There is not a single country on this planet that has no legal consequences for free speech and it would be ridiculous to claim that should be the standard. For one, and I feel kind of pedantic for pointing this out, but that kind of policy would preclude any obviously consequential statements made in court proceedings, for example pleading “guilty”, lying under oath, and confessing. Less pedantically, even in a version of the US where their so-far mythical conception of free speech was actually achieved, legal consequences are assigned to direct, material threats and attempts to cause panic. You’d be pretty hard pressed to claim these exceptions are unreasonable, and I’d go further to say that malicious attempts to incite hatred against a group should be included in unprotected forms of speech. It already is in many countries.
Maybe The Economist thinks these kinds of exceptions are ineffective but, personally, I enjoy living in a nation where people can’t legally spew hatred at my face because the bible told them my life is wrong. I feel safer knowing that people throwing Nazi salutes during national holidays are prosecuted. I think it’s quite interesting that the Economist feels the need to point the finger at Europe and call for “noisy disagreement” where “people should tolerate one another’s views” when the United States has pursued this exact policy and it has lead to little more than them being one of the leading contemporary examples of how an advanced democracy and economy falls into fascism and mass disenfranchisement.
There is not a single country on this planet that has no legal consequences for free speech and it would be ridiculous to claim that should be the standard. For one, and I feel kind of pedantic for pointing this out, but that kind of policy would preclude any obviously consequential statements made in court proceedings, for example pleading “guilty”, lying under oath, and confessing. Less pedantically, even in a version of the US where their so-far mythical conception of free speech was actually achieved, legal consequences are assigned to direct, material threats and attempts to cause panic. You’d be pretty hard pressed to claim these exceptions are unreasonable, and I’d go further to say that malicious attempts to incite hatred against a group should be included in unprotected forms of speech. It already is in many countries.
Maybe The Economist thinks these kinds of exceptions are ineffective but, personally, I enjoy living in a nation where people can’t legally spew hatred at my face because the bible told them my life is wrong. I feel safer knowing that people throwing Nazi salutes during national holidays are prosecuted. I think it’s quite interesting that the Economist feels the need to point the finger at Europe and call for “noisy disagreement” where “people should tolerate one another’s views” when the United States has pursued this exact policy and it has lead to little more than them being one of the leading contemporary examples of how an advanced democracy and economy falls into fascism and mass disenfranchisement.