You're confused about the point your parent was making. Let me try to explain the context to you:
Top of thread: we think this way in Denmark (a country in Europe)
Reply: we think this way in America
Reply: "This is such blatant and obvious nonsense. ... That is a supremely American way of looking at the world."
Your parent: actually this way of thinking comes from Europe
Your parent is not saying this way of thinking is correct, only that your grandparent is silly to call this way of thinking "supremely American" and imply that it's inferior to European thinking.
Nope, that’s not how it works. People consistently keep retrying ideas for government and economics over and over because they get tempted by promises while ignoring history because “this time it’s different”.
It's a circular argument in the sense that because liberty and freedom are defined for the mainstream framework, any outside framework, in order to be accepted by adherents of the mainstream framework, must provide a vision compatible with the existing framework.
We're stuck in a hole in terms of what can be done outside academia in the real world.
In terms of a graphical model, voting is dependent on not only opinion but also motivation. Somebody that thinks you’re wrong is more motivated to downvote than someone who thinks you’re right - one has an ax to grind, one does not.
Though, you're right - I think a lack of reason given for disagreement itself can reveal something interesting - not only that they may not have a reason, but that they can't articulate the reason well enough. In real life we often don't voice disagreement for either of those reasons. In my view, HN is no different.
You are not supposed to downvote when disagreeing. You are also not supposed to complain here about mod votes. You should read HN netiquette and email them instead.
Btw, down voting based on disagreement happens on Reddit just as well. Reddit is a bunch of smaller, semi autonomous communities where quality differs. You could even say quality differs per HN thread.
Both pg and dang have expressed that on HN you really can downvote if you simply disagree.
>You are also not supposed to complain here about mod votes.
Although I was more annoyed at the time, I wasn't trying to complain, I really just wanted to know what problems people had with my post.
>down voting based on disagreement happens on Reddit just as well.
It happens, but at least it's against the etiquette of the site as set by the admins - various subs may have their policies, true.
Where?
I admit I didn't find either way at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I did find this:
> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
> Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.
The former obviously applied.
As for the latter, while you didn't comment about HN turning into Reddit, I'd say comparisons in general fit this rule.
> It happens, but at least it's against the etiquette of the site as set by the admins - various subs may have their policies, true.
AFAICT it happens rampantly, and far more than it does here. That is my very subjective experience, I'm sure everyone has their own, which is why such a discussion leads to no good. It isn't objective/unbiased, nor intellectual.
The fact that Mill wrote those words 200 years ago does not mean they are incorrect. We stick to the rules of Roman law in many aspects, although it was written pretty long time ago. Pythagoras formulated his theorem quite long ago too, yet we still learn it at school.
There are certain ideas that seems to be universal, that just make people lives better. People tend to challenge them and thanks to that we get goodies like Communism and Nazism.
It also does not mean they are correct or meaningful, at least not in every case they are applied or quoted...
> To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.
Not that their being smart, their ethnicity, nor their being alive or dead has any relevance to the content of their speech.
Aside from the obvious rebuttal already given by pointing out it's not American to think the press should be free, further "payload" was in the link provided. I'd encourage you to read, what is in my opinion and of many others, the greatest work on freedom of speech.
It's based in European, and more specifically, British Enlightenment thinking, the apotheosis of which (with regard to freedom of speech) is On Liberty[0] by John Stuart Mill, an Englishman. To quote:
> THE TIME, it is to be hoped, is gone by, when any defence would be necessary of the "liberty of the press" as one of the securities against corrupt or tyrannical government. No argument, we may suppose, can now be needed, against permitting a legislature or an executive, not identified in interest with the people, to prescribe opinions to them, and determine what doctrines or what arguments they shall be allowed to hear. This aspect of the question, besides, has been so often and so triumphantly enforced by preceding writers, that it needs not be specially insisted on in this place.
It appears his hopes would bring disappointment were he still around.
[0] Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion https://www.bartleby.com/130/2.html
----
Edit: Fixing markup. If anyone knows of a document describing the markup rules, please let me know, it would save me an awful lot of edits ;-)