5 ms·

US-style absolutism about freedom of speech comes from hard earned lessons about the other options being much worse. It seems that much of the world has forgot

US-style absolutism about freedom of speech comes from hard earned lessons about the other options being much worse. It seems that much of the world has forgotten or willfully ignore these lessons. The cost of freedom is that people will use it to do things you don't like. Freedom isn't necessary for a society to function, lots of societies function without it, and have for most of human history. Given the choice though, I prefer to live in a society that chooses to maximize liberty. Without freedom of speech, all other liberties are irrelevant. There's a reason why it's the first amendment.

ohgodplsno 4y ago
>comes from hard earned lessons about the other options being much worse. Your country is barely 300 years old and has had a single constitution for its whole existence. The US has learned _no_ lessons through its existence. It's a country founded by colons who didn't want to pay taxes to the UK. The amount of lessons the US can give the world is about... none.
- deleted 4y ago
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mschuster91 4y ago
> US-style absolutism about freedom of speech comes from hard earned lessons about the other options being much worse. I'm German. My ancestors should have shown the world just enough on where not restricting hate speech and conspiracy crap leads: into murder, into genocide, into the dissolution of democracy itself. It's astonishing that the US hasn't realized this as well after Jan 6th. You all don't realize just how fucking close you came and how thin the edge is you all are standing on.
- claytongulick 4y ago
  I suspect that you may have learned the wrong lessons. In the history of German regimes, perhaps take a look at the degree to which each one suppressed free expression, and think about which were better.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > I suspect that you may have learned the wrong lessons. Holocaust denial is banned in the majority of European countries, and at least in some countries Nazi symbolics are banned as well [1]. I live maybe an hour away from the KZ Dachau and have visited it. It's hard to have any other stance than "antisemitism, racism and other similar discrimination must be banned at all costs" when you personally see the evidence just how depraved humans can be. Let humans go unchecked and you get anything from online mobs driving trans people to suicide (Kiwifarms) over murder (Heather Heyer) and lone wolf terrorism (Christchurch) and finally, a putsch attempt. Then, once a strongman/dictator has taken over, you will eventually see ethnic cleansings and genocide (see e.g. Russia's Ukraine invasion). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial
    - claytongulick 4y ago
      While liberty does indeed carry a steep price tag, the alternative has been shown throughout human history to be horrifically worse.
    - philippejara 4y ago
      Banning holocaust denial didn't stop germany and other european countries from having sizeable neo-nazi groups and to a wider extent white supremacy groups
- philippejara 4y ago
  how close to what? lets say the guys storming the capitol actually manage to do whatever they wanted to do there, then what? democracy is not a king of the hill game, they'd just be sieged out by the police/military if it came to it. The only thing you ancestors showed us is that people like scapegoats when their economy is down the gutter, demoralized and in an era where war and overt systematic violence against ethnic minorities isn't uncommon.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > they'd just be sieged out by the police/military if it came to it You really think that the police, especially federal police, would have disobeyed a direct request from the President asking them to stand down? There were only two completely random things that prevented an utter disaster at Jan 6th: Eugene Goodman, the brave cop redirecting the mob away just mere minutes after the Senate chamber was sealed [1], likely saving the Senators' lives, and Bobby Engel from the Secret Service [2], who reportedly resisted physical violence by the President himself and did not drive him to the Capitol as requested. Had Trump been at the Capitol, I have absolutely zero doubt he would have crowned himself President that day - and that neither the Republican leadership nor the courts would have objected to this. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/goodman-capitol-police-video/2021/01/13/08ab3eb6-546b-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/goodman-c... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/trump-lunged-at-secret-service-agent-in-rage-when-told-he-couldnt-go-to-capitol-on-jan-6-aide-testifies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/trump-lunged-at-secret-servi...
    - pclmulqdq 4y ago
      The capitol police doesn't report to the president. They absolutely would have laid siege to the place at the orders of their boss, Nancy Pelosi. Also, you should check your sources (or rather, your sources' sources): there's a lot of fake news out about 1/6, a lot of it from "reliable" sources. The second story there is single-sourced from someone who wasn't in Trump's car whose story was disproven by someone who was actually in the car. The same outlets have been repeating the lie that one of the Trumpkins killed a capitol police officer with a fire extinguisher.
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ohgodplsno 4y ago

