Re:Shame on Y Combinator
by matt4077 on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @11:52AM
(#12735639)
That's a lot of hand-waving high-minded rhetoric. The problem is that Trump does not represent those 40% in any significant way.
- "free speech" is a protection against the government, not against Marcos/YC/whoever no longer working with you, which is also a form of speech.
- Trump is not and has never been part of the white, male underclass that makes up his support. He connects with them on exactly one level: hate. Hate against the "other", from foreigners, non-whites, or women, to people with a college degree and actually to poor people ("losers"). He has spent a week in a vendetta against some woman who apparently gained weight or something, less than two months before an election to the most powerful office in the world. I'm a big fan of nuance and complexity and I usually mistrust people with strong convictions. Here, this one time, it happens to be warranted.
More importantly, people don't fear his "policies", whatever they may be. There have been enough Republicans with trickle-down fantasies that we know it won't work, and probably kill a few poor people at the margins, but the republic will live on. The unique quality, setting him apart from GWB or Romney, is the damage he's planning to do to the sausage factory itself: he has explicitly advocated the jailing of his political opponents, laws making it illegal to criticize him, bills of attainer etc.
That's playing with fire, and it's past the point where people can agree to disagree and tolerate it. Even Republicans, some of them retiring and therefore free to follow their conscience and nothing else, are scared of him.
So no, there's no right to be spared the consequences of you words. That's actually quite a strange idea, considering speech without consequences seems useless. There is however a burden to push back against proto-fascists burning the constitution and wrapping themselves in the flag.
Re:Shame on Y Combinator
by applecore on Tuesday October 18, 2016 @12:19PM
(#12735956)
You're conflating the First Amendment with free speech. The First Amendment is a protection against the government. Free speech is a natural right that could be exercised in the absence of government.
- "free speech" is a protection against the government, not against Marcos/YC/whoever no longer working with you, which is also a form of speech.
- Trump is not and has never been part of the white, male underclass that makes up his support. He connects with them on exactly one level: hate. Hate against the "other", from foreigners, non-whites, or women, to people with a college degree and actually to poor people ("losers"). He has spent a week in a vendetta against some woman who apparently gained weight or something, less than two months before an election to the most powerful office in the world. I'm a big fan of nuance and complexity and I usually mistrust people with strong convictions. Here, this one time, it happens to be warranted.
More importantly, people don't fear his "policies", whatever they may be. There have been enough Republicans with trickle-down fantasies that we know it won't work, and probably kill a few poor people at the margins, but the republic will live on. The unique quality, setting him apart from GWB or Romney, is the damage he's planning to do to the sausage factory itself: he has explicitly advocated the jailing of his political opponents, laws making it illegal to criticize him, bills of attainer etc.
That's playing with fire, and it's past the point where people can agree to disagree and tolerate it. Even Republicans, some of them retiring and therefore free to follow their conscience and nothing else, are scared of him.
So no, there's no right to be spared the consequences of you words. That's actually quite a strange idea, considering speech without consequences seems useless. There is however a burden to push back against proto-fascists burning the constitution and wrapping themselves in the flag.