But why would an example matter if what you’re really intending to argue isn’t the way things actually happen, but rather, what’s in principle on the books, which game has the most fair rules?
What the UK constitution protects you from the government inspecting your social media history when you enter the country? I guess they must have added that in the last couple of months:
I made no claims about either constitution. But i note that the linked article says
The man in his 50s was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence. This is in relation to posts on X.
You can definitely be arrested for that in the US, too. It also says that after questioning upset him enough that he became ill, they sent him to a real hospital, and after his health was stabilized, they released him. That’s a lot better than what the US government is doing these days.
My claim is that rights “on the ground” matter more than rights in the Constitution. And right now, with Americans and legal immigrants/visitors being harassed by the US government for an awful lot of speech that i used to think was protected by our Constitution, i just can’t get behind the idea that our Constitution protects our (US) freedom of speech.
Was this post supposed to be directed towards someone else? That was my first post to this thread in quite a while, and I’m not even sure what you want me to give examples of. I suspect a Discourse glitch. But if it’s directed at me, please clarify.
Eta: also, i just checked and i haven’t posted any links to articles, with sociological claims or otherwise.
But the two things are inseparable. Neither the UK or US constitution protects you from the government inspecting your social media history at a port of entry. And so both in the US or UK the government 's agents will inspect your social media posts. If there was a written protection saying “the government cannot read your social posts” then they wouldn’t, there isn’t so they do.
The US constitution does protect you from being punished by the government for expressing an opinion, and it works even in the current administration. The UK constitution does not and so British government sends people to prison for expressing opinions
Have you been following US news? No, it really isn’t working today. Have you followed any of the stories about students who made pro-Palestinian comments and were locked up in unhealthy situations for days or weeks?
Yes. That’s essentially been my whole point: you can’t just look at what the constitution or any other legal document says, you have to look at the actual situation, and there, the data argue against the claim that there is a unique problem with free speech in Europe. Against this, you tried to take up @Babale’s line of just analyzing the ‘rules’ of the game being played, but then, examples of play don’t matter—neither that the current state of free expression in the US is worse than in the UK, nor whether protesters are being arrested. You can’t have it both ways: either you want a comparison of what the rules say, or you want to compare the situations those rules have led to. But you point to examples where it suits you, and then retreat to a stance of only looking at the rules of the game when the evidence doesn’t agree.
Yes you can! That’s what inseparable means! That’s how constitutions work. The powers of the state are decided by what’s written down.
Well said. And I am not surprised that this was not addressed in griffin’s response.
Except no one has produced a single data item to refute this. I’ve posted numerous examples of how the British constitution has not protected it’s people from the government infringing their free speech in a situation where the American Constitution would.
No one has posted a single case where the British constitution has protected it’s citizens right to free speech in a way the US constitution would not.
That might, just possibly, be because the rest of us are looking at what the two governments actually allow, rather than what their constitutions suggest ought to be allowed.
Err, come again? Two things being inseparable means that you can look at one under the exclusion of the other?
Come on, now. What do you think you gain by just flat out denying that I’ve linked to multiple datasets on exactly this? I get that you don’t accept them (because ‘numbers’ or something), but just flat-out denying their existence seems excessive.
But still, you’re missing the point. Either you’re discussing the rules of the game. Then that’s independent of the play, i.e. examples, data etc. play no role. You could equally well compare the fictional constitutions of entirely fictional countries. Or you’re discussing actually expressed freedoms. Then you’ll have to look at what actually happens, and ‘but the constitution’-type arguments carry no force. You can’t on the one hand demand examples of others, then retreat to a ‘only discussing the rules’ type of position when it’s convenient.