What are you talking about?

There is no near-absolute right to free speech in the EU. Countless people have been successfilly prosecuted for what would be covered under the 1st amendment in the EU.

ECHR contains the freedom of speech as a human right and so do most EU countries in their own constitutions. "Countless people have been successfully prosecuted for what would be covered under the 1st amendment" (and the ECHR) in the US too. The constitution only has value as long as it's enforced.

Let's talk about Germany, to give one example. In that country, the top court can outright declare political parties illegal, if it believes that they constitute a threat to the democratic order. This was used against the Nazis, of course - but also against the Communist party.

So, ironically, under the current interpretation of 1A, communists have more freedom of speech and association in US than they do in Germany.

> Let's talk about Germany, to give one example. In that country, the top court can outright declare political parties illegal, if it believes that they constitute a threat to the democratic order.

So what? Which country can't declare organisations illegal, if it determines them to be terrorist organisations? I'm pretty sure the USA can. So what does it matter if a terrorist organisation calls itself a "party"? (Didn't the Symbionese Liberation Army try exactly that?)

The USA can't declare a party to be a "terrorist organization" solely on the basis of their political platform. It requires, at the very least, explicit incitement to terrorism. German law allows a party to be banned e.g. because it advocates replacing the Basic Law (via free and fair elections!), with no violence in the picture at all.

In the US, an idea can't be a "terrorist organization". In Germany, it can be. I much prefer the US model of free speech. Free speech only for ideas that the government doesn't consider dangerous isn't free speech at all.

> In the US, an idea can't be a "terrorist organization". In Germany, it can be

This is false.

What ideas are listed as terrorist organizations in the US?

Did anyone say there are any? Seems more plausible that it's the other half of the statement that's being denied.

> That said it's also true that Germany is, in practice, a freer country than the USA [citation needed]

Freer by what standard?

I’m a European living in Europe, but if I could move to the United States, I’d do it overnight.

Don't. In addition to the fact that our police are intrusive, our criminal legal system is optimized for tallying high numbers of convictions rather than justice, everything is dependent on your credit score, you get effectively no vacation and very little in the way of labor protection compared to back home, and you're fucked if you get sick or injured without adequate employer health care -- according to various European Hackernews who came here, our food is terrible.

As for how Germany is freer than the USA... it consistently scores higher on various press freedom indices and on Cato's Human Freedom Index. Social mobility and legal protection of privacy are both higher in Germany.

Trump was an asshole and awful public speaker but his policies were good for the country. The current administration is further diving the US and pushing the limits of what’s acceptable. I fear this is only the beginning of much worse policies to come.

> which got us Trump and the current antivax movement

I think that you are stretching it a bit here. Claiming that individualism is responsible for that seems unsubstantiated.

The problem with the 1st Amendment is that it protects all speech (in general, and if you quote yelling "fire" in a crowded theater you have not read the case law) no matter how stupid that speech is. The issue is that anything else could be a slippery slope to authoritarianism. Drawing that line is hard. Education is the key here however some people seems to be to stupid to be educated.

It’s a stretch to blame “absolute rights” for Trump’s election. That can be placed pretty solidly on xenophobia.

The anti-maskers? The only reason those guys think they have a case is exactly because they think bodily autonomy has no limits.

> ...they think bodily autonomy has no limits.

...they think THEIR bodily autonomy has no limits -- not even where sane people would see that it has to be limited to not encroach on OTHER PEOPLE'S bodily autonomy.

There, FTFY.

This also seems to be bi-partisan sadly.

I'm not so sure about that. Stands to reason, AFAICS, that "MY freedoms (and screw yours)!" ideologically resonates more on the right than the left: The whole left-right dichotomy is one of ~ "my freedoms above all" vs "freedoms for all, balanced with responsibility for all".

I think that this is extremely simplistic. For example it does not account for individualist anarchism or the collectivist "for our country/nation/race" pushed by various fascist governments.

I can't see how "doesn't cover absolutely all corner cases" equals "extremely simplistic". I'm fairly sure that in broad terms, "left / right" covers the political spectrum the absolute majority of people inhabit. Your objection feels like futile quibbling to me.

These are not really corner cases but whatever man, you believe what you want.

> That can be placed pretty solidly on xenophobia.

It can be, but it probably shouldn't be.

Makes no sense, Trump is pro vaccine and has been from the beginning.

It has been incredibly interesting how the antivax movement has suddenly become a right wing thing after years of festering on the left (including not so long ago with our own VP). I mean... I used to live in Marin county, one of the bluest in the country and one of the least vaccinated. Then COVID comes around and suddenly everyone's pro-COVID-vax, but anti every other vax. Robert Kennedy JR was also instrumental in the 'normal' anti-vax movement, but now it's suddenly a partisan and 'conservative' thing.

(Actually, I don't think it's 'conservative' at all. Living in Portland now, I know a lot of old hippie liberals that are anti-covid-vax, and I know few conservatives here, but it's certainly more mixed in that crowd than the hippies).

