this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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It's kind of strange that some countries have laws and punishments dealing with libel, slander, and defamation of character (disrespect of individuals) but "malicious attempts of incitement to intercultural hate and violence" (well said) makes some people throw their hands up and say "welp what can you do, it's freedom". The "Where do we start and where do we stop?" camp doesn't seem to have enough mental tarmac to even take off in search of a solution.
Because libel and slander are targeted at individuals. Groups and worldviews do not enjoy the same protections as individuals by most law systems. That's mostly a good thing.
I have no love for the right-wing nutjobs trying to incite intercultural violence but at the same time I don't think what they're doing can be made illegal in a liberal society.
In Germany, when a Neo-Nazi publicly praises national socialism or denies the holocaust you can simply call the cops on his ass because there is a law against incitement. When I learned that in the USA that kind of shit is covered by "free speech" at first I just could not believe it. So, does that mean there is no right to express your opinion in Germany - of course it does not - it simply means that there are legal limits to purposefully spreading hate, violence and ideologies that lead to it. I personally think the US American idea of free speech - that makes it for example legal to publicly deny the holocaust - is not particularly smart ...
That's interesting, I didn't know that. Sounds reasonable to me.
The US first ammendment ("free speech") protects citizens from reprecussions from the government if a citizen criticizes the government. That's it. It doesn't mean you can say whatever tf you want, as some people interpret it. In fact, in the US, some people who misinterperet the first ammendment will be summarily executed by someone who misunderstands the second ammendment!
Obviously there can´t be a democracy (or what we call a democracy) without that! Criticizing the government has to be legal - always - no exceptions!
ROFL - US culture seriously scares the shit out of me and I will probably never travel there