> If some of y'all put the time you spent into defending white supremacists and hate platforms
And how do you define this? Have you ever once considered you could be wrong and they could be right?
The freedom of speech is the freedom to disagree. It's the freedom to talk about things we know are unorthodox and offensive, and not fear prosecution from our government (In the context of US/constitution speech).
At one time, saying homosexuality can be a normal and healthy behavior was considered hateful, evil and dangerous. People lost their publications, their friends and sometimes their lives for that idea.
At one time saying black people should be able to have all the same rights as white people; drink from the same fountains, have the same bus seats, and use the same bathrooms, was considered wrong, insane, and a dangerous idea.
The freedom to say things has never been easy. In some countries, we try to protect it. It was one thing when it was the printing press or books, but now we're talking about massive distribution platforms, with insane reach, and very very few companies who have risen to positions where they can be gatekeepers.
You can say it's fine when they go after someone you don't like, but what about when they cut funding for your Mastodon server or phpBB board because of a few posts you've put up they don't like?
I understand the point you are making and think that normally there is merit to it.
However, I think it's important to point out there is a difference between saying "homosexuals and black people should have equal legal and societal rights" versus whatever language these people use to justify their beliefs in white supremacy.
>Have you ever once considered you could be wrong and they could be right?
No, I've never once considered the possibility that white supremacists could be right.
If eventually in 200 years the world believes that white supremacists were right and I'm on the wrong side of history, then I'll die being very, very wrong and I'm fine with that.
IMHO, The problem isn't that people should be accepting of any sort of racial supremacy ideology.
The problem is that the accusation isn't necessarily true and there needs to be room to argue about that. Otherwise the accusation is a weapon that can be used without justification and without recourse.
If the Proud Boys want to set up their own media outlet, nobody's stopping them. They can do whatever they can to convince people that they're good folks.
However taking and spending money, that's not something anybody can do for any reason. We have lots of regulations on commerce, and unless there's very good reason for it, we don't force anyone to do business with anyone.
We force companies to hire and fire in non-discriminatory manners, again, because money is power, and discrimination is punching down, and we as a society don't like that.
In order to do this, we use the force of law. Adding a protected group to the categories of people that we cannot discriminate against requires legislative action. There's a public debate and legislators' votes go on record. We use legislation to regulate the aggregation and use of power.
The legal remedy for breaking that is a lawsuit. It's a long, drawn out process whose primary deterrent mechanism is punitive damages. Being the company that has to pay that black person millions of dollars because you decided they weren't worth hiring is not a fun time.
That's the way the system works. If Epik feels they have standing for a discrimination lawsuit against PayPal, I'm sure their lawyers have already it drawn up. Something tells me they won't.
The Proud Boys are just going to have to find someone else to handle their money.
You can clearly define and enshrine intolerance based on immutable physical characteristics into speech laws, as many countries have done (Canada, Germany, etc).
Sorry, this is not a "clear slippery slope fallacy".
A slippery slope fallacy is a claim about a series of events, with each even being more unlikely than the one before it. GP makes no claim of a series of events at all.
GP is merely pointing out that often, societal norms have been immoral, despite the "wisdom of the time" saying that challenging the norm is immoral. And society doesn't realize they were wrong until the normal has been challenged. By not allowing a society to challenge the norms, the norms may never change.
It is your example that is fallacious. You bring up Canada and Germany, even though we have no idea how good or bad of an impact those laws will have. And more importantly, how dangerous it is to even give a government power to restrict this sort of speech. We don't know the conclusion.
Sorry, you missed something. The parent post literally called out the next step on the "slippery slope": "but what about when they cut funding for your Mastodon server or phpBB board because of a few posts you've put up they don't like?"
> You bring up Canada and Germany, even though we have no idea how good or bad of an impact those laws will have
This makes no sense. We literally do know how good or bad of an impact these laws will have _because there are literally examples of countries with those laws_.
The example in this article is a little different because Epik was cut off because their cryptocurrency operation didn't make any attempt to be right with the SEC.
As far as Canada goes, Mike Ward was fined $80,000 for making a joke. Mark Meechan was fined £800 in the UK for a comedy routine where he taught his dog to make a Hitler salute. I have personally know many Germans who have told me there are things they cannot criticize or say because they are German (referring to the Israeli/Palestine conflict).
That's because many of us consider freedom of speech to be more important than anti-racism for the simple reason that without freedom of speech, you lose everything, including anti-racism and all the rest.
That's not true at all. Canada has both strong anti-hate-speech laws and a far lesser (though still existant) problem with racism and racial justice overall than the US. Freedom of speech always has limits.
To be honest, I know where most people stand on free speech when I see them saying that we shouldn't allow anyone to call for anyone else to be fired. I think freedom of speech is so important that I will defend to the death your right to ask for me to be fired.
> That's not true at all. Canada has both strong anti-hate-speech laws and a far lesser (though still existant) problem with racism and racial justice overall than the US. Freedom of speech always has limits.
Canada also has far less "visible minorities" than USA.
> a far lesser ... problem with racism and racial justice overall than the US
On what basis are you making that claim?
Asking as a Canadian-US dual citizen with 20+ years of lived non-white experience in both countries. I don't think these things are so easy to measure and my experience has largely been that every other country likes to pretend they have fewer race relations problems than the US and the claims largely rest on anecdata and media driven sentiment.
“Freedom of speech” in any meaningful sense has only ever existed for wealthy people (who are historically white male landowners) or those of other classes whose speech is deemed “appropriate” by such gatekeepers.
Just look at what happens when employees try to unionize: their employers go to great lengths to silence them, and have spent considerable political capital removing regulations preventing them from doing so. If you have money and power, it’s always been easy to silence speech you don’t like.
