Author Topic: Free speech in the United Kingdom  (Read 9437 times)

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Offline Flipside

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.

Once again, I repeat the difference in laws regarding Guns, in the UK, Guns are illegal outside of very specific circumstances, in the US the rules are a lot more open regarding them. That doesn't make either set of rules 'right' or 'wrong', merely a different set of rules designed for different cultures and different ideas on what is and is not harmful to society in general.

The whole idea that there is some kind of score being kept is... odd to say the least.

 

Offline redsniper

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
The whole idea that there is some kind of score being kept is... odd to say the least.

But if we can't find some reason why OUR people are better than THEIR people, then what will we hate each other about? :confused:
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Offline flecht

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
Reason No. 53 why the US rocks despite all its problems: The Direct Incitement Test of protected speech.
Keep in mind that Europe has it's dark history of building a nations on the foundation of hatred. As I sometimes don't understand such a strong censoring of symbols of nazism/communism, I know that it's only a consequence of the past.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
Whereas the rest of the world built its empires on Rainbows and Unicorns...

Edit: Seriously though, it's more to do with the fact that we have different beliefs in what constitutes Freedom of Speech and what our own responsibility towards that right is. There are certainly things like Nazi ideals that were pretty abhorrent, much like the KKK or Westboro in the US (though they never rose to power, exactly, though in the case of the KKK the argument could go either way), but that's more part of the problem than part of the solution.

I don't really think there are many Empires that were not built on the suffering of others, but we simply try different approaches to prevent the rise of such extremism again, once again, no approach is right or wrong, simply a different approach.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2012, 02:27:58 pm by Flipside »

 

Offline flecht

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
I meant that there were not many examples of such a countries being the cause of World/Cold War.

 

Offline Flipside

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
As an addition, I can understand a US citizen not understanding the concept of a limit to the right of Freedom of Speech so long as that speech does not involve something like the famous 'Fire' in a movie-theatre type speech. In both countries, for example, shouting 'Death to the Leader (insert King/Prime-minister/President as required)' would be a violation of the Right to Freedom of speech because it encourages a violent act, those are pretty clear cut cases.

However, when you get to things like inciting hatred, it's a much more complex situation. You could argue that anyone who listens to Westboro and follows them would have to have been inherently Homophobic in the first place and it was simply a matter of time, and they could be right, but what about kids who go onto X-Box live and learn racist or homophobic comments without even understanding what they mean and then repeat them verbatim? Are they guilty of inciting hatred or merely unknowingly propagating it? I think it is easy for a mindset, if it goes unchallenged, to become accepted without people even truly realizing the impact that mindset has. Whilst parents can indeed educate their children, peer pressure is a powerful motivator.

Both countries have chosen to take different routes to dealing with that, since I only live in one of them, I'm not really in a position to judge the success of the American solution of having the right to ignore them for the idiot they are, but the UK takes the position that strong legal protection is the best way to flush, at the very least, the more intolerant views out of society and prevent confrontations and assumptions from all the different races and cultures here.

Will it work? To be honest, probably not entirely, does the American system work? Once again, probably not entirely ;)

I meant that there were not many examples of such a countries being the cause of World/Cold War.

To be honest, if you go back through history, the area a war covers has depended far more on logistics than anything else, Wars and Empires tend to get as big as they can get depending on the means of locomotion (foot, horse, vehicle), so whilst I'll certainly agree that both World Wars started in Europe, I think had we had planes and tanks in the days of the Syrian empire, there would have been wars of the same scope back then. I'll agree though that fear of resurgence of some of those views is certainly a motivator in the attitude we have :)

 

Offline headdie

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
The events of WWII left much of Europe contemplating a lot of serious issues.  The biggest was another large scale war sparking off in Europe which was the foundation block for the European Union.  The next issue was things like Hitler's "Final Solution" the subject of racial tolerance.  One of the reasons Hitler did so well in Germany was that he gave the majority of the population somewhere to target their frustration from the collapse of the German economy following the first war, that target was the Jews who were doing relatively well financially.  This nationalised racism is one of the foundation points which allowed Hitler to establish total control of the country.  Obviously with this politicians of the time feared similar events happening else where in Europe, because lets face it every country in Europe has some race issues somewhere that could be used to fuel a similar rise to power.  End of the day we have to be on the look out for racism because it has cause very real atrocities in out own house, a unsettling thought considering we think of ourselves a bastion of civilisation.
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Offline FireSpawn

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
Not just Europe, as cynical as it sounds, I think all countries have them. Some more than others, but all have them.
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Offline headdie

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
Sorry badly phrased, the concern from European leaders would have been European countries, especially western Europe (draw a line from Germany's eastern border to Italy's eastern border and you will have a good idea of the region I am talking about) who have traditionally held the majority of power in Europe.

