Not at all: functionally, there's a meta-gaming thing that goes on where 'free speech' is treated as sort of antifa Kryptonite. It's not being argued in good faith at all. It's a tactic.
You'll find that the same people making a big noise about 'free speech' will do everything they possibly can to suppress and conceal the speech of those who are calling 'em out for arguing in bad faith… because they are arguing in bad faith, because they have absolutely no intention of furthering free speech. It is purely a tactic.
If you're conspiratorial about everybody who supports free speech not really supporting free speech, and instead just saying it in bad faith(?), you're going to have a tough time with meaningful debate and enjoying HN. One of the core tenets is a belief in the principle of charity — assume the strongest interpretation of the commenter's argument, not the weakest.
Oh, this doesn't happen at all times on all subjects. There are a few more or less Nazi-adjacent topics where it's gonna happen. Could be worse, on Reddit it happens in a coordinated fashion, here it's a bit more organic.
You are invoking exploitable core tenets. If one is arguing in bad faith the FIRST thing you'll do is invoke free speech, invoke the principle of charity, call for the strongest possible interpretation and insist that good faith MUST be assumed.
For instance: I neither said nor meant that 'everybody' who supports free speech was doing this. That's half the trouble: it's protective coloration among people who are acting in earnest. I'm stating unequivocally that SOME folks in this camp are acting in bad faith: not just hypocrisy, but pursuing calculated behaviors akin to people coaching their peers to 'not reveal their power level' so as to better influence the communities they're operating on.
I don't know how many of 'em there are, but I find it a catastrophic failure of a community's intentions to assume charity. It's nothing more than an exploit, and there are some topics, political topics, that bring this out.
While there is a component of free speech advocates who are doing so because of partisan interests, there is another component who are sincere. (The way to tell is to ask whether they would accept censorship of their ideological foes.)
> where 'free speech' is treated as sort of antifa Kryptonite
I'm a bit confused by this. Whether or not free speech is repelent/harmful to antifa isn't an argument against free speech. If free speech harms a movement, then so be it. If it allows a movement to prosper, then so be it.
On the object level, I've seen a lot of allegations that antifa attack people who film them (and one of their movement sucker punched a journalist on air.) This gave me the impression that antifa is at least as interested in controlling speech as their opposition.
So, Richard Spencer, deeply committed white nationalist passionately advocating for fascist reformulation of the nation's policies, and the man who personally coined the term 'alt-right' and led the marching at Charlottesville, crying out 'you will not replace us' and 'blood and soil'? This guy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Spencer
