But free speech is not absolute, even in USA (libel laws and all that).
What I find interesting is how the threshold between the freedom of speech and the freedom of others people is set differently between US and most of Europe.
For instance you can be convicted for incitement to ethnic or racial hatred in a lot of European countries [1] while to the best of my knowledge this kind of speech is protected in the US.
Personally I am very happy with how the free speech threshold is set in France or Germany but I have no doubt it is a cultural thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement_to_ethnic_or_racial...
*Unless it's from the government in which case it's absolute.
It sounds like a quote from "Animal Farm", doesn't it? I am free to say anything I like, but if I say the wrong thing, I get punished for it. Also, "some are more equal than others".
Not quite. You did not quote a critical part -- being free from consequences from the government. And as governments, almost everywhere, give themselves a monopoly on the use of force "if I say the wrong thing I get punished for it" does not apply.
Thus whoever wants to punish you needs to petition the government for help and prove their case -- if I make false claims that you consider damaging you can ask the government to help and prove your case in a civil court (instead of, say, punching me in the snout to punish me directly). Just my 2c.
For example-- that famous one where the hedgehog pornography tycoon runs an add in his magazine accusing one of the pigs of having sex with his own mom, and then is cleared by a panel of pig judges who rule that parody is protected speech.
Where is that passage in Animal Farm? Maybe I don't have the details correct, but I certainly remember reading a long passage where Orwell clearly establishes that a book of satire like Animal Farm itself would be allowed in the Animal Farm universe. I thought it was such a nice touch of optimism in an otherwise dreary book. (And if I remember correctly it was a welcome respite from those long boring passages of complicated libel case law in the animal world.)
Libel is special because it's purely a civil matter and usually has to prove malicious intentions.
Compare that to: Poland, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia.4 are European and 2 not. Yet it is a criminal charge if you do. And in Saudi Arabia, it's a terrorist charge.
Why did you post it?
Because you know it's controversial and would create engagement.
If the nazi salute wasn't controversial (and rightfully considered hate crime) you would have ignored it.
BTW the first amendment does not condone hate speech.
Because even USA understands that there is a limit on everything.
Mainly as the defendant hadn't, despite the judge's specific encouragement, bothered to submit a proper defence or explore freedom of expression. So it could only be decided purely on the breach of the law. Then there were all the surrounding circumstances of how he set this up.
http://www.scotland-judiciary.org.uk/8/1962/PF-v-Mark-Meecha...
Thankfully in the US we have already codified free speech into law. Unfortunately there are still many who do not consider the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights to be a settled issue.
You might think they are extreme in their views but rulings restricting speech are very, very rare.
And that has severe consequences as you see.
Popper said it many years ago.
Which is slightly different.
No Western-style democracy observes a right to absolutely unrestricted freedom of speech, because it conflicts in obvious ways with other rights. We cannot, for example, incite people to a riot, or yell fire in a crowded theater, or go on the radio and accuse our boss of murdering children. The restrictions against Holocaust denial in Germany (for example) aren't different in kind. Europeans enjoy broad freedom to publish whatever they want about their government, critical or otherwise.
This is in stark contrast with China, Russia, most countries under some form of religious rule, and most dictatorships, where criticizing the government will get you tortured to death or sent to a labor camp at worst, and severely fined and blacklisted from government service at best.
The "median Western European" may have a more nuanced view on the right to free speech than the median citizen of the United States, but I'd attribute that to a superior education system and decades of trying to undo structural economic injustice rather than a cultural divide (which is complete nonsense, honestly).
You can also go on the radio and accuse your boss of whatever you like in the US as well. You might get sued by your boss in civil court, but the police will not come after you.
You can also deny the Holocaust, that the earth is round, that people have landed on the moon, or anything else. An unfortunate side effect of freedom is that other people will be allowed to say things that you dislike.
Yelling fire in a theater isn't illegal, but deliberately doing something that will cause a panic is.
In the US, you can say whatever you like and you will not be prosecuted or jailed. That is simply not true in most other countries.
I drew the obvious contrast with most of the rest of the world in the parent comment, I have nothing more to say there.
> It might have to do with the last time we in Europe experimented with unadulterated free speech, and got Hitler and WW2 as a result.
Um, I'm not sure what they put in your history books over there, but I'm certain that's not an accurate characterization of how that happened.
You forget that Hitler's ideas were popular at the time - that's why he was elected. Slowly but surely it was the free speech of Jews, their very ability to combat the incoming tyranny before it was to late, was clamped down on.
As such, censorship was quite popular.
Free speech levels the playing field between government and people.
(Quoting: //wiki/Mussolini)
regards from germany (-;
Edited: Typo
I think freedom of the press and freedom of association come before that.
In fact the first thing Mussolini did when he won the election (not without the help of violence, verbal but more importantly physical, like Hitler also did after him) was to abolish the free press and make all the other parties illegal.
2) Verbal 'violence' is a fallacy. It doesn't exist.
Your Address is: $address
Your phone is: #ph
You work at: $employer
You did X abhorrent thing (fakes picture or video with deepfakes). It would be a shame if something happened to you.
-------------------------------
That right there is indeed verbal violence, AND a call to arms to enact violence against you.
Only the incitement to violence could possibly be considered violence, though I personally would say it is NOT violence, but a separate offence.
Believe me, my grangrandfather and my grandfather were jailed many times in the 20 years of fascist regime because they refused to swear as fascists.
They were two gentle men who worked as tailors.
Example: Pasquino https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasquino
2) I'm a polite Italian using ancient words: it's what we call hate speech today.
We also needed Americans to save us Europeans from those other Europeans.
Aside from being really smug about Europe's supposed superiority today, this comment is just factually misleading. For one thing, it wasn't "unadulterated free speech" that got Hitler into a position of dictatorial power, it was backroom politics, legal manipulation, and finally laws and a German constitution that were extremely pliant towards misuse and reinterpretation for the sake of dictatorship, with all kinds of clauses in favor of martial law, censorship and so forth that the Nazis used to powerful effect once Hitler was appointed chancellor. Had they been dealing with something more absolutist about freedoms like the U.S constitution, his road to dictatorship would have been much more difficult, chancellor or no. You actually have the whole thing about the value of rigidly preserved freedoms exactly backwards in your claim about Hitler and free speech.
In other words: Hitler's rabidly racist speeches never once won him a single electoral victory in Germany (and this even at a time when anti-semitism and racism were much more popular). The much greater damage was done by a weak constitution ridden with clauses against individual freedom, which couldn't effectively stop Hitler from becoming a dictator once he got the chancellors office.
Not my claim, it was the GP's claim and I was also disagreeing with it.
We can legally drink before the age of 21 because we are able to control ourselves.
We can have sex between 14 and 16 years, because we are able to control ourselves.
We don't shoot other people in school when we are upset, because we are able to control ourselves.
Tell me more about your strength...
You've a weird sens of humor my friend.
Also:
> And an orator said, Speak to us of Freedom.
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.
And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.
And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?
If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.
You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.
And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.
For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?
And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.
And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.
Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.
These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.
And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.
And thus your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.
I find this sentence interesting because it is very specific to the American public. I am European and personally I care a lot more about privacy than free speech, and America's obsession with free speech boggles my mind.
It might have to do with the last time we in Europe experimented with unadulterated free speech, and got Hitler and WW2 as a result. We might have dialed it back a bit after that. But what do I know ?
There seems to be some a profound divide between America and Europe on this front and I haven't quite put my finger on why yet.