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Nowadays, most Western countries with anti-blasphemy laws on the books still have those laws precisely because they are never enforced. If they were enforced, t
by Mediterraneo10 6y ago
Nowadays, most Western countries with anti-blasphemy laws on the books still have those laws precisely because they are never enforced. If they were enforced, there would be an outcry sufficient to have them immediately overturned.
It is like how the monarch in many a constitutional monarchy today technically still has power, but any actual attempt to use that power would probably lead to the end of that monarchy, at least in its current structure.
- buran77 6y agoI think laws like blasphemy laws and ones against hate speech are mostly there to serve as a last resort in cases that can't reasonably be defended by anyone. There's a lot of grey area that's hard to define very clearly in law. So the laws generic blankets in order to cover a lot of options, then it's left to the prosecution to only take action when the offense is really egregious.
- eznzt 6y ago2018: "In Europe, Speech Is an Alienable Right: [the European Court of Human Rights] upheld an Austrian woman’s conviction for disparaging the Prophet Muhammad." https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-free-speech-criticize-muhammad-echr-ruled/574174/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-fr...