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Comment by AmericanChopper | Hacker News Reader

No country in the world has the same level of rights as America.

Not even remotely true. America is ahead of some countries in some aspects and behind in several others.

You're not saying a different thing here.. even though the parent comment can be read to imply that America has the highest level, they didn't explicitly say so.. </nitpick>

Sorry, correction: The USA guarantees its citizens more rights and to a higher standard than any other country on earth.

My original reply to you is just as relevant. This isn't true.

It absolutely is true. The US has the strongest free speech and freedom of association laws in the world. There is no country in the world that has anything that even comes close to the protection offered by the Bill of Rights. The copyright law Europe passed last week would require a constitutional amendment to be legal in the US.

And America doesn't protect an individual's right to privacy, unlike the EU and Japan which have strong legislation to protect individuals. And when it comes to protections from police, America is the absolute worst within what could be considered the first world.

You can pick and choose rights that are important to you and say America is number one. Others can say America is positively lacking in other important aspects. It can easily be argued that America isn't even the best when it comes to protecting freedom of speech, and it's evident with how American-run tech corps police what's permitted on their sites to fit with American laws.

Personally, I found America to be too constricting and the police state overwhelming, and I left for somewhere with more freedom. :)

The idea that an individual has a high expectation of privacy in public spaces is neither a right nor a freedom, it’s simply a restriction on what you’re legally allowed to do in public. It is freedom exchanged for safety.

There is also no argument to be made at all when it comes to speech. America has by far the most extensive and thorough protections for expression and association in the world.

Individuals in America also have much more protection from police interference than in any other country. The 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th amendments all protect individuals against malicious police actions and prosecutions. There is simply no other country that has anything remotely close to the Bill of Rights.

That is a very American comment. I, as a European, really have to disagree completely. I have yet to see any cases in which anywhere in Europe free speech is limited. Or association, in fact there is party litterally called The Party that got elected last time around into the European Parliament. That party is an off-shoot of a German satirical magazine. And the last time a political party was prohibited in Germany was the communist party in the 50s.

Racist speech that is legal in America is prohibited in Germany.

Additionally, many video games have had to release versions with reduced blood and gore in Germany, due to laws prohibiting the uncensored original versions.

http://www.dorkly.com/post/80945/germany-censorship

There are lots of examples of the German government restricting free expression.

Holocaust denial is probibited for, rather obvious, historical reasons. Same for Austria by the way, for agin the same reasons.

Freedom of speech and art was, indeed, circumvented for games in Germany, but not Austria.

And whether it is such a great thing to allow racist speech without consequences is everybody's guess.

> I have yet to see any cases in which anywhere in Europe free speech is limited

I gave you several cases. Now you have.

You sure about that?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/marine-le-pe...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#... -- because apparently if we outlaw Nazi symbolism it will disappear.

France is even more awesome: Gayssot Act makes it illegal to question the existence of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter. Let that sink in - it is illegal to question.

So, same logic as above for the holocaust. Once it is established that a certain crimw against humanity happen that cannot be denied. Free speech, i my own European way of thinking, has to protected against propaganda. Which the French do, apparently.

It is all in the eye of the beholder: see the Mari Le Pen charges. But I'm sure it is fantastic to pretend that it is done not for maintenance of the status quo but for some other, much more glorious reasons.

And what reason woulf that be? I thought about all that, and where it might seem that European law has the tendency to limit free speech in certain fields (that don't really matter in everday life and if they do for an individual it tells a lot). On the other hand there is nothing comparable to, say, the Patriot Act. So the individual privacy and rights are, it seems, more protected than in the US.

But I'm diverting, the starting was a comment stating that the US are having superiour rights in that regard in general. Which is, IMHO, not true and to generalized without concrete examples. Now we do have examples and everbody can make up their own mind.

I have to ask, how much time have you spent outside of the US?

I think about this sometimes when I hear a friend talk about being ordered to tear down his treehouse, or notice my barber's cosmetology license by the mirror while he cuts my hair, or see a news story about a child's lemonade stand receiving a citation.

If you want to measure a persons rights, or lack thereof, by their interactions with regulations and bureaucracy, then it’s only fair to compare the US to other developed countries, where it would mostly compare quite favorably.

The US would compare somewhat poorly to Hong Kong in terms of regulatory overhead for example, but Hong Kong only allows certain political parties to exist, so they’re clearly not going to be winning any civil liberties competitions.

The US would potentially also compare quite poorly to many developing countries in this regard. But that’s because the mechanism that keeps regulation and bureaucracy in check in the developing world is rampant corruption and state sanctioned labor exploitation. Again, not something you’d want a respectable country to emulate.

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