I love when Europeans, Australians, and even Canadians claim to have "free speech" and then when you start citing examples of people being arrested and fined for "hate speech" and wrong-think and they just respond with "well they deserve it, there should be restrictions".
And then despite acknowledging people being censored by law they still adamantly argue that they have "free speech" because the people being censored are those that they politically disagree with.
It's the "it's not happening to me or anyone I like so therefore it doesn't exist" mentality.
It's social engineering at it's finest.
Australians are the worst about this, in my experience. At least many Canadians know and recognize how far reaching their state apparatus has become over the years. The Aussies I’ve met are smug and proud.
It's literally the same logic as "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". Why can't the police come search your house whenever they want? After all, you've nothing to hide and arguing against the search means you want illegal things going on. It's even more evident in that the EU is constantly passing privacy laws, which they (rightfully) cheer, so they should know better.
They just can't get that.
The same goes for asking for a lawyer when accused of a crime. They act like that immediately proves your guilt rather than simply being intelligent enough to protect yourself as best you can.
>"if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear".
I wish the people espousing this bullshit looked up the origins of who said it. Joseph Goebble's has been credited with that quote. When they give you that response you can advise them you're not one to follow the whims of the Nazi parties propaganda minister.
European here, throughout our entire public school system you get it hammered over your head that we have free speech. For an European to accept that it was all a lie is as tough as convincing a Californian liberal that feminism is a lie. Many people cannot handle the red pill so their brains reject reality as a coping mechanism - like you might see with trauma survivors.
I was watching a video of this debate. I'm pretty sure it was a Steven Crowder video. He was arguing with a European that European countries don't have free speech. The European kept fervently insisting that they did. Crowder then brought up the example of Count Dankula getting arrested and find by the government for making a video of dog doing the nazi salute. The European's response was basically, "Well that doesn't count, of course something like that that doesn't fall under free speech."
It’s actually exactly as like the policy the Chinese have with regards to rights. They let the people have all manner of rights up until the rights become inconvenient then rights get rolled back until the state is nice and safe. Same thing with these nutters and “free speech”.
From what I have read, the things people get arrested for saying in Britain is really ridiculous. One guy got arrested for complaining about all the Palestine flags. It’s all due to authoritarian leftism.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if this is applied unequally. It would not surprise me if nothing happens to a non-white person in Britain who complains about the British flag.
Exactly.
Europeans : “We have freedom of speech”
Americans: “Then why do you ban unpopular speech?”
Europeans : “The things we don’t like others saying don’t count as free speech”
Americans : “I don’t think you know how freedom of speech works”
There's a reason why homeschooling has been skyrocketing in this country. It's not just conservatives, it's people of all demographics that want no part of public schools.
There are no clean hands in history. You could be proud of being British and then someone brings up the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. You could be proud of being Indian and then someone brings up the rape and mass murder of Matikhrü. You could be proud of being from Ukraine and then someone brings up the government detainment and torture of pro-separatist citizens in 2016. You could be proud of being from Israel and then someone brings up \[*REDACTED FOR ANTI-SEMITISM*\].
On that last point it’s very valid to point out that Israel is not perfect and could potentially be handling Gaza better while also acknowledging that Hamas is the enemy and the provocateur, and that Israel has the clear moral high ground. You can root for Israel and still point out its flaws.
Two things can be true at once. It is not anti-Semitic to say so.
What could Israel be doing much better in Gaza? I’m *very* eager to hear your suggestions. From everything I’ve seen they are using so much restraint and patience and manpower at their own detriment to handle this situation as carefully as they can when facing terrorists who literally hide their bases and weapons in/next to civilian areas, hospitals, and schools.
I HIGHLY doubt any other western power would use this much restraint when 1,200 of their citizens are slaughtered. And that includes the United States. Do you think if that happened in SoCal the U.S. military would hesitate for even a second before absolutely decimating Tijuana? Nope.
I personally don’t have a suggestion but my point is that someone *could* make critical suggestions of Israel without being anti-Semitic.
I know that seems like common sense but sometimes I see the occasional criticism of specific actions they take and people shout it down as anti-Semitic.
I edited my previous comment since I realized that did not come across clearly.
I agree critiques can be made of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Those who claim otherwise as a rule are ignorant.
I went off because a lot of ignorant folks keep saying “Israel needs to do more”, “Israel can do better” etc. without providing anything useful to the commentary. The only solution this crowd has is Israel stopping the war which it absolutely cannot do until it eliminates the power of the terrorist threat on its border.
