A question for Americans

[Nekros22]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

I feel sorry if you live in a world where people can be prosecuted for spreading what the government declares to be bad ideas (ideas that don't incite violence)

Thumps up my man, finally one who gets the idea..

But spreading Bad Ideas is like giving away free knives at a playground, its not illegal but it is meant to make other people acting like you want.
Spreading the idea of wiping out the jewish race didnt came out that harmless if i recall correctly

You're acting like the Germans WANTED to go along with Hitler. Sure, there were some, a lot actually, but for the most part it was the fear.

Don't think Hitler's doing right? Oops, you must be a Jew. Time for you to disappear.

Questioning the Ayatollah? Oops, you must be an American-sympathizing pig. Time to die.

Questioning Saddam Hussein? Oops, you must be a filthy ethnic minority, enjoy the gas bombs.

Questioning Southern Democrats? Oops, you must be some pansy ass negro-lover. Let's take a car ride to the woods, shall we?

 

[steverivers]

If you believe America has free speech, perform this simple scientific test.

Stand in a shopping mall, get someone to film you.

Start speaking audibly to passers by, saying "I hate N***ers, and i hope everyone here agrees with me. N****ers will be the death of us all." and repeatedly say it over and over.



If you last beyond 10 minutes before security chucks you out, id be amazed. If you made it past 30, id be dumbfounded and shocked.

Make it a full hour and you can say the U.S has free speech.




The truth is - NO country has true "free speech". Americans just like chest thumping and using the claim its in their constitution as a means to belittle other countries and make themselves feel superior.

They dont have it, and the reason they dont have it is because in reality you dont want it. Because common sense and a civilized country require intelligent people to step in when nutbags, sickos, degenerates and low-life evil people would seek to abuse it.

 

[maturin]

Just a question, do you really have free speech if the government decides what speech is protected or not? For instance, the government can decide that videogames aren't protected as free speech, and ban them. What's to say the government can't decide that films aren't protected as free speech. So my question for the day is, is your speech truly protected?

A videogame is a game, not a statement. The idea of speech is something that is injected into things that are not essentially 'speech' in themselves.

Why is a videogame free speech? Is it? That is something that is decided usually by society and national debate, occasionally by the government before a consensus is reached. Almost everyone agrees on censuring free speech by making the right mutable by criminal codes or military subordination. That's not government oppression, because the government would be unable to do it without consensus. When they overstep and go after videogames out of the blue, people get upset.

Banning a vehicle of free speech because of its nature violates no rights. Otherwise you could graffiti insults on my front door. Banning a vehicle of free speech because of its statement or message would be a violation of free speech.

But it was never an absolute right anyways, always criminalized as slander, libel and obscenity. Just a favorite right. The nature of American democracy is that the government could violate all our rights easily, but we won't let them.

 

[Odbarc]

If there were true freedom of speech, people shouldn't be telling other people not to use hate-speech words or to not swear.

 

[katsumoto03]

I've posted this before, but dammit I'll do it again.

 

[Woodsey]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

I feel sorry if you live in a world where people can be prosecuted for spreading what the government declares to be bad ideas (ideas that don't incite violence)

Where do you people live, fucking Narnia? It's not like we've got guns to our heads telling us what to say. There are perfectly reasonable laws in place to stop morons from inciting hatred against any and all groups.

Those aren't reasonable laws those are stupid laws. If you hate a group then why should you not be allowed to express that hatred?

What are you afraid of exactly?

Ever heard of the KKK? They hated a group and they expressed it quite a bit - you're saying that sort of thing is justified? Even taking it away from those that lynched people to the people that spoke out against blacks and incited the hatred of them into others, you think that should in any way be protected?

Ok, the only way you can "incite" hatred into someone is if that someone already agrees with you. It's not like the KKK went up to black families and said "We're gonna go lynch the Washingtons down the street cause they're black and black people are bad!"

Huh? Of course not.

With enough propaganda and even the slightest link to someone to blame and you'll start getting people on your side.

We're not born with predetermined ideas on everything.

I don't think you are understanding where I'm coming from. Despite what CNN would like you to believe, most people aren't stupid. What you're saying here is that the KKK can present a completely nonsensical and irrational argument, make a supposed link to it, and somehow get half the country, who for the most part do not agree with the KKK's views, to believe it.

It doesn't work like that. Let's say I believe I'm a dog. I'm not a dog, but I still believe it. If I make a link to my beliefs; say, I like the taste of newspaper, and posit this to you, it would not make my argument any more valid or convincing. The only people who believe what the KKK says are groups that are affiliated with the KKK or support the KKK.

