A few HN commenting guidelines might apply here:

> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

> Eschew flamebait.

Arguably the OP borders on flamebait if that's the standard.

> Avoid generic tangents.

OP encapsulates an example of my comment, and is not a generic tangent.

> Omit internet tropes.

meme != trope

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

Like the first point, all or nothing.

> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Point taken.

HN isn’t really for memes and quippy references. That’s the main reason you got downvoted, regardless of whether your substantive political point is a good one or not. The original comment matches the vibe of Reddit or Twitter a lot better than HN.

In that case, we'd better stop saying "Stallman was right"

Yes, we should, that would be great.

I bet the temporarily embarrassed millionaires/billionaires subset of HN would agree.