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Comment by bachmeier | Hacker News Reader

> Please, for the love of all that is holy, consider what white nationalists explicitly want to do.

This raises a related, but much tougher, issue.

Does free speech include false speech? Does it include misleading speech? White nationalists are not known for telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Does free speech allow them to make up claims about raping children? Should someone be allowed to make those claims in a college classroom? Should someone be allowed to present photos of child rapists, but only people of one race, without even acknowledging the existence of the other child rapists? This quickly becomes the dominant issue when you go down this road. I find the naive "pro-free speech" stance to be unsatisfying.

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What about reading black nationalists? I think there's plenty of value in reading the Black Panthers' and Nation of Islam's writings despite their often-abhorrent views. Same with the "Weather Underground" manifestos, the speeches of Osama Bin Ladin, the writings of Mao, etc.

Keep in mind too that many on the right would view a lot of what the left says on various contemporary issues to be "false" and "misleading." Should a professor be allowed to say that all white students are inherently racist? That communism is the best system of government? And is there a difference between exposing students to these ideas vs. requiring students to parrot them back on assignments?

The AAUP drew a pretty good line in terms of setting the limits on "free speech" that I think would address the kind of hypotheticals mentioned: "Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject...The intent of this statement is not to discourage what is “controversial.” Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster. The passage serves to underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject."

"I think there's plenty of value in reading the Black Panthers' and Nation of Islam's writings despite their often-abhorrent views" is different from allowing one of them to stand on a stage and falsely claim someone is a child rapist.

> Should a professor be allowed to say that all white students are inherently racist?

That's an opinion. Very different from singling out a white student and saying they are a child rapist.

> Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster.

I don't disagree with that statement. The problem is that lies are not controversial, they are lies.[1]

[1] MW defines controversy as "a discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views".

> Does free speech include false speech?

This is actually the primary issue in the article.

If it was, I must have read a different article. I read lots of arguments about opinions considered to be wrong. I didn't see anything about someone making up lies.

> I didn't see anything about someone making up lies.

That is covered by what Mills calls a "false opinion."

> It is necessary to consider separately these two hypotheses, each of which has a distinct branch of the argument corresponding to it. We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavouring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.

And here is some more of the reasoning about this:

> When we silence an opinion, Mill says, our reason, at least in part, is that we are certain it is false. But in taking our certainty of its falsity as a reason for silencing an opinion, we are treating our subjective certainty as absolute certainty, which is tantamount to assuming we are infallible about the truth of our belief. But of course, we are not infallible beings; therefore we are not justified in silencing an opinion on the grounds of being certain it is false.

Note that "someone making up lies" is someone's opinion that you have determined to be a lie. If you don't recognize this you are doing what Mills has so pointedly warned and pointed out - assuming infallibility

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