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> I wonder if the irony around that this fellow fought in the second world war for freedom of speech for everyone is hitting any of these people offended at the tweet.

I'm not aware of WW2 being about freedom of speech.

> I'm not aware of WW2 being about freedom of speech.

I'm pretty sure if Britain had ended up being occupied, they'd have had less freedom of speech than they enjoy today.

I expected this reply.

It doesn’t make the war about freedom of speech, it makes the war about resisting invasion (for Britain).

The Britain of the time had a tremendous desire to censor things they deemed unseemly which lasted long past the end of the war - see for example various obscenity trials regarding the publication of books in the 60s and 70s.

> It doesn’t make the war about freedom of speech, it makes the war about resisting invasion (for Britain).

Yah, but fighting to resist invasion also means fighting to preserve values and legal protections.

[which may not have been the best in the world then, or interpreted as we'd interpret those values now, but still were better than the alternative].

Yes, values and legal protections which didn’t include freedom of speech.

> Yah, but fighting to resist invasion also means fighting to preserve values and legal protections.

An invasion is the same whether you are being invaded by people who believe in free speech or by people who don't. WWII was in no way about free speech. Germany was invading other countries not to impose their values and compelled speech, but to create "living space" and take their resources for the "German people". People war opposing this because they didn't want to be killed, nor did they want to serve the "German people" nor did they want their resources to belong to Germany. Nothing much would have changed in the opposition to German occupation if Germany had been a democracy with equality for all and deep protection for free speech, but still hell bent on conquering and controlling all of Europe.

>the war about resisting invasion (for Britain).

It wasn't about resisting Britain being invaded if that's what you mean, it was the invasion of Poland that kicked it off. Rather similar to the current where we are resisting Russia invading Ukraine. Hitler didn't want to fight the UK. He wanted to partner with us to take over the other 'racially inferior' countries.

And when Germany ended up being invaded, they had less freedom of speech! Nazism is still illegal in Germany.

> And when Germany ended up being invaded, they had less freedom of speech!

Germany allows most political speech, and doesn't execute teenagers for repeating foreign propaganda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_H%C3%BCbener So this is a very strange instance of "less freedom of speech" to justify this whataboutism.

There are a lot of tabu themes in German political speech. They also have a very strong "insult" law which can land you in jail.

On New Year's Day 1942 the Allies declared they were fighting "to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_by_United_Nations

They only declared that. Implementation is still pending and , with the latest developments, heading towards "won't fix".

They only declared that? What more could have been done? The declaration that was made was the main treaty of the Allies and eventually became the founding charter for the UN, which most countries in the world are a member of and have ratified in their own laws.

>What more could have been done?

It's a bit tongue in cheek, but maybe avoid the red witch hunts, avoid murdering your own population for being black or revolutionary (or both). And for the French and British, not executing colonial soldiers and their families to avoid paying them (or to avoid respecting your promises of Freedom(tm) )

Maybe it was just a troll, but implementation is clearly not finished yet, and was surely not at the end of the war.

> I'm not aware of WW2 being about freedom of speech.

Second world war was obviously about multiple causes, not just one. But liberty and freedom was a pretty big part of that, and freedom of speech is obviously a big part of those two. If the other side of the war won, freedom of speech would have looked very different (or not exists at all), that much is clear.

For the British it was clearly entirely about survival.

> "To see someone wishing British/Russian/Chinese soldiers dead, it still hurts me. It still hurts me that anybody would disrespect someone that had given their live for the country.”

Given that soldiers typically kill people, it seems inevitable that someone will hate them, whether justified or not.

If you look at countries that demand unconditional patriotism, they are usually flirting with dictatorship or outright fashism. It's not something a free society should emulate.

The judges explanation makes the ruling sound even more ridiculous

  This is a man who had become known as a national hero, who stood for the resilience of the people of a country struggling with a pandemic and the services trying to protect them.