I'm fairly certain you could do the exact same thing here in Canada. I honestly don't think it's as exceptional as you're making it out to be.
Separately: saying something shitty or unpopular that you disagree with isn’t someone abusing their rights to free expression. Expressing unpopular viewpoints that others consider abusive is exactly the point of such rights.
There’s a REALLY BIG reason it isn’t “freedom of expression, except for expressing racial hatred”, and it’s not because we like racism. Germany sometimes bans entire political parties that they declare unconstitutional. Now imagine that power in the hands of Trump. You can see what Putin did to Navalny for a preview.
(Ultimately, though, they can find him innocent for any reason. If they decided he should walk because you can't legally offend cops, that's fine too.)
Opinion is not defamatory. Satire is not defamatory.
With public officials like police, even false factual statements are not defamatory unless you knew they were false and lied about it specifically to hurt them.
The Germans would argue such powers prevent the Trumps.
You make it sound like Germany bans political parties every other year.
Germany formally only ever banned two parties:
- Socialist Reich Party (SRP), 1952 - Communist Party of Germany (KPD), 1956
For context: The Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949.
There are current discussions about banning - or evaluating a potential ban of - the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). If the ban went through (I think it won't), it would be the first in 70 years.
The fact that they are even discussing a ban of AfD shows how ridiculously dangerous such powers are when held by the state. The AfD is disgusting but until and unless they take up arms, speech is speech. “First they came for the racists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a racist. Then they came for the publishers of violent video games…”
There is no power that you can give to the state that they will not eventually abuse at their convenience. It positively astounds me that Germans do not understand this, given the nation’s history.
We already experienced what happens when you don't stop antidemocratic parties, and we don't want to run the experiment another time.
It astounds me that you don't understand this simple concept.
Also the US Administration currently is a beacon of free speech, threatening senators with the death penalty for reminding officers that they don't have to comply with unlawful orders
What? You have no idea what you are talking about.
What? There's lots of antifacist/rather left-wing music that heavily critizes the police and their work. Usually not the one police officer himself but rather the institution as being part of a state who behaves injust (is that a word? non-native here...). I think that's fine and is part of a democratic system.