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> By and large we have the rights we want. If you have only "the rights we want" then your rights are subject to the whims of the majority. In America our tra

> By and large we have the rights we want. If you have only "the rights we want" then your rights are subject to the whims of the majority. In America our tradition of civil liberties protected the Illinois Nazis' freedom of speech as they marched through Skokie, celebrating the enemies of America who, within living memory, had waged war and killed millions of our citizens. The exercise meant as an affront to our nation and everything it values. We celebrated it, because if our worst enemies can have rights we don't like, then everyone can have rights. In the UK, you can't even tolerate Dankula, and people think it's wonderful and good that he was fined for the nazi pug incident, and no one has really has rights unless they're popular. You'd think incidents like that would wave a few red flags, given that your nations' checkered moral history includes multi-century exercises in the deliberate oppression of your religious enemies.

simonh 6y ago
I agree the Dankula issue was a mistake. I’m not saying our system is perfect, is yours? But by and large there is actually a pretty strong consensus, even across political lines, on our system of civil liberties and protections and I don’t see anything like the same level of consensus in the US.
- fennecfoxen 6y ago
  It is regrettable that we do not have a consensus in favor of rights, and that so many people are seeking to use the law to make their critics shut up, in a variety of arenas — whether Trump-huggers trying to revoke the license of critical news media (such a "license" being a concept that doesn't even exist) or state run school districts disciplining kids for wearing a MAGA hat, or any one of a number of university speech codes. But in that respect, at least, our law is working as intended, the founding fathers' forethought centuries ago still supplying a recourse in the courts when the politically weak are oppressed by the powerful. In the UK, the courts are an official apparatus of the powerful's oppression, and the consensus is that this is how it should be.

simonh 6y ago

I agree the Dankula issue was a mistake. I’m not saying our system is perfect, is yours? But by and large there is actually a pretty strong consensus, even across political lines, on our system of civil liberties and protections and I don’t see anything like the same level of consensus in the US.

fennecfoxen 6y ago
It is regrettable that we do not have a consensus in favor of rights, and that so many people are seeking to use the law to make their critics shut up, in a variety of arenas — whether Trump-huggers trying to revoke the license of critical news media (such a "license" being a concept that doesn't even exist) or state run school districts disciplining kids for wearing a MAGA hat, or any one of a number of university speech codes. But in that respect, at least, our law is working as intended, the founding fathers' forethought centuries ago still supplying a recourse in the courts when the politically weak are oppressed by the powerful. In the UK, the courts are an official apparatus of the powerful's oppression, and the consensus is that this is how it should be.