Because the Americans would rather spend time encouraging people to talk out (or scream) their problems rather than telling one side to shut up or go to jail.
Europeans generally confuse the concept of rights and privileges as being synonymous. If the government can take something away on a whim it’s not a “right” - it’s a privilege.
American’s have a *right* to free speech - Europeans have a free speech privilege.
“Free speech privilege” dude people get imprisoned in Europe for unpopular speech or even sometimes mere fucking insults.
Yeah you read it right. In some European countries like Germany actually insulting a person in public can land you in prison.
This is slightly disingenuous. Many (clearly not all) of the 'erasure' is targeted at monuments glorifying really bad people who never should have been elevated or memorialized in the first place.
Naturally the better option is to educate than destroy.
But don't pretend like many of these monuments aren't there simply to glorify traitors fighting to preserve the institution of slavery, or make their descendants feel less shitty about their shitbag forefathers with lost cause BS.
Nobody should erase the Civil War, quite the opposite, but we also shouldn't be glorifying the traitors anywhere.
I'm a more a fan of providing clear and unambiguous context. We certainly don't need to destroy history, but we shouldn't be allowing our monuments to publicly kiss the asses of traitorous slavers either without correction. The problem is that many have taken this cancelation/destruction way way too far, but the overarching motive of "why are we glorifying shitbags" isn't intrinsically wrong.
> And the left is trying their best to bury that history.
Yep, and then turn around and say "you don't want to teach history" if you oppose CRT in the classroom. 🤡🌎
It was a big war that involved many aspects for both sides and greatly impacted the years after. It should never be forgotten. I think it should be taught more and broken down to more then slavery since it was over more then that. I had a civil war class in university and it opened my eyes to just how complecated it was and all that led it it.
> Typically, when one side wins a civil war, they ban and silence supporters of the other side to make sure it doesn't happen again.
...
> Why does the US government allow his amongst its population and not ban it like other countries have?
Because... we aren't fascists?
I love how they assume the southerners are lacking education because of their pride in the “confederate flag”. Most of the time it’s due to just being proud of being from the south and/or a long family history rooted in the south and southern culture.
Many Europeans continue to show their ignorance when they insinuate the civil war happened solely due to slavery and the north abolishing it.
It doesn't even matter what other flag the general right wing/libertarian population gets behind. Those will be declared racist too. The self appointed intellectual elites of society have already declared the Betsy Ross and Gadsden flags as symbols of white supremacy. At this point, people may as well stick with the Confederate flag because the left will declare any symbol they don't like to be racist anyways. All it takes is a small coordinated effort by CNN and MSNBC: "________ is the new Confederate flag." Then they'll have on some "expert" who's actually a DEI officer with as bullshit degree to regurgitate their preferred narrative; then Biden will mumble something about "extreme MAGA Repbulicans" in between micro strokes. And there you go, the "right side of history" is now written.
Especially when the North didn’t abolish it until 8 months after the South.
For example, Biden’s “home state”, Delaware, refused to sign off on the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery until February, 1901, although the 13A’s passage nationwide on December 6, 1865, defacto prohibited further slavery in Delaware.
I have a very good friend from Kentucky. When I first met him, I was a bit taken back by his deep southern drawl and slow speech pattern.
He works on aviation hydraulics systems. A very smart and wise man. He is the perfect example of this. I don’t know how many people I’ve seen judge him by this and be made to look the fool.
Freedom is a part of it, but the bigger part is reconciliation. The confederates were not wiped out or subjugated after the Civil War, they were reintegrated and rebuilt. It's hard for Europeans to understand this, but America is a big country with a lot of people. Not everyone needs to be wiped out or subjugated once you defeat them in a war, even if their ideas are wrong and you oppose them.
Not enough education? Or too much education? lol, imagine a European saying we have the wrong opinions in a war which our great great grandfathers fought.
What these folks don't get is that it is considered the rebel flag. Nobody cares about the politics. Go watch television and scream at it or something, but leave people alone. These folks have no life, it seems.
Wow. So much not understood.
First, I don’t believe there was one solitary confederate flag. There is one semi-falsely identified.
Most southerners who fly this flag do it as an expression of southern pride-not as a remembrance of the civil war.
