[Wutang]

Was hate-reading on Gawker (bad habit of mine) and I noticed a debate between one person who is American and another that if I had to guess was from Australia but was most definitely non-American. The two were commenting on an article about some viral video where a little girl was screaming at some street preacher that was talking about homosexuality, quite negatively as expected. Both the people agreed the guy was being an idiot but a huge fight erupted between the two of them since the American thought the guy had a right to say what he was saying despite thinking his opinions were vile while the Australian believed the guy should have some sort of legal penalty applied to him since what he was saying was hate speech and should not be protected under freedom of speech.

The Australian kept harping on about how the fact that America protects hate speech while other modern nations do not was a huge flaw of the US. The US has many contentious issues with people disagreeing on just about everything but one point of agreement that spans across the entire political spectrum is that people should be allowed to express whatever they wish to express without having the legal hammer dropped on them. Hell, even a good number of SJWs will at least give lip service to that idea. They might be willing to ruin your career and personal reputation but at least a good number of them aren't going to call in Uncle Sam to curb stomp you. The Australian pointed out this as another example of how American is stuck in the Middle Ages socially compared to other Western nations and how we somehow need to get with the times.

So my question to the non-US based posters on the forum is: do you think the Australian's opinions on free speech generally represent your country's view on what sort of thoughts are allowed to be expressed?

[HighSpeed_LowDrag]

I'm from Canada, and the answer is an emphatic yes. I'd bet Canada's hate speech laws can go even beyond that of Australia.

The one thing I will always envy about the United States is the First and Second Amendments.

[Aquiles_Baesta_Parada]

(07-24-2015 06:55 PM)HighSpeed_LowDrag Wrote:  

The one thing I will always envy about the United States is the First and Second Amendments.

[BortimusPrime]

As many similarities as there are, Europeans still have some weird ideas. And weird toilets. There was this German-designed one in a Prague hotel where the bowl had an elevated part so that when you shit it would plop onto that bit instead of in the water. The only purpose I could see for it was if you swallowed some jewelry you'd be able to pick it out of the shit more easily.

[Foolsgo1d]

I believe in free speech. I also believe in punching someone in the face should they cross a line.

Westboro picketing funerals. Muslim hate preachers and their followers. Gays who flaunt shit in your face. Women who scream at you, calling you a rapist and other slogans.

The same can be said for someone who is pro gay and see's a religious guy hollering how sinful his lifestyle is. I don't agree with either but both of them have their own points.

Disgraceful behaviour should not be tolerated.

[zombiejimmorrison]

The greatest amendment the founding fathers of America codified, the greatest idea that came from the enlightenment.

Without the freedom to communicate your ideas, the person's stopping you has a boot to your throat. Anti-free speech is the threat of a gun or guillotine for having ideas that go against the mainstream. Canada's hate speech laws are despicable, these laws can be used against you even if you have valid opinions for example Roosh is being petitioned to be banned because some feminists are offended at what he will say. Sure you will get the Southern Baptist Church types, but that's the price you pay for having a free society, in any regards they're shamed by everyone and no one wants to associate with them.

The Internet is also a platform for free speech, imagine it being censored by a government, it would be horrible, this place wouldn't exist.

[sixsix]

(07-24-2015 07:09 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

As many similarities as there are, Europeans still have some weird ideas. And weird toilets. There was this German-designed one in a Prague hotel where the bowl had an elevated part so that when you shit it would plop onto that bit instead of in the water. The only purpose I could see for it was if you swallowed some jewelry you'd be able to pick it out of the shit more easily.

What the fuck.

I hate those 'normal' toilets where a good shit yields a water-shit-splash against your ass and balls. Who the hell wants their own shit against his skin? Just put some paper on the elevated part and it flushes straight off.

It's a basic human right, man. Unfortunately, we have both versions here.

[BortimusPrime]

(07-24-2015 08:07 PM)sixsix Wrote:  

(07-24-2015 07:09 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  

As many similarities as there are, Europeans still have some weird ideas. And weird toilets. There was this German-designed one in a Prague hotel where the bowl had an elevated part so that when you shit it would plop onto that bit instead of in the water. The only purpose I could see for it was if you swallowed some jewelry you'd be able to pick it out of the shit more easily.

What the fuck.

I hate those 'normal' toilets where a good shit yields a water-shit-splash against your ass and balls. Who the hell wants their own shit against his skin? Just put some paper on the elevated part and it flushes straight off.

It's a basic human right, man. Unfortunately, we have both versions here.

Toilet culture shock is a real thing, stop triggering me!

[chagataev]

I think that America's strong protection of freedom of speech is the absolute best thing about it v. the rest of the developed world.

[zaqan]

And to think they originally thought the Bill of Rights was redundant.

[LeeEnfield303]

Guess ya'll have been asleep the last decade or so. Those amendments are coming to an end.

[Asnluver]

Without freedom of speech you will soon lose the freedom to think, and without the freedom of thought, one is truly not free.

[Ivan_]

Ugh

[Asnluver]

I know a lot of kids from university that suck Toronto off but these guys are pretty liberal. All they talk about is how Toronto is a good time and how they want to visit it. I am starting to see how it can be a bastion for left wingers.

[Dusty]

This Canadian journalist is facing potential jail time for calling Alberta Human Rights Commission "crazy."

http://sputniknews.com/us/20150724/1024981139.html

[Chewbacon]

American freedom of speech is one of the few redeeming qualities about the country. 2nd amendment freedoms run amok, while due process is essentially gone (both legal and cultural), and the police can't be restrained. So essentially, the crazy feminists persecute everyone, while the pure crazies kill everyone, and the police put away perfectly harmless civilians.

[Eskhander]

British friends of mine always say the US is close to becoming a police state because our city cops are absurdly armed.

I just point out they have no freedom of speech.

[Asnluver]

The UK is a police state. No right to bare arms, the amount of surveillance and the lack of self defense laws.

[T and A Man]

As an Australian, I'm embarrassed if that proponent was also Australian. I mean this country is as anto 2nd amendment as you can get. it takes a really englightened mind to understand those first two amendments. It's not about, nor promotes civilian abuse.

It's about disarming government if they need to be removed.

Once you have the premise of 'hated speech' should be illegal, all you have to do is have an arbitrary person/group decree dissenting voices are hateful, and then they are silenced. The nature and content is immaterial, is appeasing the sponge heads who march in line with what an authority figure tells them.

To not be upset about what anyone else says is an individual choice, and I believe the government should not have a role in policing this, only physical violence, or property rights where hate speech is ostracised from private property.

Put it this way, internet 'hate speech', guys get it much, much worse. A guy showed me his sons playing GTA V online recently, and the insults over the headsets was phenominal. If anything, insults are held back against females. But men are conditioned to let it slide, i.e. real mental strength.

if people aren't strong wnogh to let insults slide, they're not strong enogh to run a business, travel overseas.... vote. They're children and should be regarded as such.

[captain_shane]

I may not like what someone is saying, but I'll die fighting to make sure they have the right to say it.

[Vacancier Permanent]

Is the fundamental right of freedom of speech still alive in this "modern" western/anglosphere world?

Can you state your true opinions without any fear of it causing you to lose your job, get banned/blacklisted from a community for life from an industry or losing big fat contracts, getting arrested, deported and or killed for your views/thoughts?

Can you can question anything, any topic, especially History and historical events and "facts" without being taboo topics? And as a result of daring to question taboo topics, not risk getting expelled from university, fired from your job, your business closed, you getting deported, arrested and killed for it?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then yes there is freedom of speech.

If you truthfully cannot, then freedom of speech is a mere illusion. What you do have is a controlled frame of thoughts that those in power and in a position of power merely allows you to have.

[Paracelsus]

The Australian had rather no right to criticise the American when the US is indirectly subsidising its defence budget. The largest plank in Australia's military strategy is essentially "Hold out until the US arrives." The only reason someone like Indonesia hasn't picked up a few thousand square kilometres of the Northern Territory is because of the ANZUS treaty. Because of the nuclear umbrella, we only have to spend a piddling amount of our money defending an area roughly the size of the United States and of which only about 5-10% is actually useful for anything.

