7 ms·

I can't wrap my head around how you can see it as positive that these kind of actions would go unpunished, in the name of "freedom". If I were harassed and bul

I can't wrap my head around how you can see it as positive that these kind of actions would go unpunished, in the name of "freedom". If I were harassed and bullied I'd not feel very free, but rather anxious, threatened, depressed. I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological.

wetpaws 8y ago
I would prefer being harrased and bullied rather than having to live in a country that has a legal power to punish me for what I say.
- orf 8y ago
  > to punish me for what I say. But doesn't, unless you say something reprehensible that the society you live in agrees that you stepped way over the line.
  - wetpaws 8y ago
    I don't give a damnt about what society like or don't like. Tomorrow special sjw snowflakes could say that breathing or saying "hello" is harrasment.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  You can absolutely get punished for what you say in the US -- freedom of speech was long ago recognized as anything but absolute. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Obscenity (as defined in Miller v. California) is not protected by the constitution. You can't lie under oath. You can't deliberately tell lies about people (Libel). The First Amendment doesn’t protect the speech of people plotting to overthrow the government (Dennis v. United States). House Bill 347 authorized Secret Service agents to arrest anyone protesting in the president’s or vice president’s proximity. The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. And it's really not that different, is it?
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    Not to mention the myriad of other nonsense charges they'll get you with ("loitering", "soliciting", etc) if they can't find anything specifically against your speech. You can shout grammatically correct, sensible and lawful speech from the public street corner ("eat right! exercise! wash behind your ears!"), but if a cop simply tells you to move along and you refuse, you're still looking at being jailed.
  - opo 8y ago
    >...You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Wrong. https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha... >...The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. It looks like the US probably has the strongest free speech protections of any country in the world - that isn't a bad thing.
    - gowld 8y ago
      Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-nearly-100-murdered-stormfront-users https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-n... > Almost 100 people were murdered over the last five years by registered users of Stormfront, the largest racist Web forum in the world, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
      - ra1n85 8y ago
        >Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing. How did free speech carry out terrorist murders?
      - jimbokun 8y ago
        Well now that we Americans can murder people directly with words, we can merge the first and second amendments.
- brazzledazzle 8y ago
  The US does have that legal power so it seems to be more about where you draw the line.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  You sure that isn't just a reflex "defending my country" reply? I mean, extending on that statement, you probably also think sexual harassment, as long as it stays verbal, is OK to have in the name of freedom. As a guy you probably don't have to worry there anyways. People are driven into suicide through harassment. And why don't you feel the same about the right to just shoot anyone at will? Clearly your government is strongly restricting your freedom there, but we probably don't Need to argue why this is a good thing.
ra1n85 8y ago
> I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological. All except for terrorist attacks, which are considered part and parcel of living in a big city[1] like London (but strangely not Tokyo which has 4-5m more citizens!). [1]https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sadiq-khan-says-terror-attacks-are-part-and-parcel-of-life-in-a-big-city-a3347891.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sad...
- orf 8y ago
  Shame on you for spreading that fake news. People on HN should know better and be held to a higher standard. > Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job. We must never accept terrorists being successful, we must never accept that terrorists can destroy our life or destroy the way we lead our lives. Seems sensible to me.
  - ra1n85 8y ago
    >Shame on you for spreading that fake news. That's quite the argument! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM "It's part and parcel of living in a great global city..." >Seems sensible to me. You keep using that word...
  - retox 8y ago
    >Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, Living in a city, you must be prepared for terror. This is not how things should be.
    - orf 8y ago
      It's not how things should be, but it's what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you. Being prepared for these things is not the same as saying these things are unavoidable certainties. There is quite a big distinction, along the lines of having a gun for self defense Vs having a gun to shoot someone. He is basically saying support the police in their counter terrorism work, and report anything suspicious if you see it. Pretty much what you hear over the airport tannoys every time you fly.
lopmotr 8y ago
In the UK, you can be arrested for saying absolutely anything as long as somebody who heard it claims to be offended and a policeman also agrees it's offensive. There's no boundary or guideline that you can follow.
lopmotr 8y ago
Do you also want to lock up people who criticized the color of Trump's skin or the size of his hands? When you outlaw offending people, there's not clear boundary as to what's allowed and what's not. It creates a scary power imbalance so that people can suffer severe consequences for simply responding to an insult, or saying something innocent that's misinterpreted. If you've ever seen an insult on Twitter, those people would be criminals. All of them, not just the ones who insulted people you like. Anyone who says "cops are pigs" needs locking up too. The US has clear boundaries to what's legal to say but the UK doesn't.
jimbokun 8y ago
Can be equally used to suppress anyone with an unpopular opinion. Who is deciding what is edgy but still funny, vs what’s over the line? What is valid criticism of people who happen to be part of a minority group, vs what is hateful and racist? The only reason you are ok with this, is because all of your beliefs fall within the boundaries of acceptability set by the censors. And you want to be protected from the speech of people who might think or believe differently.
- iforgotpassword 8y ago
  Receiving insults, death threats and the likes online is just "speech of people who might think or believe differently" to you, seriously?
  - JackCh 8y ago
    >"insults, death threats" There is a world of difference between these two things. To my knowledge death threats are illegal in every American state. Insulting people is generally legal, just like it should be.
  - candiodari 8y ago
    It's also pretty funny how they respond, because, let's face facts here: 1) the US government attacks people for their opinions, and so does the UK government. Same with civil asset forfeiture. And it doesn't stop there. Treatment of immigrants/asylum seekers, military actions outside of the country, protection of corrupt officials, ... 2) People who defend the US government actions, whether related to freedom of speech or forfeiture, are described as unfairly naive or pro-state by Europeans. 3) People who criticize the UK government actions, essentially the same, except much lesser known, are unfairly criticizing their "trustworthy state". Forfeiture without recourse, check. Speech attacks. And let's just not investigate what the UK government has done to immigrants, because ... To just take one particularly vile action taken by the UK government, which I challenge defenders to defend as "just" here's one: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/20/child-asylum-seekers-still-being-locked-up https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/20/child-asylum-seek... Or how about having cops deceive members of environmental groups into sex, going so far as to father children with them, then (of course) walking away. To make matters worse, the UK government decided (again, obviously) to protect the officers from normal legal responsibility requirements. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deceived-lovers-speak-of-mental-torture-from-undercover-detectives-8515915.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deceived-lovers-... Yeah, I can see why this organization doesn't want to be criticized publicly ... that's, as they say, going to go down poorly. I don't understand this attitude in people. The US people criticize their government. This seems like a very, very good thing. Europeans, in my experience, largely have worse governments with better reputations ... They're different in various ways, although much less so in the case of the UK. For instance, the royal house of the Netherlands has an insanely good reputation ... as long as you don't speak to people who so much as live close to them. Then they're moral abominations who constantly abuse their position in the state for utterly banal reasons (they've -literally- ordered people arrested because their children did better on a test in school than their children). And yet, fantastic reputation. But look up articles actually about them, and you will quickly realize what monsters these people are. To judge the quality and trustworthiness of the UK police force, I encourage you to check out the exams they have officers take before entering, and realize that many officers actually fail these tests once or twice before joining. Let's just not pretend that half these people are even smart enough to know the difference between acting trustworthy and not, because that actually requires a very, very, very basic level of intelligence that clearly is not required and in many cases not present for those joining the police force. Sometimes you can explain this through politics. For instance, US people often have a good opinion of the NHS. The NHS ! Yes, really, that NHS. WTF ? Ok, they don't charge much, true. They do seem to get accused constantly of not doing much else either and in cases ... they deserve that criticism. But OK, the US has a problem the NHS does not impose on UK'ers. So sure let's focus on the good. (Although what baffles me a bit about UK people is that they still think that something like 20 pounds or so is a lot for complex medical procedures, enough to convince many of them not to do them) But many, many things in Europe are incredibly bad. Very little criticism, leading to good reputations which are, in quite a few cases, rather less accurate.
bassman9000 8y ago
If I were harassed and bullied I'd not feel very free, but rather anxious, threatened, depressed. I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological. We've reached peak Poe's law.

wetpaws 8y ago

I would prefer being harrased and bullied rather than having to live in a country that has a legal power to punish me for what I say.

