Did we though? Unfortunately outside the US and a handful of other places free speech doesn't seem to be valued that much, often it's even viewed as a threat (and I'm not talking about authoritarian regimes). It's a double-edged sword to be fair, enabling misinformation and chaos.
Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/e-s-v-a....
Not that I'm a particularly huge fan of some of the opinions that some of these people tend to express (to be fair in this case it's something that Muslims/their holy books acknowledge as well so it shouldn't be controversial at all...) but the whole idea of "balancing the rights to freedom of religion and expression" just seems extremely repulsive to me.
Of course this is a spectrum but having an (effectively) immutable constitution that guarantees freedom of speech is certainly worth something.
> spectrum
The spectrum is far too often simply colored by the politics one's interested in, i.e. Free Speech is simply a tool to attack another and provide justification for their own opinions. Not an actual Free Speech position.
I don't believe anyone truly has a Free Speech Absolutist position. It's always just a tool. When the speech is against you, everyone conveniently turns against it.
Anyone who defended that isn't even close to a free-speech absolutist.
>I don't believe anyone truly has a Free Speech Absolutist position
I do. It's what makes America great. Erosions like that jewish law are slowly weakening that.
You should be allowed to say whatever you want about White people, straight people, men, Christians, etc. and I should be able to say whatever I want about jews.
You just don't want to acknowledge such a stance is possible because the people you agree with are in power, allow the speech you agree with, and censor the speech you don't disagree with, so you stand with nothing to gain by supporting free speech. That's a personal choice to have no integrity.
>Can you convince me of this? Because it's not my impression.
In my country (Macedonia), our then-Prime Minister a few years ago during the height of the pandemic, spoke (broken) English and funnily pronounced vaccines, something like "vac-signs" (or "vaksajns" in Macedonian). A guy made a website called vaksajns.com or .mk (can't remember the exact details) and if you visited it, it automatically redirected you to the Ministry of Health covid watch page. Police showed up at his door and he was taken to the police station to be questioned. This would never happen in a true free speech country like the United States.
Free speech in principle is enshrined in the Macedonian constitution as a fundamental right (I studied law), but there are many hate speech laws (we have a complex ethnic structure and wars based on ethnic sides), making it so that free speech isn't a thing (I studies law, if I need to clarify once more.)
If you criticize someone based on their religion, ethnicity, or whatever else that they can't control, you will be fined, or worse (although this does get selectively applied, mainly based on how much political power the group has which the offended member is a part of. Roma people have no political power in this country, so this very rarely happens when they do get offended(I don't think it has ever happened to be honet))- this does not happen in the US where free speech rains supreme (to clarify, i don't think we should go around criticizing people based on things they cant control, *but once you start limiting things the people can and cannot say, you don't have free speech* in your nationstate, Period.)
And what's funny, nobody talks about freedom of speech. Ever. Every political party and politicians of opposing political parties, and even their supporters have seemed to implicitly agree that it's somehow not an issue at all that the all-good state can tell you what's right and what's wrong, and what can be said and what can not be said.
Another funny story. At around the same time when the previous story takes place, the government made an official dictionary of the Macedonian language, supposed to contain all of the known words, BUT excluded all of the offensive words. Talk about state censorship...
What I described, more or less applies to the entire EU. Hate speech laws reign supreme in Europe. Asian countries do not have a good track record of freedom of speech, to say the least, either. I'm not sure about Africa, though I'm sure, that in the countries that do have a stable government, things aren't dissimilar when compared to European and Asian countries.
I've also lived in the US, and I've observed that it's the only place in the world where free speech is, actually, free.
Anybody who disagrees hasn't lived in a country other than the US *and* experienced life there. No, going to a country for 3 months back in '98 when you were in college and only going to parties does not, alas, constitute experiencing life in that country - at best you experienced party life (if you were not blackout drunk), which is a very tiny subset of life.
And to the Europeans and other people except those who live in the US, trust me, you do not know, what free speech feels like, not until you can experience the true freedom to express yourself like you can in the US. If you've done extensive research on this topic, you may actually know what it is, but not the actual indescribable feeling.
Also, have you ever heard of what happened in Tiananmen square, in Hong Kong a few years ago, in Prague a few centuries ago, in Kent State in the US (mind you, one of these was taken much, much, inexplainably much more seriously than the other events.) But I guess you haven't, considering you're asking people to convince you that free speech is not valued that much in countries outside the US.
I suppose that's why a silly Canadian like me wouldn't know much about other countries. We just don't have free speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_Canad...
You do not seem truly interested though. My guess is that you do not feel that your particular speech/expressions are under threat.
You're speaking of Canada, the same country where the (Canadian) Bill of Rights can be suspended (which to begin with, this document is not taken very seriously) along with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which is present in your constitution, and free speech with it, for the "good of the people" of course... Yep, you're right, you don't have meaningful free speech, nor do you have that many rights compared to the US.
Oh, and, you're Prime Minister is also basically an absolute monarch compared to the US President, given how few meaningful checks there are limiting his power.
I admit, a few years ago I was naive about just how free Canada is, but once I started reading your statutes a lot of things started surprising me, in a not-so-good way.
(Now, don't take this the wrong way, you're still a freer country than fricking North Korea, but relatively speaking, for a Western democracy, you just ain't that free, bud.)
Nowhere does
American freedom of speech aka "you can literally be fired and see your life ruined for having a political opinion but you won't go to jail so be thankful"
The 1st Amendment guarantees you the right to say whatever the fuck you want, with some very specific caveats concerning disturbing the peace, but freedom is power and power is responsibility.
How is the US different from any other country in history in that regard?
You can be in North Korea and freely criticize the government, you're just not gonna be "free from the consequences".
Turns out, being protected from the 'consequences' is what actually matters.
Boe Jiden will probably sue you for defamation.
The courts will very likely give him the win, slamming you with a hefty fine and perhaps more such as prison time depending on the damages your speech incurred.
You can say Boe Jiden is a purple Martian born in Backwaterstan again, so long as you're fine going through that rigmarole again though you'll probably face even heftier penalties.
You are in no way prevented from voicing your thoughts because the 1st Amendment guarantees your right to do so. You can only ever be prosecuted for the consequences, such as the fallout from making false statements.
