If I have a single failing, it might be false modesty. Seriously, ‘anything a bad person says’ and ‘a bad thing a bad person says’ are substantially different concepts.
It’s 2am, checking out for today.
I guess I was too subtle myself, but yes, this is precisely the missing distinction I was criticizing you for.
Is JD Vance a fascist? Yes. Does he care about free speech? Not in the slightest. Does he, like all fascists, hide his own flaws by performatively calling them out in others? Yes, of course. Does this mean that Europe doesn’t have a problem with free speech? That’s wholly unrelated to the previous questions. “JD Vance says it does, therefore it doesn’t, and you’re a bad person for asking,” isn’t responsive.
…just another thing to think about.
One of the criticisms of mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is that he spoke in defence of the “Holy Land Five”. I had never heard of them, so I looked them up.
The government accused them “with providing material support to Hamas and related offenses.”
But the more I’ve read up on the case, the more I’m convinced they got shafted. A summary of Human Rights Watch’s defence is here:
The analogues between Palestine Action and the Holy Land Five are quite clear. If the government wants to shut you down, they will. And America is perfectly capable of throwing you in jail for decades in a way that most people just won’t give a damn.
This isn’t a “UK free speech problem.” It’s a global one, and it didn’t start yesterday. America has been weaponising this through “terrorist designations” and propaganda for a very long time.
In this context, “material support” is a magic U.S. legal phrase that includes acts such as training, providing services, financial services, or even pure political speech (if coordinated). So for example, training people how to conduct peace negotiations counts as material support. Arguably, translating documents also counts. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the individual right to freedom of speech is outweighed by the government’s interests when an individual provides material support to a terrorist organization. If interested in the U.S. law, see Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1 (2010).
~Max
Not “automatically”, but if something a bad person says seems correct you should probably wonder if you are wrong about it being correct. And if it is correct, whether it’s simply meant as a wedge to open the way for their malignant agenda.
Lots of propaganda opens with true statements designed to suck people into false conclusions, after all; the outright lies come later. And you shouldn’t ever trust ill-intentioned people, for obvious reasons.
I did get to the end, thanks for a well-written post. You make some good points, I believe. Even if I may not agree with everything, it does provide food for thought. You have a quite distinct voice among the general population of this board, and I just wanted to let you know that I at least appreciate your contributions.
Except this is clearly untrue. As demonstrated by the fact Trump has not starting proscribing political organizations he doesn’t like to make it illegal for people to support them, and he has not created a burqa ban by executive order. Do you thinks thats because of the incredible respect he has for personal freedom? Of course not, he would love to, i bet he’s green with envy that European leaders get to do those things. However he knows it he did even the collection of cowardly partisan shills that currently hold a majority in the SCOTUS would strike them down as going against the bill of rights.
Again I’m not saying the bill of rights will be enough to prevent the collapse of American democracy, but if the American Republic does make it through the Trump years as a functioning democracy the constitution will be one of the main reasons it does. If we had a verbose wishy washy equivalent, full of exceptions like the European Convention on Human Rights, we would be even more screwed.
…instead he’s cut off their funding, forcing them to do his bidding, which includes shutting up voices he doesn’t want to hear.
And when ICE started abducting people off the street the very first people he went after were pro-Palestinian activists.
He’s doing these things. Its dangerous for people to travel to the US right now. Because there is every chance you get disappeared. I’d have no qualms travelling to Europe right now, but I wouldn’t dare travel to the United States.
The constitution is not the perfect document you think it is. It’s just a piece of paper. This really is just American exceptionalism in action.
Its specifically about the British government being able to proscribe pro-Palestinian organizations like Palestine Action, allowing the government to send people (like Roger Waters or the members of Kneecap) to prison for saying nice things about.
So Kneecap are an ultra right wing band? Pink Floyd are a fascist skinhead group? Damn i had no idea, my bad !
…the legal challenges haven’t finished yet. Its like deciding this is all over before a case has made its way to the Supreme Court.
Yup and that was always an obvious huge loophole in the constitution that should have been plugged, that is one of the main complaints i have about the Democrats. None of those powers that ICE are using to kidnap people off the street were created by Trump. They had those powers during previous administrations and would sometimes abuse them. All that changed is now the abuse is mandatory (literally mandated via a quota system, ICE agents will get in trouble if they don’t abuse their powers enough)
Again the bill of rights is not perfect and not guaranteed to protect us from bad actors who get the support of the majority of the electorate, no system for protecting human rights is. But i am very very glad it exists in the form it does in the US constitution. Things would be much worse without it.
