3 ms·

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Persona_non_grata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Persona_non_grata Yeap. Moving the goalposts. You said

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Persona_non_grata http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving#Persona_non_grata Yeap. Moving the goalposts. You said "The right to speak freely against the government". If you said "free speech" in general, yes, you'd be right. But you said "speaking out against the government". Right now, you've only shown that the US is somehow better because you're allowed to freely deny the Holocaust. Let's put your "god hates fags" guy in the same category. Such a free country! See, my point is not that these anti-holocaust-denying laws are silly, they are and I wish they'd go away. The point is, how does your "free speech" protect you when you've actually got something to say. So far you've demonstrated American citizens have the right to inane and offensive yelling, that doesn't actually speak out in any effective way against the government. Let's see some real examples, where someone exercised their right to free speech of something that actually made the government actually really uncomfortable that actually really led to change, as well as a similar example where this was not possible in a EU country because its people didn't have the right. And there's been enough examples, also in the US, of people gagged (with legal rulings) because of what they would have to say would make the government uncomfortable. In practice, your right is the Freedom to Scream Dumb Shit. Don't delude yourself it's actually anything more than that. Maybe "Freedom to play court jester" sounds a bit more forgiving. I'm not saying the EU-"no holocaust denying"-countries are any better, but it's not "free speech" if it only protects raging lunatics.

maratd 14y ago
What goal posts? I was summarizing the constitution. If my summary is too vague for you, here is the actual text: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Then you spend the entire post ranting about what can really be summarized as: > In practice, your right is the Freedom to Scream Dumb Shit. Ok. Are you the arbiter of what is and is not "dumb shit"? Because as long as there is somebody deciding what is and is not dumb, then you don't have the capacity to speak your mind. You merely have the capacity to speak what everybody else is already thinking. And the point wasn't that much of Europe is some sort of third-world cesspool. It isn't. The point was that the US Constitution provides protections which are not clearly codified in the EU, beside the right to carry arms. Even though the EU is a modern invention, while the US Constitution is the oldest constitution still in use.

maratd 14y ago

What goal posts? I was summarizing the constitution. If my summary is too vague for you, here is the actual text: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Then you spend the entire post ranting about what can really be summarized as: > In practice, your right is the Freedom to Scream Dumb Shit. Ok. Are you the arbiter of what is and is not "dumb shit"? Because as long as there is somebody deciding what is and is not dumb, then you don't have the capacity to speak your mind. You merely have the capacity to speak what everybody else is already thinking. And the point wasn't that much of Europe is some sort of third-world cesspool. It isn't. The point was that the US Constitution provides protections which are not clearly codified in the EU, beside the right to carry arms. Even though the EU is a modern invention, while the US Constitution is the oldest constitution still in use.