[pookha]

What your Chinese friend isn't saying is that all those Substack writers in the US would be disappeared into Chinese gulag's. The US has a strong freedom of speech clause baked into its core governance system...When I was fifteen I'd be subscribed to five different punk zines and would be creating mix-tapes from 10 different sources (and much of it wildly offensive and political).

[imcritic]

[flagged]

[agsqwe]

Everything is relative. I'm an immigrant from a post-USSR country and the US is still orders of magnitude more democratic and free

[mathfailure]

Doubt. What are post-USSR countries (except for Ukraine) where government detains lots of people who hasn't committed any crimes? How many people get wrongfully killed by cops in post-USSR countries? In U.S. that's like a sport for cops to find an excuse to unalive someone.

And what is democratic about the fact that majority of people votes for candidate A, yet candidate B becomes the president because... because it's people don't actually vote for president, they vote for someone who counts pro-some party and it's THEY who vote for president in the end. What's democratic about corruption being completely legal (lobbying)? Do you know a single post-USSR country where lobbying is legal? (Hell, how can it be legal at all? there's no distinction between lobbying and corruption, that's the same thing!)

[Hikikomori]

Does it matter if you can speak if the system is designed do that you can't be heard?

[bluGill]

You can be and are heard. It may only be a tiny minority, but odds are good someone hears you. That is better than disappearing if you speak.

[pjc50]

A more serious problem: do people want to listen? Do they want difficult truths or comforting lies?

[m-s-y]

Honestly, it doesn’t matter.

Staying silent generally doesn’t take an act of courage. No one exercises their speech muscles by staying silent.

The true revolutionary act is exercising our right to speech, honestly and frequently.

The important part is not to keep silent.

[brookst]

Suggest googling “compelled speech”

[thisisit]

Loudest voice in the room wins. Crying baby gets the milk. Always.

You can pick any opinion you got from media. Whether it is the whole discussion around autism or the push for DEI. Everything comes down to someone speaking or maybe even shouting.

The unfortunate fact is that people try to see everything through a conspiracy lens and hence miss out voices are still heard - loud and clear.

[bongodongobob]

And yet people are getting fired over making comments about Charlie Kirk on social media.

[philwelch]

There’s something hypocritical about a person who thinks it’s an injustice for them to be fired for expressing their opinions, when that opinion is that they are glad Charlie Kirk was murdered for expressing his opinions.

Karl Popper said,

“But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."

[thomastjeffery]

> when that opinion is that they are glad Charlie Kirk was murdered for expressing his opinions.

You are conflating the expression of an opinion with the opinion itself.

Generally, the point people are getting fired for making is that the very circumstances of Charlie Kirk's murder are precisely the circumstances he advocated for. I don't find it hypocritical to draw attention to that irony. I do, however, find it hypocritical to fire someone for expressing dissent about the opinions of a man who literally became famous for directly asking random people in public to enter into arguments with him.

[philwelch]

> Generally, the point people are getting fired for making is that the very circumstances of Charlie Kirk's murder are precisely the circumstances he advocated for.

He never advocated murdering people over political disagreements. He disagreed with banning guns, but even the people who advocate banning guns don’t usually openly advocate banning bolt action hunting rifles.

The sentiment here is to cheer and laugh at a premeditated murder. If you want to rationalize it, whatever. It’s no use trying to have a discussion with someone who cheers and laughs at a man getting murdered for having discussions.

[unethical_ban]

You're right that he didn't cheer on political assassination.

He merely intimated that trans people's lives are less valuable than others and that black people and women are incapable of intellectual equality with whites and males. A debate about whether that is an indirect encouragement to violence is a valid one.

And to be very, very clear: ambivalence at his departure from earth is not equal to ambivalence of the manner.

I was happy Rush Limbaugh died of skin cancer. I was not happy Charlie Kirk died of murder.

[philwelch]

> He merely intimated that trans people's lives are less valuable than others and that black people and women are incapable of intellectual equality with whites and males.

False.

> A debate about whether that is an indirect encouragement to violence is a valid one.

Lying about what other people say and mischaracterizing those statements as an incitement to violence is itself an incitement to violence. Stop lying and stop inciting violence!

