Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
Weev comes out as neo Nazi and white supremacist (breitbart.com)
7 points by robk on Oct 4, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 11 comments



I don't see how this should embarrass anyone who thought sending him to prison for so long was a bad move. If anything, it supports their argument. It sounds like he picked up his racist habits in prison, which is kind of notorious for that kind of thing, so this just goes to show how putting people in there does more harm than good.


He made disparaging remarks about Jews as a class well before his prison sentence.


Eg, http://gawker.com/5962159/the-internets-best-terrible-person... , or read comments this HN thread from 1570 days ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1436479 - which is also well before his prison sentence.


Thanks, that is a good point, but I still stand by what I said. Even if he was racist before, it seems like it got a lot worse in prison.


"he picked up his racist habits in prison" is different from "[his racist habits] got a lot worse in prison", so it sounds to me like you shifted your stance.

We are, after all, talking about someone who published Kathy Sierra's "address and social security number, together with publishing fictional abuse allegations concentrating on Sierra's daughters", and then "later reversed himself and denied responsibility for posting Sierra's information."

It's hard then to know which of his positions are a facade and which are true, or if prison made him somehow "worse" or if he's using that as a justification for his change when there are other reasons for it.


I didn't say that he did anything in particular, just that it sounded like he picked them up his habits in prison. I'm not clear on what he was like before, but it seems like he went to prison, came out, and started acting a lot worse than he did before. So obviously prison didn't so anything to reform him. I stand by it.


If you aren't clear on what he did before then you can't be clear on how prison changed him, or if a reform-based jail would have ended up with any other result.

As I pointed out, he acted quite bad before he went to prison. I agree that at the US prison system “is an expensive way to make bad people worse” as the old saying goes, but I don't understand your point in saying that. Are you arguing that no one should be sent to jail until reform occurs? Are you calling for wholesale reform of the prison system? Will you be voting for politicians who aren't "tough on crime"?

If so, then you should change your tactics. You started off focusing on weev, and suggesting that those who supported his imprisonment should be embarrassed for doing so. This suggests that you are defending weev, but that it's okay to imprison all those other people who aren't weev.

I'm embarrassed that the US incarceration is 7x that of Europe, conditions in the jail so poor, and chances of returning to public society so reduced. I have no special embarrassment about weev.


> You started off focusing on weev, and suggesting that those who supported his imprisonment should be embarrassed for doing so.

The submission suggested that liberal left-leaning supporters of Weev might be embarrassed of their support for Weev when they discover just how unpleasant he is.

ewzimm said "I don't see how this should embarrass anyone who thought sending him to prison for so long was a bad move. If anything, it supports their argument. It sounds like he picked up his racist habits in prison, which is kind of notorious for that kind of thing, so this just goes to show how putting people in there does more harm than good."

Which seems a reasonable point to male. People who support freedom of speech do so for everyone, even the dispicable humans in Westboro Baptist Church.

Are you saying that Weev's computer misuse didn't deserve a prison sentence but because he's a despicable human fuck him, lock him up?


You're right, I misread ewzimm's comment, and took it to mean something different than it was. I was wrong. Thanks for the correction!


Sorry if I was unclear, and thanks Dan for clearing it up.


This sounds like it is from the Onion except it isn't funny.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: