4 ms·
> The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country. When it c
by vacri 9y ago
> The right to publish any media, no matter how obscene or political, is free speech. And the US has the closest to free speech of any major country.
When it comes to freedom of the press, Reporters Without Borders rates the US quite poorly - it's down at #43, with the UK at #40. When it comes to anglo cultures, the highest any of the 'five eyes' gets is New Zealand, at #13.
There is a difference between law and implementation.
https://rsf.org/en/ranking https://rsf.org/en/ranking
- unabridged 9y agoThat ranking has little to do with free speech. In most of the countries with the best scores blasphemy is illegal.
- vacri 9y agoAnd in the US, there are states where an atheist is legally barred from being governor. And you can be pretty sure that blaspheming in the nations listed with the best scores will be more acceptable than blaspheming in the religiose US. As I said, there is a difference between law and implementation. Also, it's not true that the top-scorers have blasphemy laws - most of them don't have one at all at the moment, and the ones that did were mostly used in the early part of last century (and rarely at that). Even Germany's 'blasphemy' law is actually a 'disturbing the peace' law; you're not going to go to jail for saying 'christ' when you hit your thumb with a hammer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law