Newsflash: it's extraordinarily unlikely that you live in a country with stronger protection of freedom of speech than the US. In fact, if you live in Europe you almost certainly don't.

If you live in a free county, say fuck on TV. If not don't lecture others about free speech.

We have plenty of channels using the word "fuck" on tv at any given moment. In fact, it's highly likely that you regularly watch a few of those shows.

Actually no. I prefer shows from the UK.

After the watershed in the UK, strong language[1] may be used on telly.

[1, contains actual strong language]http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/page/guidance-langu...

You don't watch a single US-produced television program. I believe this.

Your sarcasm indicates that you think this is somehow a preposterous concept. Despite being American, I have not watched a single American TV show in more than a month, and that instance was a single episode at a party gathered to share food and watch it (I was there for the people, not the show).

Granted, I watch very little TV, but what I do watch is from the UK.

My point was not that I do not watch US produced TV shows (though I only watch TV on Sunday) but that it is not highly likely that I watch some of the shows with "fuck" in them, because I mostly watch UK shows which makes it highly unlikely that I watch one of those.

You can do this in most parts of the Western world. Make your own TV station and say "fuck". Nobody will stop you.

Freedom isn't the right to inject arbitrary programming into someone else's commercial enterprise.

In most countries you can say what you like if no one can listen to it (imagine a desert or the largeness of the taiga). If the commercial enterprise is the only way that people can hear you, and those oligopolies censor you with a peep or take down your website for commercial reasons, it doesn't matter your government is strong on freedom of speech.

If you live in a free country, go up to someone and call them a hateful racial epithet and suffer as your only punishment the dirty looks of others.

That's nice and all. But it didn't help in this case, didn't it?

Any references?

References to what? The fact that Europe has lots of laws restricting free speech?

Europe has almost no laws. We are not like the US.

The EU does enforce a bunch of laws. So does the EEA.

So I would like a good example of a law from a european country that is not the UK or eastern europe.

As despicable as it may be, you will be jailed in Germany for espousing anti-Semitic views or denying the Holocaust etc, and in Britain you can be jailed for "hate speech" e.g. making racist statements. Personally I think it is insane that you can literally be jailed over speech, regardless of how unsavory it is. Canada has the hate-speech law as well.

30 seconds into Wikipedia:

> So I would like a good example of a law from a european country

Germany "Insulting of Faiths, Religious Societies and Organizations Dedicated to a Philosophy of Life if they could disturb public peace (Section 166)."

On topic, Switzerland tried to censor essentially the same thing (livestock farming practices) and was sued for it. They lost.

Try publishing information about a criminal trial, or about an auction of WWII memorabilia, in "almost no laws" places like France or Germany, and let me know how it goes.

Criminal trials, in much of Europe, are protected by privacy of justice laws, until the proceedings are complete. Then, the information is free.

I view that as a good thing, as it prevents mob justice on the media. Let the courts decide, on their own timing, we can analyse the result later; instead of condemning someone in the public view, only to find out later she is an innocent with a forever tarnished reputation.

You didn't address the WWII memorabilia. Also, are you free to say that the holocaust didn't happen?

I am in Europe and, yes, I'm free to deny the holocaust publicly and I'm free to sell WWII memorabilia. Portugal does not suffer from public order problems with neo nazi groups.

It will take probably one more generation for Germany to be able to lift those restrictions. WWII was a big event, and it is emotionally charged still today. I think their approach to limiting free speech is an extraordinary measure to deal with extraordinary circumstances. It is not an easy decision, was heavily discussed among Germans, and is widely accepted by the population. While not ideal, it's acceptable and well managed. And limited in time.

So which country are you talking about then?

"What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US?"

The Lesters of course. http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...

Yes. I saw that one just yesterday :D He makes great points, but his presentation makes me feel like I've walked into an appliance store and the salesman is trying to convince me to buy the most expensive fridge in the shop.

Funny. That TED Talk is sponsored by Goldman Sachs.

These things have happened elsewhere. In Finland in 2011, a district attorney prosecuted animal farm videographers that had taken video in 2007 and 2009. Most of the claims did not hold in court.

Though they were not prosecuted for just taking video. The claim that did hold was for a felony that roughly translates to breaking and entering. For some other claims (like defamation in case of claiming that farm A does what was filmed at farm X), it was not possible to prove who did what, so it fell apart.

Some indecent farming was exposed, which is good. On the other hand, I understand that people are not entirely comfortable about groups of masked men appearing on their premises at night, premises near which their families live.

Yes, but if legislation lije this passes in the U.S., these claims will hold in court here.