As for racial subdivisions in general I would have to agree with you FireSpawn and go as far to say as every country on the planet has such divisions.
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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
In both countries, for example, shouting 'Death to the Leader (insert King/Prime-minister/President as required)' would be a violation of the Right to Freedom of speech because it encourages a violent act, those are pretty clear cut cases.

To be honest, I doubt that would qualify as direct incitement to violence any more than burning the flag would. Only if you said it in the presence of the man himself.
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
I suppose it can be sort of complicated at times, like the shooting of Senator Giffords, where there were a lot of question asked about whether rhetoric that was becoming more and more aggressive in nature was contributing to the idea that violent solutions were an acceptable option. To be honest, I'm not certain what the Legal remifications would be of a group of people standing on a street corner shouting 'Death to Obama', but I would have thought that kind of speech would be unlikely to be tolerated in the US itself.

Admittedly though, if you change the 'b' to an 's', then those chants would have been perfectly acceptable in the recent climate and most likely actually happened...

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« Last Edit: March 30, 2012, 02:13:50 pm by Flipside »

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
I suppose it can be sort of complicated at times, like the shooting of Senator Giffords, where there were a lot of question asked about whether rhetoric that was becoming more and more aggressive in nature was contributing to the idea that violent solutions were an acceptable option. To be honest, I'm not certain what the Legal remifications would be of a group of people standing on a street corner shouting 'Death to Obama', but I would have thought that kind of speech would be unlikely to be tolerated in the US itself.

you probably wont go to jail but you might get the secret service knocking on your door when the president comes to town telling you to stay home for the day.
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Offline 666maslo666

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.

To be precise, Id say this is also similarly erroneous, and in fact the opposite is true, there are ONLY "better" and "worse" ways of dealing with it. Because the objective neutral observer does not exist in reality, so subjective "better" and "worse" is all there is.
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Offline headdie

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.

To be precise, Id say this is also similarly erroneous, and in fact the opposite is true, there are ONLY "better" and "worse" ways of dealing with it. Because the objective neutral observer does not exist in reality, so subjective "better" and "worse" is all there is.

which means that better or worse is subjective dependant on the view point of the observer which is strongly influenced by the culture  the observer belongs to.
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Offline Flipside

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Re: Free speech in the United Kingdom
As I said before, different cultures, the whole idea that there is a 'better' or 'worse' way of dealing with it is an error in and of itself, there are simply ways of dealing with it.

To be precise, Id say this is also similarly erroneous, and in fact the opposite is true, there are ONLY "better" and "worse" ways of dealing with it. Because the objective neutral observer does not exist in reality, so subjective "better" and "worse" is all there is.

which means that better or worse is subjective dependant on the view point of the observer which is strongly influenced by the culture  the observer belongs to.

Exactly, even throughout the USA there are varying concepts of what is 'better' or 'worse' with regards to things like capital punishment, automatic weapons, abortion, drug laws and even the acceptance of Homosexuality. The USA wasn't designed to be a single homogenous unit from the outset, it is a Federation of States, with varying opinions and ideals held under an over-arching unifying mechanism in the form of the Federal Government, and all of that has at its heart the concept that Freedom of Speech means there is no 'better' or 'worse' ways of dealing with things so long as a basic set of Rights are upheld, and people cannot even agree on the exact meaning of those Rights. That is, as odd as it sounds, a moderately healthy way to do things, less Monolithic than many other establishments.

However, the UK is a completely different country in a completely different part of the world with a different modern history, and just as the American legal system echos the needs and requirements of American people, or at least, is supposed to, the same can be said for the UK.