Comment by davemp
9 years ago
> This is tyranny of the masses, nothing else.
It is called democracy. It has brought more success/improved living conditions than any other model (tyranny of the elite) in history.
> And I would suggest to you that there are numerous countries on this planet that have not elevated free speech to the status of religion, yet guarantee civil rights for much longer than the United States do.
Let's see some citations. Who are these beacons of civil rights? China? India? Colonel England?
It is also worth noting that free speech is considered a human right by the UN. [1]
> And how does this constitute an argument?
It's a circular arguement. I oppress you, you oppress me, we are all one big opressive family.
[1]: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/043/8...
> Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
>Let's see some citations. Who are these beacons of civil rights? China? India? Colonel England?
The United Kingdom and France for starters, two countries that were relatively egalitarian while the US was still busy enslaving its African-American population. Of course while free speech was already a thing in the United States.
Free speech were very popular ideas in France/England/USA in that time period. [1,2] France even had free speech protections before the USA did. [2] The USA's notion of free speech was directly influenced by/spawned from Europian ideals and legislation. [3,4] It is ignorant of history to suggest otherwise.
While they may not have made it into law has solidly as in the USA, free speech ideals were very present and popular ideal in France/England at those time periods.
Europe's "hate speech" laws and censorship of speech/press are from more recent times.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill#Freedom_of_sp...
[3]: http://constitution.laws.com/declaration-of-the-rights-of-ma...
> Articles 10 and 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789) were written to address the prohibitive nature of the government in preventing the freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_privilege