Postwar Western Europe - such a hotbed of tyranny :rolleyes:
Because they’re the smartest person in the room. Just ask 'em.
It should be apparent, but okay, consider it said.
My understanding is that the asswipe shot a few random people enroute to the first mosque (not including the person who said ‘Hello, brother’), then shot into a pile of people trying to avoid and hide form him inside the mosque until he left.
At the second mosque, apparently there was a brave soul who confronted the asswipe and threw a credit card machine at hum, then followed up by badgering him to his car and even picked up a discarded shotgunand chunked it at asswipe’s car window. This intimidated the asswipe into leaving; he was soon caught by the police.
The brave soul’s name is Abdul Aziz Wahabzadah, and resistance is not futile.
He almost, but not quite, makes it obvious he has no problem with white nationalist terrorist attacks. Only attacks by Muslims and other dark skinned people seem to bother him.
“called out” is fine. The correct reaction to false claims are solid facts and strong arguments. So if that is what you mean then I agree. Giving legal protection to someone’s right to say something objectionable is not the same as saying they should be protected from all consequences of saying it.
Who appears to be a racist twat of the highest order and deserved everything he gets up to the point of physical harm. What he should get is a wave of response that sweeps him out of power, not a muzzle and not a jail cell.
This is where I disagree most. Allowing speech you agree with is trivially easy. It takes no effort, no intellectual courage and shows no actual commitment to the concept of free speech. The stuff you disagree with is the most important to protect and the hardest to bring ourselves to do.
So you appeal to the intelligence of the ordinary person and suggest that they can see why some restrictions on free speech might be warranted. I agree with your assessment of the ordinary person, but I’d roll that back a step and suggest that if that is the case, why would they be *unable *to spot the flaws and lies in hateful speech in the first place? why would they not be able to stack one claim against another? why must they be shielded from even knowing such hateful ideas exists?
As for slippery slope? The inescapable logic of the banning of speech that “undermines social order” is that it necessarily must then extend to speech that comes from *any *ideology, religions included. Willing to tackle that one? Good luck. Which religious text is first up?
They certainly don’t have the freedom to deny that the holocaust happened. That’ll earn you a jail sentence in some places and that is a disgrace.
I’d also challenge whether the debate on immigration has been affected by people feeling they can’t voice concerns about it. We can’t know what people may be wanting to say if they feel to some extent unable to say it. There’s a fertile ground for disaffection and far-right recruitment right there. Concerns over immigration were sidelined, marginalised and labelled racist In UK politics from the New Labour years onwards and I suspect the upshot of that was a *rise * not a reduction in right-wing popularity and momentum for the Brexit vote.
And for me it comes before pretty much any other concept because society only exists in the first place as a result of ideas and thoughts. You stunt those and you stunt society and you will never to be able to predict how. It is a worryingly short distance from “you can’t say that” to “you can’t think that”.
I don’t see how we stop that…ever. Tribal, cultural, political, religious, ethnic discussions are part of society. They are impossible without some reference to “we” and “they” and you can’t prevent the malignant usage without preventing the benign and in that case the cure is worse than the disease.
And it should be done loudly, proudly and repeatedly.
Absent a specific credible threat or incitement to action, no.
I think the best talk I’ve heard on free speech was By Christopher Hitchens. Always worth listening to on such matters.
One of the reasons that it isn’t a hotbed of tyranny is the widespread acceptance of freedom of speech as a principle.
That Article 10 is written so loosely as to allow for the jailing of people for holocaust denial is a problem for me, that’s not an interpretation I’m comfortable with.
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more, mate.
It’s a bloody disgrace that it’s only “some”, right? 
I think the Council of Europe and you have very different ideas on what “freedom of speech as a principle” means.
It appears to be one of the many things we disagree on.
I think a person should be able to deny the holocaust without being jailed for it. One European country doing it is one too many.
I think past a certain point we hit diminishing returns on freedom of speech. We all agree that slander and libel should be actionable, right? Why is it okay to stop people from lying about other individuals, and not okay to stop people from maliciously lying about history to downplay atrocities and encourage their repetition? (Why yes, we do have a pretty good idea of why people would deny the holocaust, and “honest engagement with ideas” ain’t it.)
Is it OK if the country doing it isn’t in Europe? 
It would be ok, if they would not have the habit of being followers of fascists that continue to tell others about how then to turn their denied holocaust into a reality.
Other countries are allowed to see things differently. They believe the spreading of hate is a danger to their nations. Don’t pretend speech isn’t regulated in any way in the US, that’s untrue. Other societies have slightly different values and see firearms and hate speech as sufficiently dangerous as to require regulation. They have simply drawn the lines in slightly different places concerning both issues.
You’re certainly entitled to rail against any variation from the American Way, of course. But the entire world can see clearly the state of your nation. And that speaks louder, I’m afraid.
Well, if a cake maker can be made to set aside his personal beliefs and provide service for a cause he doesn’t agree with…
I’m from the UK.
Good for you, you can join Quartz in the “Adopting America’s Dumb Ideas” club.
Sincerest apologies!
Please substitute ‘your particular way’, for ‘American Way’.
The rest stands.
Well, yeah - but then you also seem to think Mein Kampf can make a good book club recommendation…
I think I can only offer an opinion on the area of which I have experience.
I’ll give a nod of approval to France which decriminalised denial the Armenian Genocide in 2017. It isn’t all one-way traffic.
What is the situation in Spain regarding such claims?
I don’t take my approach to free speech from any single country. Where I come from has no bearing on it.