Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by tptacek 3994 days ago
First, that's not why we have a First Amendment. The Constitution's goal is to create an ordering of government that durably allows the people to govern themselves. Speech must be shielded from restrictive laws, to the extent practicable, in order to ensure that people will have a voice in their governance.

You can see this in the fact that the Constitution guarantees speech, and a right to bear arms, and a right to assemble --- but not a right to privacy, or to bodily integrity, or even to true equality under the law between genders. Those latter rights are also rights, acknowledged implicitly by the Constitution (as Locke --- who also didn't support unfettered free speech --- would say, the government protects rights, but doesn't grant them). Why are these specific rights in the Bill of Rights? Because they're the ones deemed most important to ensuring self-governance.

Second, 'raganwald isn't saying Reddit should be forbidden to host hate groups. He's saying he refuses to patronize businesses that are incentivized to host hate groups and do so without restriction. The antidote to bad speech is more speech, and that's what 'raganwald is doing, both out loud and with his pocketbook.