Yes, I'm sure the Supreme Court will uphold prior restraint laws. The problem is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt as we wait for the case to make it there.

If we jailed the supporters of the bill for knowingly trying to pass unconstitutional law it might even happen less.

But unless we do that they'll just have passed another corrupt law by the time this one gets overturned.

> What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US.

People who know where the funding for the next electoral campaign vote comes from. It's a free market: as a voter, you're the product, the corporations are the customers.

You say this as if treating elections and voting as a market should be acceptable.

I don't. I'm just calling a spade a spade. Not to say this is the case with all lawmakers, but corporations have much more influence over politics than they ought to, especially in the US (or so it seems as a European)

"What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US."?

Darwinist capitalistic people. It's the invisible hand of evolution in action.

That's satire, right? You're mocking Friedman, right? Because at this point I honestly can't tell any more in discussions on this topic.

I love how people try to blame Capitalism for the problems caused by Statism and Cronyism.

OK, I'll bite. How exactly is the state in fault here? Private businesses and farms in the agriculture and livestock industry cheap out on labor and labor practices on purposes to make extra profit. I am aware of federal and state subsidies for such businesses, but even without such subsidies you will see this kind of skimping on labor costs and facilities that encourage this kind of cruelty.

Businesses pay for legislation, the state, represented by politicians, sell it. Repeat. Two sides, two villains.

With no state to offer anti-terrorism protection to the industry, they'd have to sort their stuff out on the same terms as everyone else.

Its a byproduct of the completed merger of corporation and state. If overall policy is to mix them together inseparably like coffee and creamer, you can't blame people for getting confused about the source of the bitter taste. (edited to add, and if they're perfectly merged, does it matter, after all, attacking one is by definition attacking the other?)

I think you, like many people, are conflating Darwin with Malthus.

Not really, I'm mixing a sci-fi meme with my observations of much of the "fk you elite".

I've had the opportunity to live alongside and work with. Many of them truly believe that their gaming of the system, luck and hard work is either divine or a product of "dog eat dog" evolution-style aka "hussle". I've got shocking stories of outrageous actions, but the long term economic trends/facts are sobering.

There are 300m people in the US and any one of them can propose a law.

Ridiculous. Are you implying I have the same legislative power as the agriculture lobbies?

I'm saying you don't need a lobby when you have millions of farmers who identify politically and culturally with big agriculture and part time state legislators who are often farmers themselves.

My wife grew up in Iowa farm country. You don't need a lobby to convince these people that animal rights activists are terrorists.

Oh I see. When someone threatens your wallet it's now socially acceptable to cry "terrorist".

You're a perfect example of what the OP was talking about. Justifying every abomination.

I'm not justifying anything. I'm explaining. People in farm country: 1) constantly feel threatened due to the fickle nature of farming and thus are culturally very tight (even to the point of embracing agribusiness as "one of them"; 2) are insular and fairly culturally homogenous (my wife went to a high school with a graduating class of 60 people); 3) have a very different relationship with animals than people on the coasts.

Animal rights activism is so outside the mainstream of their experience, that it doesn't take a huge lobby to convince them that these video tapers are one step away from blowing up farms. More broadly, they perceive the movement, like movements to control farm pollution, in terms of their own experience. Not as a cool cost-benefit calculation, but an existential threat to their way of life.

That is not to say that they support animal cruelty per se. They react badly to what they perceive to be external threats. They rally around their own. They are really no different than any other group of people in this regard (see, e.g., how Hacker Newsers rally around their own any time people propose regulating tech companies; note the complete lack of moral outrage at Intel, AMD, Hewlett-Packard, etc, in the recent article about how these companies poisoned Palo Alto).

In this case: "But a dozen or so state legislatures have had a different reaction: They proposed or enacted bills that would make it illegal to covertly videotape livestock farms..."

Why is almost everything you say misleading?

Somewhere long ago before my time society "decided" that the merchant class was above all others. And we have suffered ever since.

> Who in their right mind would even propose such legislation.

The Swiss. They lost.

Who's this - the ghost of Hugo Chavez gracing us with his presence?

What kind of immoral, capitalistic people are in charge in the US

The kind of people that don't throw you in jail if you just deny something in public, like in Germany, France, Canada.

Canada jailing people for 'just denying something'? Do tell.

He's probably referring to the Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel. If I recall he spent quite a bit of time in jail in Canada for publishing his stuff, although I'm not sure his convictions stuck on appeal.

After Zundel was finally deported to Germany (he was never a Canadian citizen), the Germans locked him up pretty promptly.