…this really is a meaningless statement, though. It isn’t just ICE. It’s everything else they’ve done to pro-Palestinian voices in America, which are orders of magnitude worse than what we’ve seen in the UK.
Again: the proscription is facing legal challenges. Kneecap weren’t charged. Roger Waters isn’t in jail. There is a lot of speculation about what might happen. But it hasn’t happened yet.
But the fact the UK government has that power is not in doubt. People have been sent to prison for it already…
The fact that is ISIS, who are obviously much worse than Palestine Action, is irrelevant. All this guy did was say nice things about ISIS, he didn’t plan or threaten terrorist acts, or give them material support.
If your constitution doesn’t protect you from prison for saying nice things about ISIS, it won’t protect you from prison for saying nice things about Palestine Action.
Like the others said, the problem with such sweeping powers in Europe to curtail speech in support of bad guys is that it all depends on the good-faith of the people doing the banning and silencing. So far, we haven’t seen real abuse in Europe, but it’s a wide-open loophole for someone someday doing so. Like the OP said, if someone like Trump had such powers, he’d have long since designated all his opponents as “terrorists.”
Did it really take nineteen posts until someone finally called the fallacy of the premise? Thank you, Sandwich, was about time!
And now watch the US-ual suspects show that they don’t understand what free speech actually is and what it is not and nitpicking about your provocative use of the words “colonies” and “far right”, “far left” and “extremists”. A use which was unfortunate for the sake of a constructive dialogue, but which I very well understand. Constructive dialogue being overrated anyway.
I strogly disagree. Allowing propaganda smearcasters like Fox News, theological channels of all sorts, anti-science, racist, corporativist nonsense and the like and giving social media a free pass on the truth has gotten your country where it is now and heading for worse. And you (generical US-you) don’t even see the problem! This will not end well.
Exactly. Particularly in the US, saying something against the mainstream is hopeless. And now it is becoming dangerous.
Very pertinent example, not the only one unfortunately.
Oh, dear! American exceptionalism at its wrongest. I am not going to argue: it is incurable.
Cite? Name the people in prison for saying nice things about Palestinian groups? How many US born citizens have had their citizenship revoked for supporting terrorism?
Its not like European governments also don’t do all those things you mention too. I can assure the immigration officers in Europe are not kind generous souls who hand out hugs, and never target people because of race, culture or politics
What is false about it? As a Brit in America i have the right to say nice things about whatever Palestinian organization I want (or anyone on this list). When i go home to the UK the government can send me to prison for saying nice things about any organization they don’t like.
Thats not American exceptionalism. That’s just a fact, its a rational evaluation of the relative advantages of one constitutional system over another.
Perhaps as a Brit, I don’t know. Other nationalities are not so lucky:
https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/pro-palestine-protests-who-has-the-us-detained-or-deported-so-far-125032900258_1.html
…and the Holy Land Five are in jail as well. For 60 years. And the evidence is extremely dubious. The fact is the US government ALSO has this power.
The constitution doesn’t protect you from felony murder charges. It doesn’t stop you from getting locked up for years because you couldn’t pay cash bail. David Coulson was locked up for 20 years because he stole $14.00.
What good is your constitution if it means people can get locked up for these things?
It’s just a bit of paper. It hasn’t stopped the chilling of free speech which again, the targeting of pro-Palestinian voices are at the forefront. You haven’t addressed that at all.
I’ve already provided one.
I don’t need to. These are things that in YOUR opinion are “orders of magnitude worse”. I don’t agree with Choudary’s jailing. But the reality is that they can and do the same thing in America. It’s just they will use “material support” as the excuse.
And I can assure you that immigration officers in America are not kind generous souls who hand out hugs, and never target people because of race, culture or politics either.
If this thread were just focused on the UK (and Europe’s) free speech problems, that would be one thing. But you’ve framed it around how allegedly “America is so much better”. But it really isn’t. America has a free speech problem as well. Its just slightly different to the one they have in the UK and Europe.
Which immigrants in the UK are totally protected from, of course? No, just as much as in the US immigrants are at the whim of capricious immigration officials who can have them deported for any spurious reason. Hell, Trumps El Salvador scheme was clearly modelled on the Tories Rwanda scheme, which was only foiled by them being voted out of office.