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Doing so would probably require amending the First Amendment, which I think would do more harm than good. But Germany seems to have implemented such a system wi

by iameli 6y ago

Doing so would probably require amending the First Amendment, which I think would do more harm than good. But Germany seems to have implemented such a system without becoming a dystopian hellscape. Seems a pretty nice place to live.

Cu3PO42 6y ago
I may be biased, having lived here all my life, but I would agree, it is a pretty nice place to live. To be frank, there's few countries that I would even consider moving to.
s9w 6y ago
Try publicly criticizing government politics (especially the 2015 kind) and watch your life be "cancelled" in Germany. Dystopian hellscape comes pretty close.
tgv 6y ago
TBH, there are a lot of other factors that make Germany a decent place. A less polarized society is one of them, a representative parliament another. IMO, it takes more than a law to keep it civilized.
croddin 6y ago
There are already many things that don't count as free speech based on case law, if something like that were to happen in the U.S. it probably wouldn't be an amendment rather a major supreme court case.
Leherenn 6y ago
Not an American, so feel free to correct me. It seems to me that there are already plenty of laws that breach the 1st amendment if you interpret speech as absolutely any speech (e.g. death threats, libel, ...). And it is constitutional because the current interpretation of speech is narrower than "everything". Doesn't that mean that, if there were the will to do it, free speech could be reinterpreted (by the supreme court?) to not include hate speech, thus not requiring to change the 1st amendment?
- iameli 6y ago
  You're correct about the mechanism through which that could happen — if the Supreme Court decided it so, they could certainly narrow the first amendment protections for hate speech. But it's incredibly unlikely that would happen any time soon, as it would be in contradiction of many many years of free speech jurisprudence — not an expert but Brandenburg v. Ohio seems to get brought up a lot in this context.
- openasocket 6y ago
  Yes and no. Yes, the supreme court is the ultimate interpreter of the constitution, and could theoretically decide that the 1st amendment does not cover hate speech. But there's so much precedent around this that it is profoundly unlikely. If there really was the will to do it, it would be by passing a constitutional amendment. If you aren't familiar, there is a process by which the constitution can be modified, and this can be done to completely rewrite or contradict the current text. But it's a very difficult hurdle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...
f1refly 6y ago
Depends on what you want to do. Cancel culture is alive and well in germany, we have official and legal discrimination against men across the country and the whole stuff is becoming more and more cemented into laws with laws like the ones the parent comment spoke about

by iameli 6y ago

Cu3PO42 6y ago

I may be biased, having lived here all my life, but I would agree, it is a pretty nice place to live. To be frank, there's few countries that I would even consider moving to.

s9w 6y ago

Try publicly criticizing government politics (especially the 2015 kind) and watch your life be "cancelled" in Germany. Dystopian hellscape comes pretty close.

tgv 6y ago

TBH, there are a lot of other factors that make Germany a decent place. A less polarized society is one of them, a representative parliament another. IMO, it takes more than a law to keep it civilized.

croddin 6y ago

There are already many things that don't count as free speech based on case law, if something like that were to happen in the U.S. it probably wouldn't be an amendment rather a major supreme court case.

Leherenn 6y ago

Not an American, so feel free to correct me. It seems to me that there are already plenty of laws that breach the 1st amendment if you interpret speech as absolutely any speech (e.g. death threats, libel, ...). And it is constitutional because the current interpretation of speech is narrower than "everything". Doesn't that mean that, if there were the will to do it, free speech could be reinterpreted (by the supreme court?) to not include hate speech, thus not requiring to change the 1st amendment?

iameli 6y ago
You're correct about the mechanism through which that could happen — if the Supreme Court decided it so, they could certainly narrow the first amendment protections for hate speech. But it's incredibly unlikely that would happen any time soon, as it would be in contradiction of many many years of free speech jurisprudence — not an expert but Brandenburg v. Ohio seems to get brought up a lot in this context.
openasocket 6y ago
Yes and no. Yes, the supreme court is the ultimate interpreter of the constitution, and could theoretically decide that the 1st amendment does not cover hate speech. But there's so much precedent around this that it is profoundly unlikely. If there really was the will to do it, it would be by passing a constitutional amendment. If you aren't familiar, there is a process by which the constitution can be modified, and this can be done to completely rewrite or contradict the current text. But it's a very difficult hurdle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_United_States_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Unit...

f1refly 6y ago

Depends on what you want to do. Cancel culture is alive and well in germany, we have official and legal discrimination against men across the country and the whole stuff is becoming more and more cemented into laws with laws like the ones the parent comment spoke about