We have people serving time in ICE detention camps who have been found by the courts to be exercising their first amendment rights. I don’t think we are doing that much better than you, honestly.
This. I think many people are much, much too focused on laws and systems and rules, while ignoring that none of those matter if the people in charge of enforcing them don’t care. Laws aren’t…magical incantations of protection, they don’t work by themselves.
Thats demonstrably untrue. Trump did not create all the laws that allows ICE to do what they are currently doing at his behest. Those laws existed, and previous Republican and Democrat governments were OK with them, even though they clearly set up a huge system of unregulated oppression, as it was assumed the people giving them orders would be fundamentally good actors.
That’s a huge beef I have with the Democrats it’s not like those laws were never abused before, and Democrats could have added explicit checks and balances, but choose not to. If they had we Trump would not have this power. The only thing that changed is now the abuse is now the rule not the exception (literally they have abuse quotas they have to fill)
Though that’s only a valid point if the UK immigration authorities don’t have those same powers and they clearly do (in fact probably more powers, or will do based on recent labour initiatives)
He didn’t need to. They ignore the law, regularly.
Because Trump is otherwise always so constrained by checks and balances…
Yes, something like half of Trump’s actions are being challenged in court, and most of the actual rulings have gone against him. (The Supreme Court has issued a lot of “let him continue until we actually make a ruling” orders. Well see what happens when they actually have to give reasons for their decisions. I’m guessing a lot will go against Trump there, too.)
Laws are nice, but the people in charge of following and enforcing them matter more.
Trump is completely unconstrained by the checks and balances that are actually just conventions that it was assumed no one would ever break, or ones that are ambiguously defined and leave huge loop holes and exceptions (I’m looking at you posse comitatus). Unfortunately it turns this applies to a huge number of the checks and balances in the US system.
He has in fact been constrained by the checks and balances in the bill of rights. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that he has not made it illegal to criticize Donald J Trump. He absolutely wants to, and has said as much, but he can’t because of the 1st Amendment. A future Prime Minister Farage would face no such checks and balances (just like Orban, etc. did not)
You can’t be serious.
There were over 3000 arrests of Palestine protesters in the US and universities have had their federal funding provisional on banning such protests. Visa rescinded, workers fired and people blocked from entering based only on things like sharing negative messages about Trump on social media.
Protests against ice are also being put down with impunity.
Then there’s the pressure being put on the media and news organizations, many of whom folded before Kimmel at least stood firm.
Looking forwards, with antifa defined in a way that seems to include anyone with left wing political views at the same time as calling it a terrorist group, means a free license to arrest anyone critical of the government.
The first amendment seems to have the same power right now as the one about letting soldiers have a sleepover.
I’m pretty sure he’s been pissing all over the First, the Fourth and the Fifth in multiple ways. Just the ICE detentions alone, for instance.
He’s not bothered with making laws. Have you not noticed that?
He very much is taking a good run at it with the way he’s making all the media companies take the knee.
A young racist and anti-Semitic bigot from Wales has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for his Twitter posts.
On Twitter, you pretty much have to issue death threats to get posts removed or have your account suspended by TPTB, and while this guy’s timeline is a torrent of slime, I didn’t on brief perusal see any specific calls to violence like the one Lucy Connelly got in trouble for (i.e. calling for the burning down of hotels housing asylum seekers).
While it’s difficult to feel sorry for him, there seems to be a freedom of speech issue with regard to the Welsh neo-Nazi, at least as far as having to do jail time goes.
“Incitement to racial hatred” has been a criminal offence here for decades. Most of us don’t see “freedom of speech” as stretching that far. Like any right, it also carries with it responsibilities, not least the responsibility to respect others’ rights and freedoms (i.e., not to be subjected to that sort of”slime” - it’s not something that’s exercised in a vacuum.
But again, anything that can be interpreted subjectively can be (and almost certainly will be) abused.
That’s the problem with rules like that.
But the US also has rules like that when it comes to defamation, obscenity, copyright infringement etc. There’s lots of speech that needs a judgement call.
