I think there is also a danger in saying "that man has a thick brogue, and therefore I suspect that they will engage in genocide like Angus McMillan." It's better to look at the patterns of behavior that lead to people (and groups) engaging in terrible behavior. Despite the panic I see on HN, I see are relatively few examples of people springing from "liberal speech policing [like e.g., what we see today on Reddit and Twitter]" to authoritarian rule, without lots of important intervening steps. Yet there are lots of real authoritarian governments in the world today whose path can be studied, in case you want to look for more real-world evidence of how the process typically happens.
I mean, you don't seem to suggest the cultural revolution wasn't real, or the persecution of Uighers today isn't very real and both of those movements were/are very focused on careful control of speech, which was also true under the USSR and even Russia today (despite significant differences in party line and government).
The line between speech control and authoritarian rule is not very large. Hungary which is currently diaplaying some authoritarian streaks is also engaging in speech and press control.
It sounds like you are confusing authoritarian with a partisan concept. Both leftists and rightists can engage in authoritarianism and often go through speech control on the way there.
>the persecution of Uighers today isn't very real and both of those movements
The Uyghur situation is an example of a classic pattern: single-race ethnic supremacy doctrine leading to ethnic cleansing. If I were concerned about this re-occurring in my own society, I would look for which political parties in those countries were advocating for similar policies, and make sure I did everything to thwart their ambitions. I don't think "people demanding you use their preferred pronouns on Twitter" would top my list of threats, but I suppose opinions differ.
Again: what I see here is people confusing the trappings of existing authoritarianism (authoritarian governments do indeed control speech) with the actual root causes, which are usually much more fundamental and rarely look anything like "activists being too mouthy on Twitter."
> Yet there are lots of real authoritarian governments in the world today whose path can be studied, in case you want to look for more real-world evidence of how the process typically happens.
Hitler started with redefining every day language and influencing/gaining control over youth groups as soon as he had power.
