This is not true. People who claimed the election was rigged were asked to back up their claims with evidence. Typically they never did, although a smaller number made an effort...but the profferred evidence was nonsensical. I am not just talking about talking heads widely quoted on TV or social media posts, I read a lot of election litigation.

I think the anti-mask people had some valid points, but they sank their own boat by ranting about 'masktards' and 'face diapers' while also demonstrating callous indifference to the large number of deaths.

Dave Lobue and Justin Mealey should be forever shamed for the farce they put up during the hearings in Georgia.

https://www.charliekirk.com/news/georgia-data-scientist-prov...

If you check their work based on the publicly available data, you find that based on their logic there was a clear case for Trump cheating. Right wing media reporting the story, of course, did not.

So people in government claiming it was rigged should probably lose their jobs, as they were advancing harmful narratives related to their jobs. Journalists were (rightly) ridiculed, but there is a significant difference. I might not use a mechanic who is antivax; I would advocate a doctor be fired.

Can you give some examples of things related to those topics you think are equivalent to what is happening right now? Are you referring to facebook and twitter censorship of those topics?

> To be fair...the other side was just as ferocious when someone postulated that the election was rigged, or that COVID couldn't be stopped by masks. You're essentially asking for conservatives to be the bigger person and stop the blood feud.

Did anyone have their, and their coworkers', security clearance revoked just for saying either of those? (There are other activities that could have been taken by people saying the election was rigged that could have led to a loss of security clearance, but I don't think that just the statement did it.)

Yes, lots of people got fired for claiming those in the Covid days. The selective memory of the majority opinion here on HN is deeply distressing, but understandable due to blind tribal support for the democratic party.

Large swathes of people were first identified for being antivax when they self-registered under the religious exemption scheme and then were harassed and fired. It was cunningly done with the media paying no attention.

There's a difference between truth and lies - an actual, material, essential difference. It's not politics, it's truth.

People can take any relativistic position they want, but that difference is essential to anything and everything: The truth about database i/o performance is essential to your project; the truth about climate change is essential to preventing catastrophe; the truth about Covid was essential to saving millions of lives - and many died and much blood is on the hands of the liars.

But the liars were not, and shouldn't have been, arrested, deported, extorted, threatened, etc.

>To be fair...the other side was just as ferocious when someone postulated that the election was rigged,

No they weren't

Not in the amount of court cases, elected politicans stating the view, and January 6th

When a few Democrats starting objecting to the 2016 results. Joe Biden, in congress during the certification, slammed the gavel down and said "it's over"

https://www.npr.org/2017/01/06/508562183/biden-to-democrats-...

To even compare the two situations it's insane.