orf 8y ago
> to punish me for what I say. But doesn't, unless you say something reprehensible that the society you live in agrees that you stepped way over the line.
- wetpaws 8y ago
  I don't give a damnt about what society like or don't like. Tomorrow special sjw snowflakes could say that breathing or saying "hello" is harrasment.
arcticbull 8y ago
You can absolutely get punished for what you say in the US -- freedom of speech was long ago recognized as anything but absolute. You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Obscenity (as defined in Miller v. California) is not protected by the constitution. You can't lie under oath. You can't deliberately tell lies about people (Libel). The First Amendment doesn’t protect the speech of people plotting to overthrow the government (Dennis v. United States). House Bill 347 authorized Secret Service agents to arrest anyone protesting in the president’s or vice president’s proximity. The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. And it's really not that different, is it?
- jstarfish 8y ago
  Not to mention the myriad of other nonsense charges they'll get you with ("loitering", "soliciting", etc) if they can't find anything specifically against your speech. You can shout grammatically correct, sensible and lawful speech from the public street corner ("eat right! exercise! wash behind your ears!"), but if a cop simply tells you to move along and you refuse, you're still looking at being jailed.
- opo 8y ago
  >...You can't yell fire in a crowded theater. Wrong. https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/ https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha... >...The only difference is they've chosen to draw the line somewhere just offset from what you're used to. There's still a line in these here United States. It looks like the US probably has the strongest free speech protections of any country in the world - that isn't a bad thing.
  - gowld 8y ago
    Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-nearly-100-murdered-stormfront-users https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2014/04/17/splc-report-n... > Almost 100 people were murdered over the last five years by registered users of Stormfront, the largest racist Web forum in the world, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
    - ra1n85 8y ago
      >Those free speech protections have been implicated in an ongoing series of terrorist murders, which is a bad thing. How did free speech carry out terrorist murders?
    - jimbokun 8y ago
      Well now that we Americans can murder people directly with words, we can merge the first and second amendments.
brazzledazzle 8y ago
The US does have that legal power so it seems to be more about where you draw the line.
iforgotpassword 8y ago
You sure that isn't just a reflex "defending my country" reply? I mean, extending on that statement, you probably also think sexual harassment, as long as it stays verbal, is OK to have in the name of freedom. As a guy you probably don't have to worry there anyways. People are driven into suicide through harassment. And why don't you feel the same about the right to just shoot anyone at will? Clearly your government is strongly restricting your freedom there, but we probably don't Need to argue why this is a good thing.

ra1n85 8y ago

> I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological. All except for terrorist attacks, which are considered part and parcel of living in a big city[1] like London (but strangely not Tokyo which has 4-5m more citizens!). [1]https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sadiq-khan-says-terror-attacks-are-part-and-parcel-of-life-in-a-big-city-a3347891.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/new-york-explosion-sad...

orf 8y ago
Shame on you for spreading that fake news. People on HN should know better and be held to a higher standard. > Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, you’ve got to be vigilant, you’ve got to support the police doing an incredibly hard job. We must never accept terrorists being successful, we must never accept that terrorists can destroy our life or destroy the way we lead our lives. Seems sensible to me.
- ra1n85 8y ago
  >Shame on you for spreading that fake news. That's quite the argument! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I03IKr2TWDM "It's part and parcel of living in a great global city..." >Seems sensible to me. You keep using that word...
- retox 8y ago
  >Part and parcel of living in a great global city is you’ve got to be prepared for these things, Living in a city, you must be prepared for terror. This is not how things should be.
  - orf 8y ago
    It's not how things should be, but it's what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you. Being prepared for these things is not the same as saying these things are unavoidable certainties. There is quite a big distinction, along the lines of having a gun for self defense Vs having a gun to shoot someone. He is basically saying support the police in their counter terrorism work, and report anything suspicious if you see it. Pretty much what you hear over the airport tannoys every time you fly.

lopmotr 8y ago

In the UK, you can be arrested for saying absolutely anything as long as somebody who heard it claims to be offended and a policeman also agrees it's offensive. There's no boundary or guideline that you can follow.