[bongodongobob]

He said that school deaths are worth it to uphold our 2nd amendment rights. So the irony is extremely thick here.

[philwelch]

That's the same tradeoff we make with all civil rights.

Lots of people criticized Donald Trump's proposal of a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on", and rightfully so in my opinion. Do you think the irony would be thick if some of those people were murdered by Muslim terrorists?

[snozolli]

when that opinion is that they are glad Charlie Kirk was murdered

I have yet to see anyone express that opinion. I've seen plenty of dark jokes, and even more comments calling him out for saying that the second amendment is worth a few deaths, but I haven't seen a single person say they're glad he was murdered.

I tried to look up the supposed 30k tweets that have been collected by the site used for organized harassment, but it doesn't seem to be openly published, counter to their promise.

[unethical_ban]

People were getting doxxed for far less than "celebrating murder". Saying he was a bad person made you eligible for your name, location, picture and job to be plastered on a doxxing site before it got hacked and shut down.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Excellent point. Love the Popper quote.

We can't be suicidally principled.

[jonnybgood]

By the government?

[ceejayoz]

In some cases, yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplinary_actions_for_comme...

> Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that any non-citizens who celebrated Kirk's death would be immediately deported…

> Attorney General Pam Bondi indicated on Katie Miller's podcast and in subsequent Department of Justice announcements that she intended to "target" speech against Kirk following his death as hate speech…

Plus teachers in public schools and universities.

[southernplaces7]

Since the very clear, repeatedly court-upheld, very specific wording of the 1st amendment protects free speech for anyone at all residing inside the United States (Yes, even including illegal immigrants, not to mention residents and visitors, though by voicing a politically disliked opinion they might risk becoming fast-track targets for deportation through other "formal" justifications) and also offers no legal classification for what exactly "hate speech" is, both of these lying, corrupt, inept, would-be parrots of Tinpot Trump are at least legally wrong.

It's amusing on the one hand, considering the hatred their very boss and most of the MAGA types poured on cancel culture and its notions of speech that shouldn't be allowed as hate speech, only to now reveal one more show of whining, gross hypocrisy.

On the other hand it's also deeply worrisome, to see key enforcers of federal U.S. law being so completely mendacious and cavalier about the actual legal part of their jobs in that very same territory.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Cancel culture won. Conservatives are not being hypocritical for having been against it and now for it. If your opponent is using an effective weapon and you don't also pick up that weapon, you will lose.

[0xDEAFBEAD]

Yep. Imagine I punch you. You say: "Don't punch me". I punch you again. Then you punch me back. I say: "Aren't you being hypocritical? I thought you were against punching."

The path forward at this point is for the left to admit they made a mistake, apologize, and work to negotiate a new set of ground rules.

[southernplaces7]

well so much for a principled stand against or for something by this dogshit logic. I guess the only important thing is to cheer on whatever gets the votes, never mind how badly all things deteriorate as a result?

I'm no fan of democrat progressive culture, but if the crap you describe is what passes for a bottom line in the conservative camp, then it's garbage either way.

[theossuary]

Republicans started cancel culture. It really gained steam in 2001 when they cancelled the Dixie Chicks for being anti-war (turns out they were right). So I guess you're right, the left adopted it after realizing they'd lose if they didn't use such an effective weapon against fascists.

[robmccoll]

I agree with you. I get tired of people complaining about "cancel culture" and the reactions of private individuals and groups to the opinions and actions of other private individuals and groups. People have the right to say what they want and to do what they want up to the limits of causing harm to others. They can shout their inflammatory opinions from the roof tops. They can boycott and petition to try to convince private groups from giving platform to opinions or people they don't like. All of that is protected speech.

This current executive branch is weighing in and using its influence to try to control speech. It's not "you'll get disappeared by secret police for what you told your coworker in confidence" levels of control, but that it's happening at all is alarming. I worry that they have no problem trampling on the first amendment and that it seems like no part of the government is going to restrict them from it.

[freejazz]

>"you'll get disappeared by secret police for what you told your coworker in confidence"

Not if you aren't brown. But if you are... well you can easily get caught up in an "immigration" "sting"

[robmccoll]

Fair. That does seem to be happening unfortunately.

