensures this is the case. We've lost or are beginning to lose this social more, and doing so has disastrous long-term and far-reaching consequences for our society.

Who are these people that have been punished for speech? It seems to me more a boogeyman of “if I say X, people will not like it” which is normal, sometimes people find some ideas repugnant, than a real scare.

And yes I am using a relatively broad definition of powerful, I’m not talking Bezos etc in the 0.01%, I’m talking more upper middle class and up mostly white men. Who maybe are not correctly defined as the powerful but they are traditionally the people protected by law & USA cultural norms (which isn’t power in the traditional sense of political power or wealth but means quite a bit in one’s day-to-day life).

And one more time to say the original counter argument of mine again, if there was free speech explain to me COINTELPRO.

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