Doesn't all this just go to show that anti-vaxxery[§] is not really a partisan political issue in the first place?

Plain old lunacy in itself is politically neutral. The distribution, some shades at some times being more popular on one side of the political spectrum only to sometimes migrate to the other or spread all over it... That seems to be influenced by fashion, by world events like COVID-19, etc, etc -- but basically, mainly, more or less random.

___

[§]: Like, say, spiritualism, crystal healing, homeopathy, flat-eartherism, past lives, shoving rocks up your vajazzle...

I don't believe anti-vaxxing is a political issue, yes. WHile conservatives are maligned for being anti-vax, in reality, groups like Hispanics and Blacks (not historically conservative or republican in huge amounts) have the highest rates of unvaxxedness.

Its not right or left or conservative its anti-authoritarian it makes perfect sense that "hippies" are now considered anti-vaxer. They want to decide what "drug" they inject and no gov should decide what isn't allowed and also no gov should decide whats mandated to inject. If its voluntary they likely dont care at all. The whole term "antivaxxer" is biased anyway. Most people now pushed in that group are not against vaccines they are against mandating, pushing, incentivizing, shaming etc. people into getting it especially if the gov is behind it.

I love how obvious the narrative on this angle now is, and how even on a very normie place like hn you are seen right through. Blaming individualism is a favorite past time of oligarchs and totalitarians.

Ursula Haverbeck is currently in a German prison at the age of 92 for the "crime" of verbal holocaust denial aka for speech.

There is no free speech anywhere in Europe. And there is no doubt she would be free in every state in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Haverbeck

> There is no free speech anywhere in Europe

This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim.

> And there is no doubt she would be free in every state in the US.

For this specific action? Sure. For other actions that are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends on whether there is a law against it and if she pissed off someone "important" or enough people. There are various such cases.

edit: will respond to the replies after the rate-limit expires

There aren't any cases I know of for anyone being jailed for expressing their beliefs. Can you name several?

Specifically for expressing beliefs? No. Only the one that I mentioned as a reply to the sibling post to yours.

>This is a bold and unsubstantiated claim.

I'm fine with that but its non the less the hard truth there is nothing like the 1st amendment in any other place.

>For other actions that are protected under the 1st amendment? Depends....

To be in the right doesn't mean you win the court case that's true but in the EU you dont have the 1st amendment, you dont have the right to free speech. If the court system does its job correct you go to jail not when the system fails because of "important" people and corruption. You go to jail because what you said is actually a crime to say. Needless to say that the list of "crime speech" only gets longer and longer over time.

> in the EU you dont have the 1st amendment, you dont have the right to free speech.

Most EU countries have some rather close analogue of the US First Amendment in their law or constitution. Sure, pretty much all of them have various exceptions, so there's no absolute free speech -- but then the US has such exceptions too, and thus also lacks absolute free speech.

On the whole, IMO your comment is much more wrong than right.

Name a single place and the law that is remotely comparable to the 1st amendment. It doesn't exist. There are some analogue yes but they all have exceptions like the one mentioned above where arbitrary the holocaust is excluded or certain other topic are excluded. Or the free speech only applies if your speech is considered satire or has some arctic value. etc. etc.

>but then the US has such exceptions too, and thus also lacks absolute free speech.

No, it does not the fist amendment is very clear and short enough to not have any loopholes in there. People just intentionally misinterpret it and then come around and say you can scream "bomb" in an airplane in US airspace therefore you dont have free speech in the US. This just shows the lack of understand what free speech means. Its not about having the right to make audible noises of any kind at any time and place. Similarly if you order a person to kill someone and do so with your voice trough the act of speaking, you are committing a crime.

Seems I don't need to contradict you:

> No, it does not the fist amendment is very clear and short enough to not have any loopholes in there.

> ...

> Similarly if you order a person to kill someone and do so with your voice trough the act of speaking, you are committing a crime.

You've already done it for me.

>This just shows the lack of understand what free speech means.

I showed that this is incorrect here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28587930

> You go to jail because what you said is actually a crime to say

Sounds like the US. Just look at all these people who went to jail for crimes related to illegal numbers (eg. piracy). Or people like Mildred Gillars. Or the various whistleblowers.

Complete nonsense. If you voluntarily agree to not leak secrets and do so anyway its not protected under free speech. You also dont get jailed for speech but for the act of breaching some agreement or other law.

> If you voluntarily agree to not leak secrets and do so anyway its not protected under free speech

Of course it is. Anyway, I mentioned more cases where there is no voluntarily agreement.

> You also dont get jailed for speech but for the act of breaching some agreement or other law.

You can claim that for everyone who got jailed for speech.

>You can claim that for everyone who got jailed for speech.

Name the case. The burden of proof lies with you if you clame people get jailed for speech.

I posted a case from Germany. So if you have one from the US post it. No one in the thread could post one so far.

> No one in the thread could post one so far.

This is false, I posted this before:

> Just look at all these people who went to jail for crimes related to illegal numbers (eg. piracy). Or people like Mildred Gillars. Or the various whistleblowers.