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• emptysongglass 1y ago
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  • foldr 1y ago
    How many of the conservatives complaining about it would support government regulations preventing people from being fired for expressing controversial viewpoints? AFAIK those complaining are the same people who support ‘at will’ employment and the liberty of religious organizations to impose more or less arbitrarily discriminatory hiring standards. So yeah, in that lax regulatory environment, your employer might decide to fire you if you (e.g.) feel the need to be an asshole to your trans colleagues.
    • sjsdaiuasgdia 1y ago
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  • deleted 1y ago
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  • hellotheretoday 1y ago
    Well for brevity I did trivialize it but I will expand: The left side got people fired. This is objectively not as bad as getting people disappeared. You can get a new fucking job. You can’t get freedom from detention and you cannot easily return to the country (if at all) Additionally there is the motivational factor behind both sides: The lefts argument in policing language was to reduce harm to marginalized groups. You may not agree with it, but that is the rational. The rights argument is to erase those marginalized groups. These are extremely different in motivation. Asking you to respect a persons gender identity in professional contexts is far different than forcing someone to not be able to express it on federal documentation. One side of this was “we want to create inclusive spaces that make people comfortable and if you don’t want to participate in that there is the door”. The other side is “we did not want to participate in that so go fuck yourself and we will do whatever we can to deny your right to express your identity” “Any attempt to control speech” is an absolutist statement that is absurd in its fallacy. So I can say I can murder you? I can say you’re planning a terrorist attack? I can say you want to kill the president? Of course not. Speech is limited contextually and by law
    • vimax 1y ago
      You're still trivializing. The cancel culture would often follow the people it wanted to cancel to make it hard for them to get another job again. Also, I'll add that the "there is the door" comment is entirely wrong. There are countless stories of open source maintainers being harassed to make language changes to their code base, master/slave, whitelist/blacklist. The harassers never offered to do the work themselves just demanded it be done for them or they'll keep harassing. These were people matching into someone else's "safe space" to police their private language. The government disappearing people and dismantling the country is very bad, and nothing good can be said about it. What I'm talking about are the individuals on both sides not formally in power, and their equal efforts to stifle what they see as "bad speech". It's that mentality, on both sides, that led us to where we are.
      • paulryanrogers 1y ago
        Harassment is bad. Extraordinary rendition is bad. One of them is significantly worse than the other. And the side complaining about A whilst celebrating B is significantly more hypocritical.
        • vimax 1y ago
          What about the side that complains about A and complains about B, and complains that constant polarizing rhetoric has been ratcheting up to get us from the less bad A to the very bad B?
          • paulryanrogers 1y ago
            Ah yes, it is the left's fault the right is spiraling the country into despotism. Feeling a lot of "Why do you make them hit you?" energy in this thread.
            • bluGill 1y ago
              It is everyone who kept on the path instead of saying 'I don't care what you say I'll defend your right to say it'. If you can't allow someone else to say things you don't like you are at fault - it doesn't matter how good hou think you are.
  • slg 1y ago
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    • mancerayder 1y ago
      Not part of the rest of the conversation, just narrowing in on the idea of speech being free if there are consequences. That sounds like some sort of 1950's-era doublespeak. If there are consequences, how would speech be free? It's a very American-centric perspective that "Free Speech" is defined as "1st Amendment". Free speech means not getting fired, jumped, killed, poisoned, expelled, etc. Fired is something that would happen in Soviet Times as well, in the USSR, and in the McCarthy era, in the U.S. Apologies for the "two sidesism".
      • foldr 1y ago
        Free speech doesn’t mean not getting fired. You can get fired in any county for things that you say (e.g. insulting your coworkers, lying to your boss, defaming your employer on social media, …). The exact laws and social conventions obviously vary from country to country, but this shouldn’t be a difficult concept in general.
        • theultdev 1y ago
          Someone doxxing you and pressuring your employee to fire you because you said something they don't agree with politically is the same as you insulting your coworkers in your eyes? You don't see any discrepancy between those two scenarios? And you don't see anything wrong with the former scenario?
          • ziddoap 1y ago
            They didn't say it was the same. You're arguing with what you imagined they said.
            • theultdev 1y ago
              They presented a strawman. I'm unravelling it. I want to know where their values are and if they contradict. I'm re-presenting the original scenario being discussed and the scenario they introduced. Comparing the two while also redirecting back to the original moral dilemma.
  • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    Eh, I’ve railed quite a bit against the left. But looking back, we should have fired and deplatformed more aggressively. The social menaces who weren’t fired or arrested went on to become a plague.
    • noworriesnate 1y ago
      The thing is, right wingers are very likely to protest over losing jobs. In Covid times, what made the right finally start actually marching in the streets was losing their jobs. They don’t protest over most things, but threaten their livelihood and yeah they’ll come for you.
      • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > right wingers are very likely to protest over losing jobs Everybody protests over losing jobs. Currently, the MAGA crowd is busily putting itself out of work, so this really only comes down to taking action in the cities.
    • iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
      Good grief man, deplatforming, chilling speech and all that is how we got into this mess to begin with. Have you learned nothing from the past 10 years? edit: Holy mackarel, I am this close to accepting the argument that the people on 'the left' need to be treated that exact way you described just so that they can understand why 'the right' feel aggrevied. I simply cannot accept Soviet Union style 'do not employ this man' brand. I feel dirty just thinking about it as an option.
      • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > am this close to accepting the argument that the people on 'the left' need to be treated that exact way you described Yup, I’ve lost patience with the far left as well. This is in practice happening with e.g. nutters who openly supported Hamas, though as these things always go, the only people actually willing to do this to people go too far both in their metric and treatment. (The left, to its credit, was never deporting people for their views.) > Have you learned nothing from the past 10 years? Yes. I spent too much time treating everyone’s views as valid. The paradox of tolerance is real, and if someone insists on being an idiot I’m basically at the point of taking them at their word. > cannot accept Soviet Union style 'do not employ this man' brand It’s not. It’s do not put this person in a position of responsibility or visibility. They can make a livelihood. It just shouldn’t be one from which they do harm.
  • nothrabannosir 1y ago
    When I see the left's recent brazen devotion to "winning" and "sticking it to the other side", sometimes it feels like Democrats have started acting like Republicans. And it turns out that wasn't sustainable. I know it's glib and coarse and lacking in nuance but when I hear American conservatives complain about the ways of the liberal countrymen I can't help but think, "That's how you guys sounded for a long time. Now they're doing it, lo and behold: everyone loses."
  • cultofmetatron 1y ago
    > "Maybe gets you fired from your job" is someone's entire livelihood you're trivializing. yes, the left doing that was pretty bad and I have gotten into many arguments over my left leaning friends over it. But it was largely private companies capitulating to pressure. To compare that to people being abducted and incarcerated by the government without trial or even an actual law being broken is worse. You do understand why thats worse right?
  • anigbrowl 1y ago
    The problem with such reflexive absolutism, as I've pointed out many times, is that you end up advocating for the speech rights of people who are advocating for genocide. I shouldn't need to point out that killing people also terminates their speech rights and that advocacy of genocide is thus an attack on free speech. You do not have to defend the free speech rights of people who are themselves attacking free speech (and free life). In fact, it is foolish to do so.
    • rendall 1y ago
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      • anigbrowl 1y ago
        I bet you're thinking you're really clever with that context switch. I was actually talking about nazis, because posts above were complaining about left-wing cancel culture getting people fired from their jobs which is the sort of consequence that happened to quite a few extremely online nazis over the last decade. Who taught you to argue like this? They didn't do you any favors.
        • rendall 1y ago
          Advocating for free speech does indeed mean defending the rights of people to say reprehensible things, including those who advocate for deeply offensive or dangerous ideas. But it's important to be clear-eyed about the historical record. The Nazis did not rise because of an excess of free speech. During the Weimar Republic, there were hate speech laws and Nazi publications were censored or banned multiple times. Hitler himself was banned from public speaking in several German states in the 1920s. Despite that, the Nazi movement grew, driven not by open dialogue but by a mix of economic despair, nationalism, violent intimidation, and institutional weakness. Far from championing free speech, the Nazis used paramilitary violence to silence opponents even before seizing power. Once in control, they moved quickly to eliminate all free expression, banning parties, censoring the press, imprisoning dissenters. So if anything, the historical lesson is that censorship and suppression didn’t stop fascism, and that once authoritarians gain power, their first move is often to destroy free speech entirely. Free speech is a super power. Strong free speech rights require defending the rights of terrible people to say terrible things. That doesn’t mean what they’re saying is good. It just means that it's easy to defend the rights of meaningless or popular speech, but your own right to truly speak your mind is only as strong as the rights of those you disagree with most. Someday, something you believe passionately might be seen as reprehensible by the majority.