This is as ridiculous as people who say "Why don't we all just get along?"
Some are skeptical of megacorporations controlling the economics of information, the potential wrongs of moral control, without necessarily defending detestable people, in the same way those who defend freedom of speech aren't defending Mein Kampf.
I really wish more people could wrap their heads around this idea, because it's so important.
There is no a priori way to suppress "bad" speech and also
* not suppress ideas that are good but unpopular
* not suppress speech that is valid criticism that annoys the powerful
* not suppress speech that is valid criticism that annoys the majority
* not suppress speech that is true but makes most people uncomfortable
* not suppress speech that is true but also most people don't believe
But! With strong free speech protections, no one can suppress ideas that are good but unpopular; nor ideas that are valid criticism, even those that annoy the powerful and the majority; etc.
Here are examples of hate speech laws being used in unexpected, and unexpectedly awful, ways. And, these uses are inevitable and unsurprising to those of us who have a deeper philosophical understanding of how free speech works:
The leader isn't even white, nor are most of their members. He was on a youtube podcast recently, with Tim Pool I think, something definitely doesn't make sense between what the media is constantly parroting about them and what they actually are.
Wikipedia might be good for small, factual articles. But for anything remotely controversial, it leans hard-left. Larry Sanger's blog post gets it head on:
The Prod Boys are too new, but whenever you look at an older controversial topic, ALWAYS read the Talk page first, and also, go back 10 years in the history and read that version of the article and the first version.
If you're referring to the sentence containing “several members have been affiliated with white supremacy”, it kinda doesn't jive with the fact that their highest leadership position is filled by an afro-cuban man, and the fact that there is no official or de-facto-official Proud Boys public communication of anything regarding white supremacy other than condemnation of it, nor any official or sanctioned actions taken against visibly non-white groups or people.
I mean, if there were white supremacists in the Proud Boys, something that isn't even alleged in that article, surely they would not continue once the group was being led by a man who is like 25-75% black.
The only reason they are being framed so aggressively as white supremacists now, is that Joe Biden mentioned them on the debate stage. Rather than accounting for Joe Biden's ignorance or malice, the media preferred to alter public perception to justify his comments; and it looks like it sorta worked!
CNN, NYT etc are most certainly not telling the truth about them. Things are far less, to use a pun, black and white but their name is getting dragged through the mud by various outlets, journalists and politicians as if they were the incarnation of the next reich.
> There are three degrees of membership within the Proud Boys, and to become a first degree in the “pro-West fraternal organization” a prospective member simply has to declare “I am a western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”
The Proud Boys describe themselves as a "Western chauvinist". White supremacists have used "western values" as code for "white" for a long time. Chauvinism is the belief in the superiority of a group. "Western chauvinist" literally means "white supremacist". If you don't believe me, read the many quotes in the SPLC article above.
They are not white supremacists no matter what the overtly biased SPLC says. Many of them are not even white, and their chairman is black. Trying to push this smear is just silly at this point. The media have taken to calling all anti-BLM or anti-antifa counter protesters “white supremacists” and it’s quite ridiculous.
That's enough of what, Dan? This comment was substantive, responsive to the parent comment, and cordial; it didn't provoke a flame war nor could it be expected to, it didn't include any quips or sick burns.
If you don't like moderating after all this time, and I wouldn't blame you, at least understand I can't help other people spamming the flag button because they disagree with people's good-faith interpretation of facts. If there's a technical solution to that I'd be glad to help.
Using HN for political and ideological battle, and especially race wars. That's not what HN is for. HN is for intellectual curiosity, and nobody who repeatedly gets into arguments about these things is using the site that way—rather, it's all about defeating enemies, which is not the intended spirit.
"Facts" is a red herring. There are infinitely many facts and they don't select themselves, nor do they interpret themselves or present themselves. Humans do all of that and we are driven by motives, not facts.
Unfortunately, the self-styled "anti-racists" of today are giving me a tough time convincing actual Neonazis that there isn't some sort jewish marxist conspiracy out there to censor them.
Unfortunately “anti-racism” has been weaponized as a shortcut for silencing anyone who may at one point have said something that could be interpreted as racist or even not anti-racist enough. No thanks.
Rather be labeled as a racist and keep my free speech than silenced by some mob authority.
Yep, welcome to the world where people will argue for "more free speech" on a forum that's carefully tended and moderated to remove the extremely vile, low-quality stuff that kills other forums.
Free speech _always_ has limits. Absolutism is a naïve way to view any aspect of society (whether it's free speech, socialism vs capitalism, etc).
Sorry, that's a very weak statement and easily refuted. By what measure? The US ranks below Canada on the HFI. On many quality of life lists, the US is far below nordic countries.
You may want to examine your circumstances and see if you'd still feel the same way if you were one or more of black, female, gay, or a persecuted minority (I'm assuming you are none of these, but feel free to correct me).
The US imprisons more people than China. The US enslaves its prison population. The US justice system tricks innocent people into pleading guilty using a clearly corrupt plea bargaining system. There is nothing just about American justice.
It doesn't matter what the circumstances are. Your very post here proves my point more than any further elaboration on my part ever could.
A mere 30 years ago, everything you just said here would have gotten _you_ banned from most clubs, small businesses, shopping centers, and religious organizations. Today, you get rewarded with a bunch of social media points for making statements like yours.
I'm also Canadian, white, straight, male and can afford to piss off potential future and my current employers with my posts and just retire if I wanted to. But I don't let that illusion cloud the fact that there are many people who don't have my luck who find the world we live in incredibly unjust.
You need to tap your empathy and look at the life experiences of others in different circumstances. Would they consider society just?