I never said half a country, and we don't need to link this to the KKK specifically.

People are influenced by what they're exposed to; people are very easily influenced by things that are presented too them as long as they're not outstandingly crazy right away.

You don't need to have agreed with the KKK all your life before you then support them once they're discovered - they can easily go around, release some propaganda, and there will be people who believe it.

I've seen Glenn Beck tell a woman that euthanasia is when the government kills you because you're too much of a financial burden when you're seriously ill, and she believed him. People aren't stupid, but it's easy to be taken in by the first thing you see on a subject matter because it's the first thing you see (although I'm hoping she had a screw loose because that is one gullible lady).

 

[Nekros22]

If you believe America has free speech, perform this simple scientific test.

Stand in a shopping mall, get someone to film you.

Start speaking audibly to passers by, saying "I hate N***ers, and i hope everyone here agrees with me. N****ers will be the death of us all." and repeatedly say it over and over.



If you last beyond 10 minutes before security chucks you out, id be amazed. If you made it past 30, id be dumbfounded and shocked.

Make it a full hour and you can say the U.S has free speech.




The truth is - NO country has true "free speech". Americans just like chest thumping and using the claim its in their constitution as a means to belittle other countries and make themselves feel superior.

They dont have it, and the reason they dont have it is because in reality you dont want it. Because common sense and a civilized country require intelligent people to step in when nutbags, sickos, degenerates and low-life evil people would seek to abuse it.

Ok, let's just establish that you're mad. That's on the table.

You're one of those people who thinks a small minority of people represents an entire country. It doesn't work that way.

THE 1ST AMENDMENT PROTECTS YOU FROM INFRINGEMENTS ON YOUR FREEDOM OF SPEECH BY THE GOVERNMENT!

If you walk up to a black man, call him a "n****r" and inevitably be thought of as a lesser person (or punched in the face, more likely), segwaying from that to "AMERICA DOESN'T HAVE FREE SPEECH" is illogical. That man you just called the n-word is a person entitled to every right you have.

The reason us "chest-thumping" Americans claim the Freedom of Speech is in our Constitution is because it is. The government cannot stop you from believing, saying, thinking, and writing what you want to. Granted, some things you say, believe, think and write can get you into a lot of trouble, but everyone will know about it because everyone will be told about it, i.e., the media is free to report it.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

As compared with many places in the world, where you might be shot for even uttering a complaint about someone, yes we do indeed have free speech. Do we have free speech as per the dictionary definition? Absolutely not.

So you have free-er speech?

Precisely.

Giving someone complete and unchecked freedom is a recipe for disaster. We are far from "The greatest country on the earth" as our leaders would like us to believe, but we're also a far cry from Afghanistan where you can be stoned to death simply for thinking that the US isn't all that bad.

Liberty and justice for all: Must be 18. Void where prohibited. Some restrictions may apply. Not available in all states.

^This^
This right here sums it up in a brilliant and rather funny explanation.
Our free speech is so hit and miss when it comes to what you can and cannot do.

 

[Nekros22]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

I feel sorry if you live in a world where people can be prosecuted for spreading what the government declares to be bad ideas (ideas that don't incite violence)

Where do you people live, fucking Narnia? It's not like we've got guns to our heads telling us what to say. There are perfectly reasonable laws in place to stop morons from inciting hatred against any and all groups.

Those aren't reasonable laws those are stupid laws. If you hate a group then why should you not be allowed to express that hatred?

What are you afraid of exactly?

Ever heard of the KKK? They hated a group and they expressed it quite a bit - you're saying that sort of thing is justified? Even taking it away from those that lynched people to the people that spoke out against blacks and incited the hatred of them into others, you think that should in any way be protected?

Ok, the only way you can "incite" hatred into someone is if that someone already agrees with you. It's not like the KKK went up to black families and said "We're gonna go lynch the Washingtons down the street cause they're black and black people are bad!"

Huh? Of course not.

With enough propaganda and even the slightest link to someone to blame and you'll start getting people on your side.

We're not born with predetermined ideas on everything.

I don't think you are understanding where I'm coming from. Despite what CNN would like you to believe, most people aren't stupid. What you're saying here is that the KKK can present a completely nonsensical and irrational argument, make a supposed link to it, and somehow get half the country, who for the most part do not agree with the KKK's views, to believe it.

It doesn't work like that. Let's say I believe I'm a dog. I'm not a dog, but I still believe it. If I make a link to my beliefs; say, I like the taste of newspaper, and posit this to you, it would not make my argument any more valid or convincing. The only people who believe what the KKK says are groups that are affiliated with the KKK or support the KKK.

