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Comment by quirkafleeg | Hacker News Reader

> No, they didn't.

Well, yeah. The point is neither does Germany today.

> In East Germany and Nazi Germany, people were persecuted and killed without being brought to trial and facing justice.

Whereas being arrested, tried and merely jailed for something you say, as happens in Germany (and Austria), is your idea of justice and not being persecuted?

BTW, don't try to make out this is an argument about today's Germany being as unsophisticated and brutal as Nazi Germany or East Germany. Obviously it isn't.

This is solely about the principle of free speech: you either believe in someone's right to say what they want or you don't. You can't just sometimes believe in it.

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> Well, yeah. The point is neither does Germany today.

According to the definition of the Declaration of Human Rights, they actually do.

> Whereas being arrested, tried and merely jailed for something you say, as happens in Germany (and Austria), is your idea of justice and not being persecuted?

Freedom of speech alone doesn't guarantee freedom, liberty or justice.

> This is solely about the principle of free speech: you either believe in someone's right to say what they want or you don't. You can't just sometimes believe in it.

That's the problem; we have different definition of "freedom of speech". The US interprets "freedom of speech" according to the definition given by the Bill of Rights, while the rest of the world use the definition of Declaration of Human Rights.

> According to the definition of the Declaration of Human Rights, they actually do.

It doesn't matter how many times you mention the "Declaration of Human Rights", they actually do not.

> Freedom of speech alone doesn't guarantee freedom, liberty or justice.

I didn't say it did, I asked if you thought being jailed simply for something you say is justice or not being persecuted?

> That's the problem; we have different definition of "freedom of speech".

Actually, there's no problem, because it's really simple: if you do not believe in the right of people to say things you may not happen to like, then you do not believe in free speech.

Jailing people for things they have said is self-evidently not allowing free speech.

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