Truly exceptional indeed. You are basically on par with China.
American exceptionalism doesn’t seem to know boundaries.
that does not imply one being the subset of the other to me, if anything they are clearly defined and therefore clearly separate.
Trump refuses to answer simple questions and attacks and mocks reporters, that's if they're lucky and he doesn't directly sue them for millions/billions. Hell, the white house banned Associated Press. Is that free speech or freedom of the press?
None of this says anything about Americans' right to speak freely, which is absolute, unlike in any European country.
Oh please. There's free speech without a free press (US ranks 57/190, behind Sierra Leone) people are just amplifying the same BS they heard from some ignorant influencer. I would argue even your idea of "active enforced blasphemy laws" shows that. That's worse than useless, that is detrimental to a society (case in point, the current president and his whole cabinet).
Freedom of speech is not absolute. Neither in Europe nor in the US. Both effectively have rules restricting certain speech. For example, speech that may harm others, such as inciting violence or maybe the most famous example: "Shouting FIRE in a full venue".
European countries tend to spell out these restrictions more explicitly. It's completely reasonable to disagree with these restrictions. But the simple existence of them shouldn't lead you to the conclusion that one is "more freedom of speech" than the other.
And at last I want to add, that that is how it's been historically. Sadly, the recent developments in US show pretty well how freedom of speech cannot be measured by "How many specific laws are there about things I cannot say?".
"Crowded theater"? In any case, yes, that's a popular understanding of limits on free speech in the US, but it's actually been superseded twice - first by "clear and present danger," then by "inciting or producing imminent lawless action." These days, it's probably (I am not a lawyer) legal to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater under many circumstances.
> Sadly, the recent developments in US show pretty well how freedom of speech cannot be measured by "How many specific laws are there about things I cannot say?".
There are no laws preventing you from saying anything in the US, unless you are specifically, directly inciting people, at that moment, to do things that break other laws. That's the point. You can't measure it in terms of degrees of restrictions; the US has none, and all European countries have at least some. The latter approach opens the floodgates to restrictions on any kind of speech that the government doesn't like. The US Constitution prevents that from ever happening.
Sounds like there are some of those laws. You covered them with "unless"
The idea that "freedom of speech" in the US is not philosophically and fundamentally different than "freedom of speech" in, for example, the UK or Germany, is not an opinion grounded in reality regardless of what legal minutiae you can point to.
So far all we have is the statement that Germany has some speech laws, but the US has no speech laws except for the speech laws that it has, which is a grammatical trick, not an actual difference, because it's saying both countries have some speech laws.
Perhaps a misquote from 1919 wartime supreme court decision involving an anti-draft activist isn't a great example? Even when correctly quoted, this quote is utterly meaningless in 2026.
>Freedom of speech is not absolute
Nobody ever claims it is? That's literally never in dispute, fraud (for example) is illegal everywhere.
I was not actually quoting any specific American case law but referring to the general legal concept. But even if I had referred to it specifically, it would not be meaningless. If I understand correctly, the US has overturned that specific case, but to my understanding the legal concept behind it remains in effect. But I see how my use of quotes and the choice of words "most famous example" was confusing here. I was not aware that there is this specific US case where the "Fire in a theater" phrase originates from and was talking about the general concept of purposefully causing a panic in a crowded space.
>Freedom of speech is not absolute
> Nobody ever claims it is? That's literally never in dispute, fraud (for example) is illegal everywhere.
I never claimed that anyone claimed that.
I thought that the preceding statement was too simplistic for a complex topic and tried to offer a more differentiated explanation. Why are you upset that I started that explanation with a statement that you agree is true?
In a very narrow interpretation, yes. Everyone with a modicum of common sense would realise that countries with laws on the books against offending religions / inciting hatred against them are still more free than a country where the fucking Bible is cited in court rulings and political speeches, and where there are active laws prohibiting non-religious people from holding office.
One is for keeping the peace, the other is actively meddling religion and politics.
> baseline level of freedom of speech
Being unable to spout Nazi ideology is technically a restriction on freedom of speech, yes. But again, anyone with a modicum of common sense (and a bit of historical understanding) would understand this to be a good thing.
This is an aspect of our country that I think most Americans are proud of. Some relevant reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_Am...
How did that end last time? We know where it ends, we know there's nothing redeeming. Nobody needs Nazis, there is nothing to be gained by engaging with them or giving them a platform.
On a national level, sure.
Police in many EU countries was systematically searching suspects phones without mandatory due process. This was prima facie illegal, everyone involved knew it. They did it regardless.
Yeah, this decision eventually resulted in many governments issuing new guidance, and some countries rewriting their national legislation. Is that a big victory for the rule of law? I think not, the national governments should not be knowingly violating the ECHR in the first place.
Anyone claiming otherwise is delusional at best.
The whole deal with Chat Control is also not to be forgotten. I do think you guys see this place with rose tinted glasses sometimes.
I agree with you that both of those laws are stupid, but that's a completely separate discussion to what I'm claiming above.
Does it allow blocking half the internet during football games?
It almost certainly does not: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-115705%...
AFAIU this is common because lower courts often deliberately choose to not try to interpret ECHR, leaving that for appeals courts.
But now we're straying even further from my original argument which boils down to "laws mean something" into arguing the intricacies of how laws are supposed to be changed. I'm not interested in having that discussion, as it has nothing to do with my original claim.
ECHR decisions are certainly not mere recommendations.
>It can recommend changes to the national law, but it cannot force any state to do so
ECHR can simply invalidate national law.
The only thing ECHR cares about is one piece of "legislation", which is not a law, but a declaration (Declaration of Human Rights), so that you have some sort of internationally recognised body to go to whenever you feel that your local judicial system has done you injustice. That is all it does. That is all it is meant to do. That is the sole reason of its existence. It is not a legislative body at all.
> ECHR can simply invalidate national law.
It can't. You're either making things up or severely misunderstanding the court. It can say "this law doesn't align with the Declaration" and that's it. The law still exists. ECHR relies on signatories being willing to make the necessary changes themselves. Some are and get right on it, some aren't. The election law in my country has lost 5 cases in the ECHR and not a single one of the verdicts are fixed as of now, the oldest of which dates back to 2009. This is horrible, I want to see them fixed, but ECHR can't force us to fix it and we as in the country face 0 consequences for not addressing any of them (as of yet).
There is a separate court called European Court of Justice which is the equivalent of the US supreme court and is tasked with interpreting EU-wide laws and making sure national laws are aligned as much as possible. That is a legislative body with an enforcement mechanism. ECHR is not, you don't know what you're talking about.
According to the European Convention on Human Rights, it's sort of the whole point.
It's not hard to imagine what kind of damage they could do to the EU if they took power in Germany and started working with Hungary to block EU legislation, veto sanctions, defund programs, etc.
My understanding of the EU system is that it's far more proportional in representation, and a simple 51% isn't enough to have 100% control. Parties still need to work together and compromise.
We've already seen with Brexit that 100% control is not needed in a parliamentary system to destroy a country's livelihood. But my point was that AfD doesn't need something like "presidential control" of the EU, it would just need to start working with other far-right parties in the EU such as Hungary and France's RN to sow chaos from within. Is that very far-fetched? You can't tell me that most of Europe doesn't hold its collective breath at every French election, crossing their fingers that Le Pen's party doesn't win this go around.