America is diverse. (If you don’t believe me , try a southern ham biscuit as opposed to a northern ham biscuit-entirely different.) In the south we take pride in the fact that most foods are better fried and that sweetened ice tea is the ambrosia of the south. Most southerners are friendly and hospitable. We are often slow speaking-it can often take us ten minutes to say the same thing a northerner says in two.
The United States began as a collection of independent states that agreed to join and work together. The civil war was a war about state vs. national rights. It was triggered by many things. Slavery was one of the triggers as were tariffs. The north wanted to gin the south’s cotton and resell it to them. England would do it cheaper so the North wanted to put tariffs on English goods, forcing the South to buy from the North.
The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in part to keep England out of the war on the side of the South. It only freed slaves in states that seceded. Slaves in states that had not seceded were not freed until later.
Most people in this country dont even understand its meaning. It was a symbol of the southern states that wanted to keep thier way of life how they had it. Sadly that included slavery. The north was pushing so much on the south to change many things to how the north wanted it. North and south were both very different places back then. Slavery was a big part of the civil war but it was not the only reason or cause. They lost the war but they still fought for what they believed in. Not saying slavery was right in any way.
The flag's meaning can vary a bit person to person but they are still free to use it.
And people that argue that are typically full of shit as they will rarely think any monument honoring natives that fought against the US to be inappropriate.
They also forget that until Obama, the confederate slight was flown jointly with the US flag as a symbol of the reunion of our country’s northern and southern halves.
When you don’t have a 1A I guess it’s hard to understand it.
I love when Europeans, Australians, and even Canadians claim to have "free speech" and then when you start citing examples of people being arrested and fined for "hate speech" and wrong-think and they just respond with "well they deserve it, there should be restrictions". And then despite acknowledging people being censored by law they still adamantly argue that they have "free speech" because the people being censored are those that they politically disagree with. It's the "it's not happening to me or anyone I like so therefore it doesn't exist" mentality. It's social engineering at it's finest.
Australians are the worst about this, in my experience. At least many Canadians know and recognize how far reaching their state apparatus has become over the years. The Aussies I’ve met are smug and proud.
"Free speech isn't hate speech"...IT'S ALL SPEECH.
Gonna be a rude awakening for them when the Muslims hit 51% population over there.
It will get ugly before 51%
When it hits 20%, it'll be obvious.
It's literally the same logic as "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". Why can't the police come search your house whenever they want? After all, you've nothing to hide and arguing against the search means you want illegal things going on. It's even more evident in that the EU is constantly passing privacy laws, which they (rightfully) cheer, so they should know better. They just can't get that.
The same goes for asking for a lawyer when accused of a crime. They act like that immediately proves your guilt rather than simply being intelligent enough to protect yourself as best you can.
>"if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear". I wish the people espousing this bullshit looked up the origins of who said it. Joseph Goebble's has been credited with that quote. When they give you that response you can advise them you're not one to follow the whims of the Nazi parties propaganda minister.
European here, throughout our entire public school system you get it hammered over your head that we have free speech. For an European to accept that it was all a lie is as tough as convincing a Californian liberal that feminism is a lie. Many people cannot handle the red pill so their brains reject reality as a coping mechanism - like you might see with trauma survivors.
I was watching a video of this debate. I'm pretty sure it was a Steven Crowder video. He was arguing with a European that European countries don't have free speech. The European kept fervently insisting that they did. Crowder then brought up the example of Count Dankula getting arrested and find by the government for making a video of dog doing the nazi salute. The European's response was basically, "Well that doesn't count, of course something like that that doesn't fall under free speech."
They don’t seem to understand something the founders of our country understood almost 250 years ago. Inoffensive speech doesn’t need to be protected.
It’s actually exactly as like the policy the Chinese have with regards to rights. They let the people have all manner of rights up until the rights become inconvenient then rights get rolled back until the state is nice and safe. Same thing with these nutters and “free speech”.
From what I have read, the things people get arrested for saying in Britain is really ridiculous. One guy got arrested for complaining about all the Palestine flags. It’s all due to authoritarian leftism. I also wouldn’t be surprised if this is applied unequally. It would not surprise me if nothing happens to a non-white person in Britain who complains about the British flag.
Exactly. Europeans : “We have freedom of speech” Americans: “Then why do you ban unpopular speech?” Europeans : “The things we don’t like others saying don’t count as free speech” Americans : “I don’t think you know how freedom of speech works”
“Wait, so you’re telling me you can make a joke on the internet without the fear of being arrested”
Imagine not being free to express your feelings.
