Comment by oezi
7 days ago
That isn't really what we perceive (at least if educated). We see that Free Speech is not an absolute right, but is secondary to the most important right which for Germans is Human Dignity. It might be foreign to you because your constitution and history doesn't put the same value on it than our history taught us.
I'm not American but I similarly don't care for the meek subservience to the government which characterizes European attitude on this.
Human dignity is not foreign to me at all, I just don't believe a life where the state protects your feelings from words, and that dictates what you may and may not talk about is not a dignified one.
It is often easy to assume this position if you are majority, white, employed, etc.
Your argument is similar to saying that we shouldn't have rules when driving cars. "Why life cannot be dignified if I have to observe stop signs."
In every are of life there are balances to be struck. I am sure your country has rules for slandering individuals (because most have). What's the difference to also having rules against slandering entire people?
> It is often easy to assume this position if you are majority, white, employed, etc.
What is your evidence to that claim?
I think it is actually not easy to assume that position, as evidenced by vast numbers of Europeans who do not assume that position. I think that it is in fact far easier (as a majority, white, employed, etc.), to go through life believing your government will solve everything and protect your feelings from being hurt by hearing what other people think. I just think it is an undignified existence.
> Your argument is similar to saying that we shouldn't have rules when driving cars. "Why life cannot be dignified if I have to observe stop signs."
I can see how bewildering this is for you, but my "argument" is also quite different in important ways.
> In every are of life there are balances to be struck. I am sure your country has rules for slandering individuals (because most have).
Adjudicating disputes between private parties is clearly one of the real roles of government.
> What's the difference to also having rules against slandering entire people?
I'm not sure if you are being rhetorical and actually want me to list the differences because you are unaware of them? Civil actions brought by private parties are different from government censorship and criminalization of speech. And I can be sued in civil court for what I say, I never said or even hinted that this should be disallowed that seems to be a strawman you have made up.
I don't think it should be easy to be found liable for damage if you tell the truth or give your opinion though.
What about you? Do you think calling AfD voters in general racists or extremists or selfish or xenophobic should be censored and criminalized by your government?
How could German history have taught you anything about human dignity?
You went from a military dictatorship to an unstable republic to a fascist state, then you split into military occupation zones, and then one of your military occupation zones annexed the other, the militaries left but you kept the laws, and now you arrest people for saying "from the river to the sea".
Using your German-ness to talk to anyone else about freedom or human dignity is patently ridiculous. If you have an ideological point to make, make it, but the whole "as a German" angle just does not hold water. "As a German" your history shows you don't understand this.
Your concept of Freedom of Speech is much closer to the Mainland Chinese model than an Anglo one.
A little less hyperbole would maybe help your arguments, but trying to argue that one of the most liberal democracies in the world is comparable to one of the most repressive regimes is hurting your argument (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/liberal-democracy-index).
Nobody is perfect, but Germans have learned a lot in the last century and a half. One of the things is that Freedom of Speech doesn't deserve the pedestal that primarily US Americans put it on. It has boundaries and one of those is calling for the displacement of an entire nation.
You make it sound like that Germany is just a puppet without its own mind, but in reality it is just some 80m people all with their own mind, history and education. The reality is that Germans are more aware of their history and the impact seemingly small decisions can have on the life of millions. That's why I talk about the German-ness, because many other countries can't or don't want to understand the weight of responsibility which arises from being the perpetrator of two world wars and the holocaust.
This is a textbook case of German Schuldstolz - you feel having been militaristic and having mass human right abuses entitles you to lecture others.
All you learned in the last centuries and a half is that you dont have the logistics to fight massive wars. You did not abandon anything due to your own enlightenment, you abandoned it because of massive foreign military interventions, where every single one of your newspaper, radio and television stations were replaced by your military occupiers.
The worst part about your Schuldstolz is that... the regime who did the most to end yours was even less moral and killed even more people than your own. Meaning you aren't even the best at being awful.
So no, I do not care what you have to see about freedom "as a German". You were militarily, ideologically and mentally conquered. Lecturing Anglos is this is just reflecing back our own beliefs but distorted with a German mindset that has no history or tradition of freedom of speech.
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