As mentioned elsewhere, the US also has restrictions on “incitement” — but they are generally focused on direct immediate incitement to criminal action, and saying something hateful or that disturbs (or supporting someone who did) does not meet the threshold by itself.
Sure. And I would agree that “hate speech” laws are definitely something debatable, and there are risks with any kinds of prohibition on speech.
But the normal kinds of argument against them, particularly in the US, is either that freedom of speech is something binary and hate speech laws inherently mean not having freedom of speech (false…or at least the premise if false), and that they are a potential slippery slope (so are all other restrictions, but nations still have to have some restrictions. No nation gives its citizens the right to say anything in any situation, it would be unworkable).
All laws are in some sense interpreted subjectively: but in this specific case the judgement was made by the defendant when he pleaded guilty (as indeed did Connelly,)
I find this thread interesting and illuminating.
I also find the OP’s arguments… myopic.
“Our freedom of Speech is the bestest! Your sucks!”
“Wait what!?”
“Look here - in country A this is not allowed and it’s allowed in my country!”
“Yeah, well. True enough, but our legislators have deemed that there must be some stuff that we need to keep a check on.”!
“But I can’t go to country A and say that [insert minority group of choice] is a cancer growth on society. I can do that in my country. So there. Our Freedom of Speech is the bestest!”
"But in your country it’s not allowed to [insert example of things not allowed].
“Yeah but that perfectly reasonable. We need to keep a check on that stuff.”
“That’s allowed in country A.”
“But I can’t say that Bolkandians are low level IQ shitgibbons that don’t deserve to live. And I can do that here. That means you have a problem.”
As a person from the country with the oldest law for Freedom of the Press (1766) I’m perfectly happy with the limitations that do exist. It’s not perfect and leaves some stuff to be desired, but I gather that it’s the same in all countries.
The OP aligns with the orange shitgibbon, who has just produced a National Security Strategy, where his brood make a point of demanding “more freedom of speech in the EU*” - likely because the European commission and parliament is putting pressure on the tech-bros to put up guard rails.
You are of course free to criticize our legislation. That pert of freedom of speech is the same here and where you are. And there’s no shortage of critique of the U.S. from people in other countries on these boards. But ultimately it’s something every country gets to decide for its own. And should the voters dislike the legislation they can, at least in theory, protest at the voting booth.
I do find it quite brazen to get up on a pulpit to lecture others, while not recognizing that limitations exist everywhere, only focusing on different stuff.
*Also demanding that the EU limit immigration.
*Also to limit
You seem to have forgotten to fill in the bank here. Unfortunately that makes your argument completely nonsensical. Unless you can show an example of some type of freedom of speech that is not protected by the US 1st amendment but is by the British constitution then your argument is just an imaginary conversation that never happened.
Well, I can’t speak to the UK constitution but how does the following sound: “Citizens have the right to elect and be elected (Article 66), freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association (Article 67), freedom of religious belief (Article 68), right to submit complaints and petitions (Article 69), right to work (Article 70), right to relaxation (Article 71), right to free medical care (Article 72), right to free education (Article 73), freedom in scientific, literary and artistic pursuits (Article 74), freedom of residence and travel (Article 75) and inviolability of the person and home and privacy of correspondence (Article 79).”
The 1st amendment concerns protections of freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government; the above also explicitly notes demonstration and association in addition to those. So I guess that means the citizens of North Korea enjoy a greater set of freedoms than those of the US.
I’m sorry. I’m going to be more stringent.
You complain that Freedom of Speech is restricted in "The UK (and Europe) as compared to the US. You do this from your POV - of course. I was vague because you, as do many Americans on this board, seem to see the EU as one country. Instead of nitpicking this or that difference, my POV is that Free Speech is always restricted in one way or another. There have been numerous examples in the thread and I’m not going to repeat them.
My entire post was about you thinking that what you know well and cherish (i.e. the Constitution) is the best way to do things. I’m not going to bring up all the times I’ve rolled my eyes at formal (as in government enforced) censorship and informal censorship (where organisations self censor to avoid the ire of the government) and which are things that nobody would bat an eye at over here.
You, OTOH, roll your eyes at decisions made in other countries, while not seeing the beam ‘in thine own eye.’
Have I been more clear?