lopmotr 8y ago

Do you also want to lock up people who criticized the color of Trump's skin or the size of his hands? When you outlaw offending people, there's not clear boundary as to what's allowed and what's not. It creates a scary power imbalance so that people can suffer severe consequences for simply responding to an insult, or saying something innocent that's misinterpreted. If you've ever seen an insult on Twitter, those people would be criminals. All of them, not just the ones who insulted people you like. Anyone who says "cops are pigs" needs locking up too. The US has clear boundaries to what's legal to say but the UK doesn't.

jimbokun 8y ago

Can be equally used to suppress anyone with an unpopular opinion. Who is deciding what is edgy but still funny, vs what’s over the line? What is valid criticism of people who happen to be part of a minority group, vs what is hateful and racist? The only reason you are ok with this, is because all of your beliefs fall within the boundaries of acceptability set by the censors. And you want to be protected from the speech of people who might think or believe differently.

iforgotpassword 8y ago
Receiving insults, death threats and the likes online is just "speech of people who might think or believe differently" to you, seriously?
- JackCh 8y ago
  >"insults, death threats" There is a world of difference between these two things. To my knowledge death threats are illegal in every American state. Insulting people is generally legal, just like it should be.
- candiodari 8y ago
  It's also pretty funny how they respond, because, let's face facts here: 1) the US government attacks people for their opinions, and so does the UK government. Same with civil asset forfeiture. And it doesn't stop there. Treatment of immigrants/asylum seekers, military actions outside of the country, protection of corrupt officials, ... 2) People who defend the US government actions, whether related to freedom of speech or forfeiture, are described as unfairly naive or pro-state by Europeans. 3) People who criticize the UK government actions, essentially the same, except much lesser known, are unfairly criticizing their "trustworthy state". Forfeiture without recourse, check. Speech attacks. And let's just not investigate what the UK government has done to immigrants, because ... To just take one particularly vile action taken by the UK government, which I challenge defenders to defend as "just" here's one: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/20/child-asylum-seekers-still-being-locked-up https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/20/child-asylum-seek... Or how about having cops deceive members of environmental groups into sex, going so far as to father children with them, then (of course) walking away. To make matters worse, the UK government decided (again, obviously) to protect the officers from normal legal responsibility requirements. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deceived-lovers-speak-of-mental-torture-from-undercover-detectives-8515915.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deceived-lovers-... Yeah, I can see why this organization doesn't want to be criticized publicly ... that's, as they say, going to go down poorly. I don't understand this attitude in people. The US people criticize their government. This seems like a very, very good thing. Europeans, in my experience, largely have worse governments with better reputations ... They're different in various ways, although much less so in the case of the UK. For instance, the royal house of the Netherlands has an insanely good reputation ... as long as you don't speak to people who so much as live close to them. Then they're moral abominations who constantly abuse their position in the state for utterly banal reasons (they've -literally- ordered people arrested because their children did better on a test in school than their children). And yet, fantastic reputation. But look up articles actually about them, and you will quickly realize what monsters these people are. To judge the quality and trustworthiness of the UK police force, I encourage you to check out the exams they have officers take before entering, and realize that many officers actually fail these tests once or twice before joining. Let's just not pretend that half these people are even smart enough to know the difference between acting trustworthy and not, because that actually requires a very, very, very basic level of intelligence that clearly is not required and in many cases not present for those joining the police force. Sometimes you can explain this through politics. For instance, US people often have a good opinion of the NHS. The NHS ! Yes, really, that NHS. WTF ? Ok, they don't charge much, true. They do seem to get accused constantly of not doing much else either and in cases ... they deserve that criticism. But OK, the US has a problem the NHS does not impose on UK'ers. So sure let's focus on the good. (Although what baffles me a bit about UK people is that they still think that something like 20 pounds or so is a lot for complex medical procedures, enough to convince many of them not to do them) But many, many things in Europe are incredibly bad. Very little criticism, leading to good reputations which are, in quite a few cases, rather less accurate.

bassman9000 8y ago

If I were harassed and bullied I'd not feel very free, but rather anxious, threatened, depressed. I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological. We've reached peak Poe's law.