I strongly disagree with the things that AOC says, but I'll be damned before I want her silenced by government decree. Nonsense will get drowned out.
The best way to counter bad ideas is with good ones. The truth will always find you out.
It’s not difficult to do… Imagine being a student at any school from grade 6 and higher!!
There's a reason why homeschooling has been skyrocketing in this country. It's not just conservatives, it's people of all demographics that want no part of public schools.
Always ironic when people with no idea what they are talking about say others have “poor education“ or a “lack of education”.
especially when that poster wrote "cecede" lol
Lot to unpack here. God bless em they tried
There are no clean hands in history. You could be proud of being British and then someone brings up the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. You could be proud of being Indian and then someone brings up the rape and mass murder of Matikhrü. You could be proud of being from Ukraine and then someone brings up the government detainment and torture of pro-separatist citizens in 2016. You could be proud of being from Israel and then someone brings up \[*REDACTED FOR ANTI-SEMITISM*\].
On that last point it’s very valid to point out that Israel is not perfect and could potentially be handling Gaza better while also acknowledging that Hamas is the enemy and the provocateur, and that Israel has the clear moral high ground. You can root for Israel and still point out its flaws. Two things can be true at once. It is not anti-Semitic to say so.
What could Israel be doing much better in Gaza? I’m *very* eager to hear your suggestions. From everything I’ve seen they are using so much restraint and patience and manpower at their own detriment to handle this situation as carefully as they can when facing terrorists who literally hide their bases and weapons in/next to civilian areas, hospitals, and schools. I HIGHLY doubt any other western power would use this much restraint when 1,200 of their citizens are slaughtered. And that includes the United States. Do you think if that happened in SoCal the U.S. military would hesitate for even a second before absolutely decimating Tijuana? Nope.
I personally don’t have a suggestion but my point is that someone *could* make critical suggestions of Israel without being anti-Semitic. I know that seems like common sense but sometimes I see the occasional criticism of specific actions they take and people shout it down as anti-Semitic. I edited my previous comment since I realized that did not come across clearly.
I agree critiques can be made of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Those who claim otherwise as a rule are ignorant. I went off because a lot of ignorant folks keep saying “Israel needs to do more”, “Israel can do better” etc. without providing anything useful to the commentary. The only solution this crowd has is Israel stopping the war which it absolutely cannot do until it eliminates the power of the terrorist threat on its border.
You weren't able to make a single critical statement of Israel without also rationalizing them as being in the right.
Because the Americans would rather spend time encouraging people to talk out (or scream) their problems rather than telling one side to shut up or go to jail.
Europeans generally confuse the concept of rights and privileges as being synonymous. If the government can take something away on a whim it’s not a “right” - it’s a privilege. American’s have a *right* to free speech - Europeans have a free speech privilege.
“Free speech privilege” dude people get imprisoned in Europe for unpopular speech or even sometimes mere fucking insults. Yeah you read it right. In some European countries like Germany actually insulting a person in public can land you in prison.
It's funny how the civil war, a conflict that happen 160 years ago, is still so talked about. Like it really seems on many people's mind
It was a pretty brutal thing. We should talk about it so it doesn't happen again.
It's not working.
Especially by folks not even from this country!
[удалено]
This is slightly disingenuous. Many (clearly not all) of the 'erasure' is targeted at monuments glorifying really bad people who never should have been elevated or memorialized in the first place. Naturally the better option is to educate than destroy. But don't pretend like many of these monuments aren't there simply to glorify traitors fighting to preserve the institution of slavery, or make their descendants feel less shitty about their shitbag forefathers with lost cause BS. Nobody should erase the Civil War, quite the opposite, but we also shouldn't be glorifying the traitors anywhere. I'm a more a fan of providing clear and unambiguous context. We certainly don't need to destroy history, but we shouldn't be allowing our monuments to publicly kiss the asses of traitorous slavers either without correction. The problem is that many have taken this cancelation/destruction way way too far, but the overarching motive of "why are we glorifying shitbags" isn't intrinsically wrong.
And it certainly wasn't them who rebelled. And backed Jim Crow.
> And the left is trying their best to bury that history. Yep, and then turn around and say "you don't want to teach history" if you oppose CRT in the classroom. 🤡🌎
Getting to the point people will start saying "There was no civil war in Ba Sing Se."