[castis]

"Call them out, hell, call their employer" -JD Vance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngofqx9EfcM&t=7398s

https://x.com/SecRubio/status/1967784061721776521 revoking visas

[ioasuncvinvaer]

Government officials are specifically calling for it.

[pjc50]

No, but by Party supporters running campaigns against their employers. Or by the use of the administrative state to pressure the employers.

[matusp]

Censorship in oppressive countries is often not carried out directly by the government. Instead, to save face, it is enforced along invisible power lines. The government gives a silent nod to other actors in society nudging them to act accordingly. For example, an Eastern Bloc citizen might not receive a formal penalty for leaving the communist party, but their children's admission to university could suddenly become more difficult, of course without any official acknowledgment of the fact.

[imcritic]

Even if gov isn't involved directly - it could very easily press some corps for such firings.

[baggachipz]

As we've already seen.

[adamtaylor_13]

Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences. People aren't "making comments," they're celebrating the murder of a man whose opinions they disagreed with.

Many Americans are waking up to realize that a large number of people they considered friends and colleagues would revel in their death if they let their political opinions be heard.

I would 100% fire someone for celebrating murder. Sorry, call me old-fashioned, but I believe in hiring people of integrity, and I will fire you if I find out you don't have any.

[ceejayoz]

> Freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences.

Freedom of speech requires freedom from government consequences. I have freedom of speech still if you say "I don't like your speech"; I don't have it if the cops say "I'm arresting you for your speech".

> I would 100% fire someone for celebrating murder.

And you can. You can also skip their birthday party. But "I'm glad so-and-so is dead" largely can't be a reason to, say, lose your drivers' license, social security benefits, or government employment, because the First Amendment applies to government specifically.

Facebook, Google, the grocery store, etc. have never been subject to the First Amendment.

(People can, and do, get fired for espousing Charlie Kirk's beliefs, too. That's free speech/association for you.)

[adamtaylor_13]

> "I'm glad so-and-so is dead" largely can't be a reason to, say, lose your drivers' license, social security benefits, or government employment, because the First Amendment applies to government specifically.

Unless I'm mistaken, that's not happening. If it is, it's wrong and should be corrected.

[ceejayoz]

In Jimmy Kimmel's case, the FCC chair threatened ABC's broadcasting licensure to pressure them to punish his (very, very mild, incidentally) protected speech.

[adamtaylor_13]

I don't believe that the FCC threatening ABC's broadcasting license has anything to do with free speech. There were murmurs about lawsuits for defamation of character all over Twitter. I'm no lawyer, I don't claim to know if that's even possible.

But it's clear that with the emotional tension of the situation, ABC wasn't about to get itself in legal trouble over a second-rate, late-night show host.

So, while the FCC may have been threatening, we have a legal system designed to prevent such over-steps of power, should they occur. It seems pretty clear ABC wanted no part of the storm that was brewing.

[thorncorona]

As the joke goes, in soviet Russia you are also free to criticize America.

[manoDev]

[flagged]

[Manuel_D]

Shouting down other people deprives them of their freedom of speech, and is rightfully prevented. Padilla was detained because he was attempting to do that: disrupt someone else from exercising speech. He could have made the exact same speech in his own space without consequences.

If you disapprove of how Padilla was treated, that's fine, just be honest about why he was detained: not for the content of his speech, but his attempt to prevent another from speaking.

[snozolli]

Interrupting or questioning people isn't a denial of first amendment rights. You're using extremely sloppy logic, mixing "freedom from interruption" with "freedom of speech".

[Manuel_D]

Absolutely, repeatedly interrupting people with questions can get you arrested. Go to a public commentary session at your local town hall. Exceed your allotted time period and keep questioning the officials. You'll eventually be arrested and taken away. Because in doing so, you're depriving the rest of the town from their opportunity to give a public comment.

There's nothing complicated about this. Padilla isn't being treated any differently from anyone else. Freedom of speech does not entail freedom to prevent others from speaking.

[manoDev]

Alright, here's another example: try speaking up against Israel policies.

[Manuel_D]

What about it?