Sorry for the week delay, but I was put off enough by this that I didn't feel like responding:
Czcibor said:
Yes, I know this belief. I also know that for example in press freedom index the USA did not get specially good grade (46th place; my country was on 19th), so I treat it more as expression of creed, not actually working policy.
http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are separate freedoms. And even if we try to call this movie a documentary and Sony Pictures therefore a news organization (they aren't), you're
still not referencing the free press index properly. From your link:
...the heritage of the 1787 constitution was shaken to its foundations during George W. Bush’s two terms as president by the way journalists were harassed and even imprisoned for refusing to reveal their sources or surrender their files to federal judicial officials.
There has been little improvement in practice under Barack Obama. Rather than pursuing journalists, the emphasis has been on going after their sources, but often using the journalist to identify them. No fewer that eight individuals have been charged under the http://en.rsf.org/united-states-freedom-of-information-threatened-22-05-2013,44651.html since Obama became president, compared with three during Bush’s two terms. While 2012 was in part the year of WikiLeaks founder http://en.rsf.org/why-european-nations-must-protect-03-07-2013,44886.html, 2013 will be remember for the National Security Agency computer specialist http://en.rsf.org/united-states-us-congress-urged-to-create-10-06-2013,44748.html, who exposed the mass surveillance methods developed by the US intelligence agencies.
The whistleblower is the enemy.
So the US does poorly there because of aggressive protection of government secrecy -- which wouldn't apply to either hate speech or just satire against a 3rd party. Yes, it's a problem, but it is the wrong problem with respect to this thread. And that's even setting aside the odd choices in the questionaire noted by mheslep.
I don't know, but maybe since they are both in the same Amendment you thought they were more closely related than they are. In court cases, individual clauses of the various amendments are addressed in total isolation from each other. Perhaps the writers wanted a round 10 articles, but the Bill of Rights actually contains a much larger number of separate rights.
So for me - US variant of freedom of speech is... well, nothing special.
Well that's fine. We shouldn't need to argue here. Our way certainly has drawbacks because giving hate groups a voice helps them grow and enables them to harass people. Your country and mine have different priorities and therefore made different choices. That's all.
Contradict? Maybe you first assumed that infallible (or treated as such) good governance principles can be written as a short list of one sentence long general principles. (yes, by occasion you did that in the US constitution, other countries were learning from you, but learning also mean trying to be more precise and specific in their own constitution)
Sorry, but that is non-responsive. I stand by my statement and that doesn't address it.
Look, again, freedom versus security is
the fundamental compromise problem in Western governmental power. Probably because we were the first to codify freedom from government oppression, we took it to an extreme that I don't think any other country has. And we know we took it to an extreme -- it was heavily debated during the founding of the country. And we know it has drawbacks. And it still isn't absolute in the US: we have product safety laws, mandatory insurance, mandatory seatbelt laws, drug laws (and Drug laws), anti-suicide laws, etc. But
that one is the most sacred to us, so it is the most absolute -- that's why it is listed first.
If I had to make such short list for sure I'd put "freedom of speech" or "Lex retro non agit" (lack of possibility of passing a law that would make a crime a prior action). However why should it mean that if I could make a longer list then not including lesser rules (like limiting possibility to change vote counting algorithm prior to election) not make some exceptions or boundaries for those already mentioned general rules?
[oddly] I'm not sure you understand what the Bill of Rights is -- it is a list of rights. A list of things government can't take from you, not a list of things you can't do.
Or put additional rights to be protected...
They did put in additional rights! ...later, as it became clear they were important omissions.
...that in effect would have to be weighted against prior rules thus de facto limit them?
As above, that's just not what it is for. The Constitution is concise because it enables flexibility and because it if twas supposed to be a complete set-up of the government so that we didn't need to write laws, it would literally have taken forever to write it. The evolution of hate speech protection is a fairly recent expansion:
U.S. law only began to protect hateful speech during the 1960s. The reason, in retrospect, is clear—repressive Southern state governments were trying to criminalize the civil-rights movement for its advocacy of change. White Southerners claimed (and many really believed) that the teachings of figures like Martin Luther King or Malcolm X were "hate speech" and would produce "race war." By the end of the decade, the Court had held that governments couldn't outlaw speech advocating law violation or even violent revolution. Neither Black Panthers nor the KKK nor Nazi groups could be marked off as beyond the pale purely on the basis of their message.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/free-speech-isnt-free/283672/
Note: realistically, this is more of a fixing of a contradiction than a true expansion, since the KKK long predates the Civil Rights Movement, but was nevertheless allowed to exist. Anyway, you may want to read that article because in addition to the history lesson, it is discussing exactly the compromises that you advocate, and points out that the US way of allowing hate speech is not without harm. Again, you and I really don't disgree on the pros/cons, we just have different priorities in our values.
When I thought about it, I think that instead of "freedom of speech", I'd rather suggest nowadays something like "right to information". It would turn a problem of producing for gov moneys articles that end up behind paywall or too long copyright protection... as an constitutional issue, while there would be no problem with laws concerning denial of Nazi (or communists) crimes.
That's kind of the opposite of the focus of freedom of speech. It protects the providing of information, which basically flood feeds the information to everyone, so protecting the receipt of information really wouldn't do anything. On the flip-side, focusing only on the receiving of information means that
all sharing of information has to be regulated, or worse, the government itself provides you with all information.
For example I would not be specially impressed by US standards, that in many cases I would be technically allowed by gov to say quite a lot, even though it would still in practice have career destroyed by moral panic already a while ago (cool to have a right that I would not dare to exercise anyway and most of sane people would behave accordingly).
There is no contradiction there. One person has a right to say something and another has a right to disagree -- and take personal action accordingly. That is perfectly in-line with full freedom of speech. Probably more to the point, as I said above, the Bill of Rights exists to protect the people from the government, not the people from each other.
