Admittedly, "I found it weird" doesn't communicate that, as I'm now reading my own comment.
But nuance is famously hard on the internet, and many tend to extrapolate what they think you mean. Generally, more users of HN would do HN an service overall by trying to follow the "Have curious conversation" guideline more, but again, hard when you want to prove someone wrong.
That request is 0.01x as offensive as much common HN chatter, and 0.0000001x as offensive as what is being done to the imprisoned person requesting it, so I really see no value in your calling negative attention to it, and I invite you to broaden your worldview.
Isn't that super common in 2020, and has always been very common? We've always judged ideologies and religions, think National Socialism, Stalinism or Scientology. Does the person belonging to that group being in solitary confinement change that?
I didn't call to action against this request. I didn't send them a request to take it down, no authorities involved, nothing serious really.
I just found it offensive, and thought it would be interesting for others to see, my expectation was to see interesting takes on the subject.
Not everyone you see on the internet who says they are offended is part of the so-called "cancel culture". I'm surely not. I'd suggest everyone to relax.
I think it depends on your location really. In some places, and in the right environment, you can be a proclaimed communist and have a normal conversation with someone who is a proclaimed nazi. It's usually tough and with some heated arguments, but it is indeed possible.
From the outside though, I think the people in the US have lost that ability, which you are now seeing the effect of.
It may be shocking to people but I judge people according to what they do and say. They judge me too. We don't try to "cancel" each other. I'm an immigrant living in Germany, coming from a Muslim family, and I've been to the stands of AfD, and I judged them, yes, because what they are trying to accomplish is offending to me. I didn't call the police, no. Not because they'd laugh me off anyways, I'd not try silencing them even if I had power to do so.
Sure, but both the Communist and the Nazi will judge each other's ideology, and very openly tell them apart from "the rest" of possible ideologies. A catholic from one catholic sect will usually have fewer issues with somebody from another catholic sect or even a protestant, than a pagan.
I don't think there is a place or point in time where everybody is essentially saying "that's your opinion, okay, whatever" with regards to ideologies and religions that aren't their own. Whether that discrimination will lead to oppression and violence is another issue, but surely everyone has an opinion on whether something is (factually and/or morally) wrong or right, and when they feel safe enough, they will say so.
I agree with your perception that it seems to have become harder to tolerate people of different convictions, though I don't think the US is unique in that way, it's just more in the open there, and their much more pronounced idea of freedom of speech and fewer labor laws make it easier to "cancel" someone, which in turn makes increases the frequency of it being tried.
It feels like a wealth thing. The poor in any society have larger problems than policing each others thoughts, and the better-off use it to play social power games.