free speech, I fear, is in retreat
It was never their opposition's speech they wanted to be free.
You can give finger to Trump from distance but you can't attend to his press conference to actually ask him stuff if he doesn't like you. That's just slightly different from Turkey where you will be arrested for giving the finger to Erdogan's motorcade(happened a few times, then Turks learned their lessons and in the stats Turkey doesn't arrest as much as Britain).
In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
That's a pretty trite way of looking at it. You could see for example how important free speech was to the US' civil rights movement in making sure that people were able to organize to challenge the status quo.
>.. if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
US' citizens generally have a better time in courts challenging such things than Europeans do, however.
>In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
But can you tell them whatever you like without facing repercussion if they don't like what they're hearing? No.
In the US, you can still exercise your right to free speech to inform your fellow citizens about the genocide of Gaza - in Europe, most definitely not so easy. (Some European states, its easier than others ...)
I don't really care about the courts in this, you win in court and never speak again anything new because you don't want to go through all this again.
And who cares if you can tell someone something if you can't engage with them. Are you casting a spell? why would you care someone hears you? In USA they take you to safe distance behind some barriers to tell your thing. Useless stuff.
I don't know why you believe that you can't inform people about the genocide of Gaza in Europe, in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this and having flotillas and what not.
US free speech seems to be performative. Its even limited to words, they try not to say the N word and do all their racism without that, then they are relieved when they end up saying the N word and claim freedom of speech win. It's weird from European perspective.
"in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this", "US free speech seems to be performative".
And then there's the, "Are you casting a spell?". You really think you did something there lol.
Sources. Examples. Otherwise, you're just someone who can string together complete sentences and break up concepts into paragraphs for easy reading.
What you can't do is to demand killing of the Jewish people and I like it stay like that. That's significantly more freedom than US where you can loose your career, government funding, you can get deported or visa denied etc. if you talk about the genocide in Gaza.
Your last paragraph is a bit incoherent, so I don't know exactly how to respond, but no, I am not demanding the killing of Jewish people nor the killing of any Palestinian.
I can always tell when someone is off the rails in ideology because the picture they paint is so detached from reality that it doesn't hold under the most minor scrutiny.
That someone is you.
TBF USA is very restrictive on speech, just less direct about it. All platforms are American and we can see that speech is strictly restricted through indirect means. Even here, I had my account rate limited so many times on political topics.
I can stand outside on the street corner in any street in LA with a sign in my hands that says "JAIL OUR WAR CRIMINALS" any time of day .. but if you try to do that in Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, you will get a visit and told to move along.
I say this on the basis of direct personal experience in all cases. It is far, far harder to protest the Gaza genocide than it should be - in both the US and Europe, to be frank - but in the US I at least have the courts to resort to if someone comes and smashes my signs.
In Berlin, Paris or Amsterdam you won't be visited by the police for a sign that says "JAIL OUR WAR CRIMINALS", you will be visited for one that says something like "Finish the work Hitler started" or "Burn the Mosques" and depending on the context nothing will happen or you may get fine or jail sentence.
In US you will have much more trouble for your undesired speech than in Europe, just more indirectly.
No. You still have courts protecting your rights and if indeed there is suppression, the courts will defend you. The US Constitution is still a thing. There is no such recourse in Europe.
BTW, I concur with your cynicism, but the situation in Europe is far more dire - especially if you contrast the French vs. German vs. Dutch vs. Austrian results, which are in quite distinct conflict with the ideal we both wish for.
That's not free speech, just because eventually you might be acknowledged that you have right to say something doesn't at all mean that you can do it.
>That's not free speech, just because eventually you might be acknowledged that you have right to say something doesn't at all mean that you can do it.
Yes it is, because once the speech is made, it is free to be propagated. That fascist elements use that free speech to attack you is one thing - and indeed, a government which does not protect its citizens' free speech in favour of other entities, is a repressive one.
But, that is the price of freedom - fight back with whatever tools the state gives you! The USA does, in fact, have tools for its citizens to protect free speech and there are an infinity of examples.
However, throughout history, it is proven: you lose a right once you stop exercising it.
So your totalitarian-defeatism is actually manifesting the thing you're complaining about, yo.
I see you're not paying much attention to the streets of Berlin.
Within living memory for some of us. So not that different really.
>What freedom of speech examples do you have that involve living people?
Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Virginia Guiffre. Medea Benjamin.
You may argue that these are individuals whose speech was limited - and it was - but they have been protected nevertheless by the US' free speech laws, or they wouldn't have made as big a fuss as they have in the first place.
>Every single one freedom of speech fighter are fascist who demand some other speech be suppressed and theirs amplified.
This is a gross generalization.
>I don't know why you believe that you can't inform people about the genocide of Gaza in Europe, in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this and having flotillas and what not.
Just try to show people the situation in Gaza, on the streets of Vienna, and see how far you get before the police turn up to suppress your right to discuss the atrocities in public.
Your free speech examples are telling enough. You should check out what happened to them.
But in our circle, members of these countries not currently being bombed into oblivion - in contrast, look at the "Witness J .. Witness K .. Witness L .." situation in Australia's secret star court ..
Just because you eventually go free after your life gets ruined by the government doesn't really make you better than Uganda. In those shitty countries they too go free eventually.
>Just because you eventually go free after your life gets ruined by the government doesn't really make you better than Uganda. In those shitty countries they too go free eventually.
A truly imperialist perspective. None of this is relevant for any government engaged in genocide, anyway. My freedom of speech means nothing if the government under which its right is granted is, meanwhile, massacring innocents at atrocious scale ..
Freedom of expression and information
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.
2. The freedom and pluralism of the media shall be respected.
Death threats, insults and promises of rape can be considered ways to express yourself, but any opinion worth expressing can be stated without.
Sure, this can be the first step to the suppression of dissenting points of view.
The thing is: Before the nazis came to power, they made everybody else afraid to state their mind with open threats and violence. So it’s painfully obvious that unmoderated free speech can also be used to suppress dissenting opinions.
I was born and raised in Turkey, and I have been living in Germany for nearly two decades, and I have Greeks, Bulgarians and Kurdish in my family too (no. I don't take pills to survive), so I know what I'm talking about.
It's not about inferiority/superiority, it's just a completely, unmistakably different culture, perspective on life, degree of pragmatism, and... everything. Especially when it comes to the topic at hand, freedom of speech. I think the Ottomans have a lasting effect there. The Turkish search for the new sultan never ends. You may say that some tendency in dictatorship exists everywhere, but in Turkey, you'll see authoritarian ambitions in the speeches of even the most supposedly liberal people.
I also have to say, I'm not even talking about religion. Perhaps the most religious groups, Muslim or Christian or Jewish, are the groups with the most similarities actually.