I'd argue that while the US has many problems when it comes to its treatment of the left, things have moved in the opposite direction of what you indicate. E.g. the far rights attack on Obama coupled with generations now growing up who never experienced the cold war combined to make words like "socialism" far less scary.
American citizens are perfectly free to hold those beliefs. They are also free to determine what kind of people they want to allow in their country, just like every other country on Earth can. That they choose not to allow people who openly advocate destroying all existing social institutions (which is the end goal of communism as stated by Marx in The Communist Manifesto) to enter the country does not mean that the country is not free.
> And I will argue that communism is fundamentally a good ideology. While fascism has never leaned on the good side of human nature.
There are 100 million people who died in the 20th century who would disagree with you.
But, even if we ignore that, the US does not allow Nazis to enter the country either, for very similar reasons. As a matter of fact, if you apply for permanent residency today, you still have to sign a statement that says you're not a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party or adhere to any of its beliefs, even though that party is defunct and most of its members are dead.
Also, the grandparent comment did not discuss immigration policy, so by your standard the parent is an irrelevant rebuttal.
This is a dangerous thing to say publicly! As you mention yourself, the United States has had red scares just a generation ago. Who is to say it won't happen again? And that is exactly why you should support freedom of speech and tolerance of differing ideologies. Or the next red scare will be even worse.
>statues of Lenin and Stalin were removed without much second thought, only USians would keep statues of their (war criminals)|(rebels) for 150 years.
As far as I know most of the USSR world war 2 monuments are still standinding. The US is removing even monuments to soldiers that don't feature any specific general or leader. By your logic we should tear down the famous Vietnam war memorial because the US lost the war.
It doesn't cost me much, apart from internet points. And really the ideas of sharing, equal laws, global humanism and opposition to the centralization/concentration of capital genuinely seem good to me. And I'm not from the US, having those opinions seems quite mild to me.
But yeah, I've made several political comments on HN these past few years, and the amount of votes (in both directions) seem to vary wildly according to what countries are awake, generally more downvotes when the US are awake.
In that case I'll just hope I've inherited something from my grandmother (who was a resistant during WW2). ^^
... as opposed to the glory days of... when? A few decades ago, when blacks could say whatever they wanted, as long as they said it at the back of the bus?
... or was it when women's opinions weren't taken seriously at all, not when men were speaking?
... or was it more recently, with Bush's 'Free Speech Zones'?
When was peak free speech in the US?
Sure a century ago minorities had less freedom. That's a great argument to increase the freedom of minorities, not decrease freedom for everyone. Is that really your argument? That black people had less free speech in the past, so we should get rid of free speech now?
I've seen this and I believe the data behind it, but I also think that while the US politics are very polarized right now, the actual spectrum of politics represented at the national level seems very narrow, and very right leaning (Reps and Dems).
No, that would be you putting words in my mouth. I'm asking when was this supposed time in history when freedom of speech was much higher in the US than it is today; what peak is the respect 'declining' from?
Nonsense, the statues are not being removed because they are from the losing side, they are being removed because they commemorate terrorists and traitors, and were in many causes erected by racists later on.
http://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/politics/a12015570/... https://www.google.com/amp/jezebel.com/confederate-monuments...
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/the-real-story...
Russia saw tens of millions murdered because the anarchists and communists (of that day) got exactly what they wanted in the overthrow of the old regime. It's weird how communism and fascism seem to appear out of the ether together and fight with each other.
How many states were destabilized by that combo in the last 100 years? Russia, Germany, Spain, at least, South American countries, etc. Fascists and communists are like pb & j.
There must have been a lot of normal people who just wanted to live normal lives but saw them destroyed by extremists who knew the right way to live.
Trying to paint them all with one brush is ignorant.
The anarchists in Russia were murdering thousands of people a year from 1904 forward. They killed one of the few liberalish emperors in 1881. Russia could have been a very different place in 1915 without their action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narodnaya_Volya
Here's a long list of the infamous actions of the anarchists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed#Notable...
The sailors on Kronstadt who supported Lenin during the July Days and were one of his strongest bases of support ended up getting put down and executed when they rebelled after the revolution.
Guess it suggests that making friends with violent people is a bad idea, regardless of convenience or agreement.
The Russian left was deeply divided to start with, and split further as the Bolsheviks intentions became clearer, leading to a number of uprisings against them from the left as well [1].
Frankly, it is deeply offensive to the memories of the many thousands of them who ended up laying down their lives to try to stop the Bolsheviks that you're lumping them all together and trying to assign them blame for things they fought to the bitter end.
Some of them had at some point made the fault of trusting Lenin, at a time when the Bolsheviks had not yet demonstrated much willingness to oppress, but most had not.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_uprisings_against_th... (with the caveat that the page contains a number of statements about specifics that to me seem overly biased in favour of the Bolsheviks, but the specifics of which groups opposed them looks reasonably correct)
And I will argue that communism is fundamentally a good ideology. While fascism has never leaned on the good side of human nature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideological_restrictions_on_na...
PS: statues of Lenin and Stalin were removed without much second thought, only USians would keep statues of their (war criminals)|(rebels) for 150 years. And political bronzes are not art, they are at best political camping and grandiloquence.