Item — HN Reader

Telling the US government it's broken is a favor to the US government. Freedom of speech is a gift to both the people of this country and the institution itself, helping it be pure and accountable. It's the force that prevents us from becoming like China.

Those who seek to stop that regulating force are undermining what makes America great. Where those voices of dissent were born isn't pertinent.

1 comments

This is naive, it's clear that someone without a stake in a country could just be an agent provocateur.

This is akin to the fallacy of saying that the accountability of "real name" policies on web forums make higher quality comments, and then you actually look at the contents of Faceboot. I mean, actual US citizens just voted this tiny-minded failure of a "president" in for the second time, because apparently he hadn't damaged the country enough the first time. Having a stake didn't help there, right? Either people are unaware they are harming themselves (stupidity/anti-intellectualism), don't care because others are getting harmed "more" (spite), or are in social media bubbles pushed by hostile actors (agent provocateurs don't actually need physical presence).

I feel like this is a ridiculous bad-faith argument. You know damned well that banning people from the country for having a JD vance meme on their phone is not stopping international agents. Arguing by presently demonstrably false hypotheticals as though they were reality makes me think it's a waste of everybody's breath talking to you.

It would be a stupid position. I was failing to explain that not all rights like the freedom of speech necessarily make sense to apply to foreigners who are given the privilege to enter the country. I am not necessarily firm in this position the other poster made an argument that they can speak because what does it matter which is a good point.