> What country are you from? To "wish a politically motivated death" on someone is illegal there?
It is illegal in most countries, no? Even in USA you aren't allowed to instigate murder.
It is illegal in most countries, no? Even in USA you aren't allowed to instigate murder.
Freedom of speech we don't like is the true litmus test of free speech. It is trivial to say I support free speech when someone says nice things about me.
People are free to say mean things, they just aren't allowed to encourage violence. There is a difference between saying "I hate how Trump runs the country, he is an idiot" and "Can't someone kill Trump already".
I have seen a lot of the second kind on reddit. The first kind gets you arrested in Britain though, they don't have any meaningful free speech there.
But as you say what constitutes "encouraging violence" is not entirely clear, but most agrees that encouraging violence shouldn't be protected by free speech laws.
Like, on Reddit you're technically not allowed to say "Man, I'm so glad that Adolf Hitler guy is dead."
To my knowledge it is not illegal to say something like that (anywhere you want to live anyways)
I think that a world where people are free to talk about how they're glad horrible tyrants are dead is a better world than the one where they aren't free to express those ideas.
You wouldn't want to live in an America where it wasn't legal to condone the death of Osama Bin Laden, would you?
The classic example, is can you shout "Fire!" in a crowded cinema? Should this be illegal in itself? Probably not. But if this causes a panic that kills people in a crush for the exits, then you are very culpable for these deaths.
But even if nothing bad happens, should there be laws against what you did? Saying no is in my mind similar to saying if you shoot at somebody but miss them, did you break any laws?
FWIW, yes, I do support free speech. Very much. But I also recognize you must be responsible for the consequences of what you say, and this leads to some very tricky ethical situations - Should you be held accountable for what could have happened, even if it did not happen?
Indeed, freedom of conscience is usually considered a human right.