>comes from hard earned lessons about the other options being much worse. Your country is barely 300 years old and has had a single constitution for its whole existence. The US has learned _no_ lessons through its existence. It's a country founded by colons who didn't want to pay taxes to the UK. The amount of lessons the US can give the world is about... none.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mschuster91 4y ago

> US-style absolutism about freedom of speech comes from hard earned lessons about the other options being much worse. I'm German. My ancestors should have shown the world just enough on where not restricting hate speech and conspiracy crap leads: into murder, into genocide, into the dissolution of democracy itself. It's astonishing that the US hasn't realized this as well after Jan 6th. You all don't realize just how fucking close you came and how thin the edge is you all are standing on.

claytongulick 4y ago
I suspect that you may have learned the wrong lessons. In the history of German regimes, perhaps take a look at the degree to which each one suppressed free expression, and think about which were better.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > I suspect that you may have learned the wrong lessons. Holocaust denial is banned in the majority of European countries, and at least in some countries Nazi symbolics are banned as well [1]. I live maybe an hour away from the KZ Dachau and have visited it. It's hard to have any other stance than "antisemitism, racism and other similar discrimination must be banned at all costs" when you personally see the evidence just how depraved humans can be. Let humans go unchecked and you get anything from online mobs driving trans people to suicide (Kiwifarms) over murder (Heather Heyer) and lone wolf terrorism (Christchurch) and finally, a putsch attempt. Then, once a strongman/dictator has taken over, you will eventually see ethnic cleansings and genocide (see e.g. Russia's Ukraine invasion). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_Holocaust_denial
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    While liberty does indeed carry a steep price tag, the alternative has been shown throughout human history to be horrifically worse.
  - philippejara 4y ago
    Banning holocaust denial didn't stop germany and other european countries from having sizeable neo-nazi groups and to a wider extent white supremacy groups
philippejara 4y ago
how close to what? lets say the guys storming the capitol actually manage to do whatever they wanted to do there, then what? democracy is not a king of the hill game, they'd just be sieged out by the police/military if it came to it. The only thing you ancestors showed us is that people like scapegoats when their economy is down the gutter, demoralized and in an era where war and overt systematic violence against ethnic minorities isn't uncommon.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > they'd just be sieged out by the police/military if it came to it You really think that the police, especially federal police, would have disobeyed a direct request from the President asking them to stand down? There were only two completely random things that prevented an utter disaster at Jan 6th: Eugene Goodman, the brave cop redirecting the mob away just mere minutes after the Senate chamber was sealed [1], likely saving the Senators' lives, and Bobby Engel from the Secret Service [2], who reportedly resisted physical violence by the President himself and did not drive him to the Capitol as requested. Had Trump been at the Capitol, I have absolutely zero doubt he would have crowned himself President that day - and that neither the Republican leadership nor the courts would have objected to this. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/goodman-capitol-police-video/2021/01/13/08ab3eb6-546b-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/goodman-c... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/trump-lunged-at-secret-service-agent-in-rage-when-told-he-couldnt-go-to-capitol-on-jan-6-aide-testifies.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/28/trump-lunged-at-secret-servi...
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    The capitol police doesn't report to the president. They absolutely would have laid siege to the place at the orders of their boss, Nancy Pelosi. Also, you should check your sources (or rather, your sources' sources): there's a lot of fake news out about 1/6, a lot of it from "reliable" sources. The second story there is single-sourced from someone who wasn't in Trump's car whose story was disproven by someone who was actually in the car. The same outlets have been repeating the lie that one of the Trumpkins killed a capitol police officer with a fire extinguisher.

deleted 4y ago

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