Australia does envy the US's right to free speech, so much so that, in a strictly legal sense, our own highest court -- the High Court, naturally -- has recognised an implied (not explicit) right to freedom of comment on political matters into our Constitution. It's a pale, shitty version of freedom of speech, but there we have it; the Australian Constitution looks more like a public service manual of instructions than an inspiring "We hold these truths to be self-evident" sort of a document, so you come to expect it.

Robust societies can handle freedom of speech: either your delicate orchid political system is strong enough to withstand random fuckwits shouting epithets against it or it wasn't worth putting inside a legal greenhouse to begin with. Christianity got the point in roughly the 1890s or so when they started to repeal laws around criminal prosecution for blasphemy: it recognised a religion had to inspire people to join it. You can measure the insecurity of a society (or that society's powerbrokers) by the extent to which it prohibits criticism or examination of that society - exhibit A being China.

[Phoenix]

(07-24-2015 06:53 PM)Wutang Wrote:  

The Australian kept harping on about how the fact that America protects hate speech while other modern nations do not was a huge flaw of the US. ...
The Australian pointed out this as another example of how American is stuck in the Middle Ages socially compared to other Western nations and how we somehow need to get with the times.

So my question to the non-US based posters on the forum is: do you think the Australian's opinions on free speech generally represent your country's view on what sort of thoughts are allowed to be expressed?

Next time say to him "haa baat ya go shut the faack up and wack off to QandA ya hipsta faggot cunt'. It's Australian, he'll understand.

His views aren't indicative of Australia as a whole. I'm guessing he was typing this from his new mac whilst sipping a latte with an aloof look on his face in some Melbourne laneway cafe whilst wearing his skinny ankle-hugging jeans and scarf and wierd hipster shoes and blank-lens I'm-sophisticated glasses with his hair boofed up like a right straight-faggot hipster know-nothing dismissive arrogant douchebag. Most Australians are very pro freedom of speech, and many envy the US constitutional rights, of which Australia has almost none.

[WanderingSoul]

(07-24-2015 11:14 PM)Vacancier Permanent Wrote:  

Is the fundamental right of freedom of speech still alive in this "modern" western/anglosphere world?

Can you state your true opinions without any fear of it causing you to lose your job, get banned/blacklisted from a community for life from an industry or losing big fat contracts, getting arrested, deported and or killed for your views/thoughts?

Can you can question anything, any topic, especially History and historical events and "facts" without being taboo topics? And as a result of daring to question taboo topics, not risk getting expelled from university, fired from your job, your business closed, you getting deported, arrested and killed for it?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then yes there is freedom of speech.

If you truthfully cannot, then freedom of speech is a mere illusion. What you do have is a controlled frame of thoughts that those in power and in a position of power merely allows you to have.

You obviously don't understand what "freedom of speech" means. You absolutely are free to speak your mind in the US, and people are free to disagree with you, and businesses are free to fire you.

Freedom of speech doesn't protect you from all repercussions from what you say, it protects you for being jailed for it. Other people also have certain freedoms which they can exercise should they wish.

if you work for McDonald's, and say all McDonald's customers are fat, disgusting fucks, then freedom of speech should not protect you from being fired. It should protect you from being imprisoned.

And who has been deported, arrested or killed due to your idea that the US has no freedom of speech?

[The Beast1]

I have yet to ever get into a freedom of speech debate. Certainly have had many 2nd amendment ones especially with a certain law school student bent on outlawing all weapons. He was a tier 3 idiot and i hope he never finds a job.

For me, freedom of speech is the most important right. It's the right to say an unpopular opinion. When someone says,"hate speech shouldn't be protected" ask the person back who defines hate speech?

They'll answer some BS, but say what if i gain the support of the military and then define hate speech as whatever i want it to be like claiming that all Muslim/Christian/Jewish worship material is hate speech.

Oh you don't have any weapons to fight the tyranny? Don't worry, i'll come through you in my re-education camps after i get done with the religious zealots.

It saddens me how Europeans can be so foolish sometimes.