  • sterlind 1y ago
    > Maybe gets you fired from your job" is someone's entire livelihood you're trivializing. People are being shipped to a Salvadorean mega-prison for having autism awareness tattoos. Law-abiding students who write peaceful op-eds are being disappeared to a facility in Louisiana. Yes it sucks to lose your job, but it sucks a lot more to be indefinitely detained without even seeing a judge. > "Your side" isn't any better than the other's. Your argument reminds me of high schoolers that argue the US was just as bad as the Nazis for operating Japanese internment camps. Yes, both were wrong, but one was much, much worse.
  • singleshot_ 1y ago
    If you get fired for saying something stupid, you might want to consider the notion that you deserve not to have a job. They’re called consequences, and if you don’t like them, remaining silent is free. Put otherwise, it’s very possible that your livelihood is trivial.
    • strken 1y ago
      This is just asinine. Consider the same argument flipped around: "If you get deported for saying something stupid, you may want to consider the notion that you do not deserve to live in the US. They’re called consequences, and if you don’t like them, remaining silent is free." Both arguments are ridiculous because they present no evidence as to whether someone deserves a job or a visa stay.
      • deleted 1y ago
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      • singleshot_ 1y ago
        Consequences as “asinine”? Let’s agree to disagree.
        • strken 1y ago
          No, I'm not going to disagree with your empty statement; there's nothing there to even take a stance on. The problem with your original position is that there are real differences between A) getting deported for saying there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza, B) materially supporting Hamas, C) getting fired because you have a secret twitter account where you're overtly racist, and D) refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding then getting sued and becoming a media spectacle. Your argument can be used to support consequences for every single one of these scenarios because it's just "maybe when a bad thing happens it was deserved". Sure, yeah, sometimes people deserve things and sometimes they don't, but pointing this out is a useless addition to a conversation.
          • deleted 1y ago
• jajko 1y ago
  Extremism on any side is bad, period. 'But they are worse' is sort of moot point and most people don't care about details, you simply lose normal audience and maybe gain some fringe.
  • immibis 1y ago
    Telling your employer you were a dick is extremism?
    • hellotheretoday 1y ago
      You can’t win with these people. They don’t care if they aren’t personally impacted. The “sjw boogeyman” that could theoretically impact their cushy livelihood matters more than the very real right wing government that exists right now and is disappearing people. But as long as they can still say the n word on twitter and call of duty everything will be okay. Who cares about those disappeared people anyway, they weren’t even citizens
      • hsiuywbs630h 1y ago
        Listen, this is not theoretical. In my realm, we had people getting in trouble for otherwise benign speech, because someone's feeling matter more than basic.common sense. The pendulum has swung pretty hard not because sjw bogeyman, but because it has gotten to the point people skilled in ignoring corporate idiocy had enough AND the chronic complainers were demanding increasing superpowers.
        • adamc 1y ago
          "Getting in trouble" at work and being disappeared are so freaking different that there is no discussing it. If you cannot see a difference, you are blind.
          • iugtmkbdfil834 1y ago
            Hmm. Allow me to offer a counter perspective. You are arguing for a complete dismissal of someone's point of view, because you perceive the presented argument to be not an appropriate comparison. However, your response is that the conversation should be shut down and not address the points given. I do not think anyone in this thread is arguing it is not happening. Some of us are actually saying that there is a quite a slippery that we were taken down on. If it helps, it did not start in 2018 ( although some tactics did escalate in that period ). And, I might add, in US, your work is not just your work. It is your healthcare, your network, your family's wellbeing. If you do not see why some of us consider it an issue, you, if you allow this blatant repetition of your phrase for a specific effect, are blind.
• rob_c 1y ago
  Thanks for proving his point...
• ls612 1y ago
  This strikes me as someone on the left complaining that they fucked around and now they are finding out. I don’t mean this in a malicious way but the lack of self reflection and perspective is staggering.
• Bluescreenbuddy 1y ago
  They got themselves fired. People who wrote things didn't get themselves disappeared to a holding site in Louisiana.
  • hsiuywbs630h 1y ago
    By the same logic the students got themselves vanished by not strictly following the rules of the visa ( one example, student had a dui ). It is not better, but the moment you erode basic speech protections it spills over to a lot of other areas.
• kylepdm 1y ago
  Very refreshing to finally see people on HN call out the ridiculousness of the "both sides" arguments when it comes to this topic.