I never said half a country, and we don't need to link this to the KKK specifically.

People are influenced by what they're exposed to; people are very easily influenced by things that are presented too them as long as they're not outstandingly crazy right away.

You don't need to have agreed with the KKK all your life before you then support them once they're discovered - they can easily go around, release some propaganda, and there will be people who believe it.

I've seen Glenn Beck tell a woman that euthanasia is when the government kills you because you're too much of a financial burden when you're seriously ill, and she believed him. People aren't stupid, but it's easy to be taken in by the first thing you see on a subject matter because it's the first thing you see.

So, it's group punishment? A few people believe in the idiocy of the KKK or the Black Panthers or what have you and everyone in the country must be punished for it?

No thanks, I'll just change the channel. If you're "taken in" by a subject the first time you hear about it, chances are you haven't thought it through or you agree with what the person is telling you about it. I guarantee you the woman at the Glenn Beck rally you're talking about was a Republican, i.e., she was more likely to believe Beck than, say, a woman who is a member of the Democrat Party.

 

[probunk]

Because of PC bullshit and liberalism.

Same goddamn thing happens here in the Glorious Socialist Republic of Canuckistan, and it's happening all over the world (though Australia and Britain have always been civil rights shitholes, so it's par for the course with them).

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Well, yes, our speech is protected. But so is our right to take action against both libel and slander, should it come to that. We have the right of free speech, and was also have the right to get punched in the face for the words that just came forth. And the puncher, of course, has the right to have the cops called upon him, for assault. When he returns from all of his tours of the judicial and penitentiary systems, he will then speak words against the first speaker, and the cycle begins anew.

 

[Woodsey]

Free speech is a myth, and so it should be.

Not where i live...

I feel sorry for you...

I feel sorry for you if people are allowed to run around the streets inciting racial hatred and the like.

I feel sorry if you live in a world where people can be prosecuted for spreading what the government declares to be bad ideas (ideas that don't incite violence)

Where do you people live, fucking Narnia? It's not like we've got guns to our heads telling us what to say. There are perfectly reasonable laws in place to stop morons from inciting hatred against any and all groups.

Those aren't reasonable laws those are stupid laws. If you hate a group then why should you not be allowed to express that hatred?

What are you afraid of exactly?

Ever heard of the KKK? They hated a group and they expressed it quite a bit - you're saying that sort of thing is justified? Even taking it away from those that lynched people to the people that spoke out against blacks and incited the hatred of them into others, you think that should in any way be protected?

Ok, the only way you can "incite" hatred into someone is if that someone already agrees with you. It's not like the KKK went up to black families and said "We're gonna go lynch the Washingtons down the street cause they're black and black people are bad!"

Huh? Of course not.

With enough propaganda and even the slightest link to someone to blame and you'll start getting people on your side.

We're not born with predetermined ideas on everything.

I don't think you are understanding where I'm coming from. Despite what CNN would like you to believe, most people aren't stupid. What you're saying here is that the KKK can present a completely nonsensical and irrational argument, make a supposed link to it, and somehow get half the country, who for the most part do not agree with the KKK's views, to believe it.

It doesn't work like that. Let's say I believe I'm a dog. I'm not a dog, but I still believe it. If I make a link to my beliefs; say, I like the taste of newspaper, and posit this to you, it would not make my argument any more valid or convincing. The only people who believe what the KKK says are groups that are affiliated with the KKK or support the KKK.

I never said half a country, and we don't need to link this to the KKK specifically.

People are influenced by what they're exposed to; people are very easily influenced by things that are presented too them as long as they're not outstandingly crazy right away.

You don't need to have agreed with the KKK all your life before you then support them once they're discovered - they can easily go around, release some propaganda, and there will be people who believe it.

I've seen Glenn Beck tell a woman that euthanasia is when the government kills you because you're too much of a financial burden when you're seriously ill, and she believed him. People aren't stupid, but it's easy to be taken in by the first thing you see on a subject matter because it's the first thing you see.

So, it's group punishment? A few people believe in the idiocy of the KKK or the Black Panthers or what have you and everyone in the country must be punished for it?

No thanks, I'll just change the channel. If you're "taken in" by a subject the first time you hear about it, chances are you haven't thought it through or you agree with what the person is telling you about it. I guarantee you the woman at the Glenn Beck rally you're talking about was a Republican, i.e., she was more likely to believe Beck than, say, a woman who is a member of the Democrat Party.

Well for the sake of a few nutters not being able to scream their hate for anyone mildly different to them I think I can survive - since the rest of us wouldn't want to do that anyway. The only people you're stopping by limiting that sort of free speech is the insane minority that wants to say it, no one else.

