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Comment by csallen | Hacker News Reader

No free speech => those in power can choose what speech to outlaw => they eventually outlaw speech critical of them => they can no longer be challenged by political rivals => authoritarian government where the people have no power

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I agree that's the theory I was taught, but what does this look like in reality? It seems that complaining makes people complacent and useless. When has complaining about the US government ever led to change? Shit just keeps getting worse.

Either the right is a useless fig leaf for lack of any substantial rights, or I live amongst terrible people.

> It seems that complaining makes people complacent and useless.

Um, what? Does not complaining make people less complacent?

> When has complaining about the US government ever led to change?

"Complaining but voting for the same people" has not led to change, I'll give you that.

> Either the right is a useless fig leaf for lack of any substantial rights, or I live amongst terrible people.

The right is essential to having informed people. Informed people are essential for any useful change. It's a necessary condition, not a sufficient one - if people don't care enough, free speech by itself doesn't cause any change.

Right, so better get rid of the department charged with helping have an informed electorate. The slope is much steeper than I ever imagined a US President ever being able to get away with. This guy has shown us exactly how precarious the balance of power actually was. Just get enough people in all of the branches to have control, and boom! (figuratively, hopefully not literally too)

> Does not complaining make people less complacent

Absolutely: people realize their speech has zero possible impact

Compare to today: people rant endlessly, but are confused when their speech has zero impact. Perhaps if they realized this sooner they would not have made such useless efforts

Laws and regulations change constantly based on complaints. Then there is Women’s Suffarge, Civil Rights Acts, Voting Rights Act, Clean Water Act, etc. You don’t hear most complaints because they do it in private correspondence to legislators and regulators. It is when those routes do not effect change that you hear public complaints.

> Civil Rights Acts, Voting Rights Act

These changed in spite of complaints as a reaction to fears that cities might burn down.

I'm not sure about the Clean Water act, but I suppose Women's Suffrage is a fair point.

The right to free speech is also part of the right to peacefully protest. You take that away and your're on the road to totalitarianism and the inevitable civil war that it leads to.

Again, what has peaceful protest ever granted us? If you examine the social movements throughout american history, we won rights in spite of demands that people be persuaded through peaceful protest.

> Shit just keeps getting worse

or it keeps getting better if you're in for that kind of thing. there's always the other side of the coin

Worse is obviously subjective if half the country voted for who's currently in office.

It feels strange that people often blame a lot of very recent social issues we have on the concept of free speech. I think that the problems we're running into today are mostly not really caused by speech rights, and restricting speech is not going to fix them either, it's just going to make things even shittier.

I think you're confusing something; few major problems are caused by free speech, but the expectation that free speech itself, in absence of other political actions, might lead to some material end seems to greatly inhibit peoples' ability to act outside of expression on social media.

That's the narrative, but historical case studies show it's really like this:

Authoritarian government where the people have no power => No free speech

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