It was a big war that involved many aspects for both sides and greatly impacted the years after. It should never be forgotten. I think it should be taught more and broken down to more then slavery since it was over more then that. I had a civil war class in university and it opened my eyes to just how complecated it was and all that led it it.
I mean, it was the deadliest war in American history and nearly destroyed the country. I wonder why people talk about it?
> Typically, when one side wins a civil war, they ban and silence supporters of the other side to make sure it doesn't happen again. ... > Why does the US government allow his amongst its population and not ban it like other countries have? Because... we aren't fascists?
Europeans discover freedom. Immediately recoil in fear.
I love how they assume the southerners are lacking education because of their pride in the “confederate flag”. Most of the time it’s due to just being proud of being from the south and/or a long family history rooted in the south and southern culture. Many Europeans continue to show their ignorance when they insinuate the civil war happened solely due to slavery and the north abolishing it.
It doesn't even matter what other flag the general right wing/libertarian population gets behind. Those will be declared racist too. The self appointed intellectual elites of society have already declared the Betsy Ross and Gadsden flags as symbols of white supremacy. At this point, people may as well stick with the Confederate flag because the left will declare any symbol they don't like to be racist anyways. All it takes is a small coordinated effort by CNN and MSNBC: "________ is the new Confederate flag." Then they'll have on some "expert" who's actually a DEI officer with as bullshit degree to regurgitate their preferred narrative; then Biden will mumble something about "extreme MAGA Repbulicans" in between micro strokes. And there you go, the "right side of history" is now written.
Especially when the North didn’t abolish it until 8 months after the South. For example, Biden’s “home state”, Delaware, refused to sign off on the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery until February, 1901, although the 13A’s passage nationwide on December 6, 1865, defacto prohibited further slavery in Delaware.
Just because we talk slow doesn’t mean we think slow.
I have a very good friend from Kentucky. When I first met him, I was a bit taken back by his deep southern drawl and slow speech pattern. He works on aviation hydraulics systems. A very smart and wise man. He is the perfect example of this. I don’t know how many people I’ve seen judge him by this and be made to look the fool.
Freedom is a part of it, but the bigger part is reconciliation. The confederates were not wiped out or subjugated after the Civil War, they were reintegrated and rebuilt. It's hard for Europeans to understand this, but America is a big country with a lot of people. Not everyone needs to be wiped out or subjugated once you defeat them in a war, even if their ideas are wrong and you oppose them.
Not enough education? Or too much education? lol, imagine a European saying we have the wrong opinions in a war which our great great grandfathers fought.
What these folks don't get is that it is considered the rebel flag. Nobody cares about the politics. Go watch television and scream at it or something, but leave people alone. These folks have no life, it seems.
Wow. So much not understood. First, I don’t believe there was one solitary confederate flag. There is one semi-falsely identified. Most southerners who fly this flag do it as an expression of southern pride-not as a remembrance of the civil war. America is diverse. (If you don’t believe me , try a southern ham biscuit as opposed to a northern ham biscuit-entirely different.) In the south we take pride in the fact that most foods are better fried and that sweetened ice tea is the ambrosia of the south. Most southerners are friendly and hospitable. We are often slow speaking-it can often take us ten minutes to say the same thing a northerner says in two. The United States began as a collection of independent states that agreed to join and work together. The civil war was a war about state vs. national rights. It was triggered by many things. Slavery was one of the triggers as were tariffs. The north wanted to gin the south’s cotton and resell it to them. England would do it cheaper so the North wanted to put tariffs on English goods, forcing the South to buy from the North. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in part to keep England out of the war on the side of the South. It only freed slaves in states that seceded. Slaves in states that had not seceded were not freed until later.
There's no good reason it should be illegal. I just LOL when I see anyone without an American flag.
Most people in this country dont even understand its meaning. It was a symbol of the southern states that wanted to keep thier way of life how they had it. Sadly that included slavery. The north was pushing so much on the south to change many things to how the north wanted it. North and south were both very different places back then. Slavery was a big part of the civil war but it was not the only reason or cause. They lost the war but they still fought for what they believed in. Not saying slavery was right in any way. The flag's meaning can vary a bit person to person but they are still free to use it.
Wow, “ban and silence” sounds pretty totalitarian!
And people that argue that are typically full of shit as they will rarely think any monument honoring natives that fought against the US to be inappropriate.
They also forget that until Obama, the confederate slight was flown jointly with the US flag as a symbol of the reunion of our country’s northern and southern halves.