 

[Hidan03]

During the 1950's and 60's, we in the U.S. began a massive censorship campaign to help follow "good christian values". There were many comedians who stood against this such as the famous comedian Lenny Bruce, who was arrested MANY MANY times for "indecency in a public establishment" which was a legal term for cursing during his comedy act.

he would go as far as he could and would willing accept his arrests in order to make his point.






Warning as some may find the following extremely offensive. This is a link to one of the acts that had Lenny Bruce arrested.

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOnkv76rNL4

MY POINT IS....
That in the U.S. we've lived through centuries of intolerence, and today when we look back we say "I'll never happen again", yet they censor even more.... Are we hippocrites? probably.... but we can all agree that there are many problem with this country, and we cannot solve all of our sensitivities in a day.

 

[kouriichi]

"Free Speech" is a myth. Say the wrong thing and you'll end up in court before the days over.

I belive we have more of an "Open Speaking Society". As in, i can call Former President Bush a "C*ck smoking, dogf*cking, dysentery bathing monkey", but the moment i throw in the words, "Who i want to punch in the teeth", "free speech" really gets thrown out the window.

Its "free" in the sense it almost never costs us money to speak it. But not so much "free" in the sense that we can say whatever we want, whenever we want. Censorship is proof of that.

 

[RelexCryo]

Just a question, do you really have free speech if the government decides what speech is protected or not? For instance, the government can decide that videogames aren't protected as free speech, and ban them. What's to say the government can't decide that films aren't protected as free speech. So my question for the day is, is your speech truly protected?

You're from Britain, right? Wasn't a troll sent to prison for insulting the family of a dead boy recently?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104844-Man-Goes-to-Jail-for-Being-an-Internet-Troll

Why yes, apparently he was.

My point is that in both our countries, our government gets to say what is and isn't protected. That is part of why we have the right to bear arms in America. In case the government goes too far.

 

[Jerious1154]

If you believe America has free speech, perform this simple scientific test.

Stand in a shopping mall, get someone to film you.

Start speaking audibly to passers by, saying "I hate N***ers, and i hope everyone here agrees with me. N****ers will be the death of us all." and repeatedly say it over and over.



If you last beyond 10 minutes before security chucks you out, id be amazed. If you made it past 30, id be dumbfounded and shocked.

Make it a full hour and you can say the U.S has free speech.




The truth is - NO country has true "free speech". Americans just like chest thumping and using the claim its in their constitution as a means to belittle other countries and make themselves feel superior.

They dont have it, and the reason they dont have it is because in reality you dont want it. Because common sense and a civilized country require intelligent people to step in when nutbags, sickos, degenerates and low-life evil people would seek to abuse it.

That's not what freedom of speech means. Freedom of speech means that it is legal to go into a shopping mall and say the N-word over and over. There is no law against it. Freedom of speech does not mean that private organizations have to tolerate everything you say. The shopping mall is private property, they can throw you out for any reason they like, and using racial slurs is as good a reason as any. To use another example, if somebody comes into your home and insults you, it doesn't violate their freedom of speech for you to then kick them out of your house. The first amendment only protects you from the government, not from other people.

 

[The Ambrosian]

One thing that got me about the "Free speech" is that they aren't allowed to say "I want to kill the president, or something along those lines, unless it is to tell someone else they cannot say it >.>
Seems "Free" is defined by the government...
I think I'm within my rights to say I want to kill anyone, be it my neighbor, my cousin, some important government person, whoever. Lucky me. I just can't actually do so, even to protect myself :3

But you can say "There is a great spot opposite the white house where I can look in with a rifle and see the president" and that's actually legal, just as a technicality

OT: No, in some aspects I think America does, but not everything.

 

[Knusper]

Because then people could walk around saying they want to kill this person and that person, and utter threats and spread hate and genocide propaganda and what not.

Just like what happends all the time anyway?

It's better that we could actually punish said people though. And having those boundaries in place stop some of the people from doing so.

No matter how evil you might perceive what they are saying, everyone deserves to express their opinion.

OK, it's derailing, sorry about that, err... I think in Britain, there is more freedom of speech than in quite a lot of countries, including the USA, no offence.

 

[paragon1]

Yes, we have free speech. The government CANNOT lock you up for saying something it doesn't like (legally). The only form of speech that is restricted is 1) threatening another person with violence 2) calling for others to commit violence or 3)saying or writing something about someone you know to be untrue, also known as slander and libel.

American law regarding freedoms generally runs along the lines of "my right to swing my fist ends at the other man's nose". So long as you aren't causing anyone harm, it's usually fine.