Who is deciding what is edgy but still funny, vs what’s over the line?
What is valid criticism of people who happen to be part of a minority group, vs what is hateful and racist?
The only reason you are ok with this, is because all of your beliefs fall within the boundaries of acceptability set by the censors. And you want to be protected from the speech of people who might think or believe differently.
There is a world of difference between these two things. To my knowledge death threats are illegal in every American state. Insulting people is generally legal, just like it should be.
1) the US government attacks people for their opinions, and so does the UK government. Same with civil asset forfeiture. And it doesn't stop there. Treatment of immigrants/asylum seekers, military actions outside of the country, protection of corrupt officials, ...
2) People who defend the US government actions, whether related to freedom of speech or forfeiture, are described as unfairly naive or pro-state by Europeans.
3) People who criticize the UK government actions, essentially the same, except much lesser known, are unfairly criticizing their "trustworthy state". Forfeiture without recourse, check. Speech attacks. And let's just not investigate what the UK government has done to immigrants, because ...
To just take one particularly vile action taken by the UK government, which I challenge defenders to defend as "just" here's one:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/20/child-asylum-seek...
Or how about having cops deceive members of environmental groups into sex, going so far as to father children with them, then (of course) walking away. To make matters worse, the UK government decided (again, obviously) to protect the officers from normal legal responsibility requirements.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deceived-lovers-...
Yeah, I can see why this organization doesn't want to be criticized publicly ... that's, as they say, going to go down poorly.
I don't understand this attitude in people. The US people criticize their government. This seems like a very, very good thing. Europeans, in my experience, largely have worse governments with better reputations ... They're different in various ways, although much less so in the case of the UK.
For instance, the royal house of the Netherlands has an insanely good reputation ... as long as you don't speak to people who so much as live close to them. Then they're moral abominations who constantly abuse their position in the state for utterly banal reasons (they've -literally- ordered people arrested because their children did better on a test in school than their children). And yet, fantastic reputation. But look up articles actually about them, and you will quickly realize what monsters these people are.
To judge the quality and trustworthiness of the UK police force, I encourage you to check out the exams they have officers take before entering, and realize that many officers actually fail these tests once or twice before joining. Let's just not pretend that half these people are even smart enough to know the difference between acting trustworthy and not, because that actually requires a very, very, very basic level of intelligence that clearly is not required and in many cases not present for those joining the police force.
Sometimes you can explain this through politics. For instance, US people often have a good opinion of the NHS. The NHS ! Yes, really, that NHS. WTF ? Ok, they don't charge much, true. They do seem to get accused constantly of not doing much else either and in cases ... they deserve that criticism. But OK, the US has a problem the NHS does not impose on UK'ers. So sure let's focus on the good. (Although what baffles me a bit about UK people is that they still think that something like 20 pounds or so is a lot for complex medical procedures, enough to convince many of them not to do them)
But many, many things in Europe are incredibly bad. Very little criticism, leading to good reputations which are, in quite a few cases, rather less accurate.
The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. And it's really not that different, is it?
Wrong.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
>...The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States.
It looks like the US probably has the strongest free speech protections of any country in the world - that isn't a bad thing.
(IANAL, but there exists such a thing as depraved indifference murder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder)
Well, the article discusses the origin of the idea that "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is illegal. It also points out that Brandenburg v. Ohio is the actual relevant decision.
For more context on the Brandenberg decision:
>...Charles Brandenburg, a Ku Klux Klan leader, had spoken to group members at a televised Ohio rally. He’d used inflammatory language and racial slurs. He’d called for "revengeance," which Ohio prosecutors interpreted as a call to violence. This meant, said the prosecutors, that Charles Brandenburg had broken the law.
>...Advocacy, even when it encourages law-breaking, helps the marketplace of ideas, ruled the Court. Had Brandenburg instructed followers to commit a specific crime, he’d have committed a number of offenses himself. But the First Amendment protects speech that merely advocates general, indefinite illegal action.
>With that ruling, the Court overturned the Schenck decision that had introduced "shouting fire in a crowded theater." No longer was "clear and present danger" a sufficient standard for criminalizing speech. To break the law, speech now had to incite "imminent lawless action."
>So if a court can prove that you incite imminent lawlessness by falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, it can convict you. If you incite an unlawful riot, your speech is "brigaded" with illegal action, and you will have broken the law. But merely falsely shouting "fire" does not break the law, even if it risks others’ safety.
http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com/civil-liberties-general/...
Literally shouting fire in a crowded theater in an attempt to cause a panic and perhaps kill people, would not be protected speech, but pretty much anything less would be protected speech.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-n...
> Almost 100 people were murdered over the last five years by registered users of Stormfront, the largest racist Web forum in the world, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
How did free speech carry out terrorist murders?
You can shout grammatically correct, sensible and lawful speech from the public street corner ("eat right! exercise! wash behind your ears!"), but if a cop simply tells you to move along and you refuse, you're still looking at being jailed.
I mean, extending on that statement, you probably also think sexual harassment, as long as it stays verbal, is OK to have in the name of freedom. As a guy you probably don't have to worry there anyways. People are driven into suicide through harassment.
And why don't you feel the same about the right to just shoot anyone at will? Clearly your government is strongly restricting your freedom there, but we probably don't Need to argue why this is a good thing.
But doesn't, unless you say something reprehensible that the society you live in agrees that you stepped way over the line.
All except for terrorist attacks, which are considered part and parcel of living in a big city[1] like London (but strangely not Tokyo which has 4-5m more citizens!).
[1]https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sad...
> Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job. We must never accept terrorists being successful, we must never accept that terrorists can destroy our life or destroy the way we lead our lives.
Seems sensible to me.
Living in a city, you must be prepared for terror.
This is not how things should be.
Being prepared for these things is not the same as saying these things are unavoidable certainties. There is quite a big distinction, along the lines of having a gun for self defense Vs having a gun to shoot someone.
He is basically saying support the police in their counter terrorism work, and report anything suspicious if you see it. Pretty much what you hear over the airport tannoys every time you fly.
>but it's [terrorist attacks] what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you.
You believe terrorist attacks are deserved as a result of what your government has done in the past?
>I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.
Which is it? Your government is taking measures to assure your protection, or is actively provoking foreigners to kill you on your own soil?
Nobody deserves to get hit by a car, but if you're running across a highway then what do you expect.
> Which is it? Your government is taking measures to assure your protection, or is actively provoking foreigners to kill you on your own soil?
Why are those mutually exclusive?
I would also tack on that it's mostly the USA's foreign policy that got us here (which our government decided to jump in bed with to be fair, but yours nonetheless). It's just you have a nice Atlantic ocean to buffer you from many of the concequences.
So you support the disarming of all US citizens, because living in fear of crime isn't how things should be?
That's quite the argument!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM
"It's part and parcel of living in a great global city..."
>Seems sensible to me.
You keep using that word...
The occasional terrorist attack seems better than starting a world war that invited retaliatory firebombing and nuclear bombing.
USA is taking its turn at feeling the consequences of colonial imperialism.
Wasn't London bombed too? What's your point? Terrorist attacks are better than world wars?
We've reached peak Poe's law.
If I were harassed and bullied I'd not feel very free, but rather anxious, threatened, depressed. I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.