patrick.net

Hey France! Your flag is so dumb it hears it's chilly outside so it gets a bowl.

Hey France! Your flag is so dumb it got hit by a cup and told the police it got mugged.

Hey France! Your flag is so ugly it got fired from a blow job.

Hey France! Your flag is so dumb it tripped over a cordless phone.

Hey France! Your flag is like a Christmas tree. Everyone puts their balls on it.

Hey France! Your flag is like a hardware store: 5 cents a screw!

since you can deny the holocaust or armenian genocide or burn the flag here.

On the holocaust yes, but I'd rather Snowden have the right to make truthful revelations about the crimes committed by politicians and government officials than have the right to spread a lie. Not that they are mutually exclusive, but the latter is certainly more important.

Frankly, I think the Holocaust issue is more sensitive in Europe than in America. Our country does similar things like not letting people photograph the bodies or coffins of soldiers during war.

As for burning the flag, it wasn't that long ago that it was illegal and to this day assholes still try to make it illegal. History of U.S. Laws Against Flag Burning

not too sure about indecency laws. is public porn a human right?

Absolutely. I'm sure AF will agree. Freedom has no meaning if you can't take a selfie while shagging a sheep in the town square.

In any case, it's clearly a violation of the First Amendment to arrest a nudist for being nude as a protest of the law. Even the courts agreed on that. Ironically, their interpretation was that nudity was only protected speech if you were actively protesting. Nonetheless, the police will still arrest such protestors.

The way I see it, as long as you are forcing your audience in captivity to watch, you should be allowed to broadcast what you want. The only legitimate exceptions to free speech, and they should be explicit so that the state doesn't add to them, are

1. Threats of violence
2. Falsely reporting emergencies
3. Deliberately spreading false and damaging information (slander and liable).
4. Reporting on a crime before a fair trial has started and the jury has been sequestered. And this restriction is only there to protect the right to a fair trial.

Other than that, the state has no right to prosecute people for the content of their speech, no matter how offense to anyone. If you are offended by something, don't listen to it.

if France really wants to defend free speech, they must be consistent about it and allow holocaust denial and insults to their own flag.

There is no such thing as free speech anywhere. The United States is the only place which has elevated the principle to a core belief - Europe, like everywhere else, has no tradition of such a thing, so our 1st Amendment seems puzzling to many.

We're the outlier. And we don't really have it here anyway. The list of things you can't say in any particular setting, for social or legal reasons, is extensive.

The Holocaust denial laws have a background in France: many French actively helped the Nazis round up Jews. I suspect it's a special guilt-erasure principle. By saying "We're not even going to go so far as to allow raving whackaloons to say it didn't happen," they can atone for the guilt.

I'm coming around to the idea that it's better to have no principle of free speech than to have a 1st Amendment and attach elaborate restrictions to it.

HydroCabron says

I'm coming around to the idea that it's better to have no principle of free speech than to have a 1st Amendment and attach elaborate restrictions to it.

Admiting it is the first step.

I believe you can say what ever you want, I believe there should be a long exhaustive list of crap you can't publish, broadcast for moral and decency sakes.

How ever, as long as your message doesn't violate the decency laws, like calling another political a prohibited word, or using language that would violate it. You should be able to present any political message as long as it doesn't violate the decency laws.

You should be able speak the truth about any company or politician with out any repercussions.

I'm basically suggesting the opposite of what we have now.

Classic Freudian slip...

Dan8267 says

The way I see it, as long as you are forcing your audience in captivity to watch, you should be allowed to broadcast what you want.

Even with free speech there is still an allowable standard status quo of what is acceptable. It is enforced tacitly and usually falls into the Ds v Rs, which is what the powers to be want.

Dan8267 says

Frankly, I think the Holocaust issue is more sensitive in Europe than in America.

Europeans have laws against Holocaust denial, yet they are much more anti-Semitic. They believe that hiding symptoms by legislation will solve all problems.

Peter P says

Dan8267 says

Frankly, I think the Holocaust issue is more sensitive in Europe than in America.

Europeans have laws against Holocaust denial, yet they are much more anti-Semitic. They believe that hiding symptoms by legislation will solve all problems.

So they have "the Running of the Jew?"

CaptainShuddup says

How ever, as long as your message doesn't violate the decency laws

So as long as nobody tweets about their terminal brain cancer, you're good?

You're right that the flag rule creates inconsistency. It appears to be recent:

"The rule was triggered by a photo of a man wiping his bottom with the flag.
...
The offending picture which triggered the decree won a prize in a photo contest in Nice in March."

The flag rule seems to have been an inappropriate reaction and there appears to be a difference of opinion about it in France. The guy could probably have been charged with simple vandalism or indecent exposure, so France didn't need to make a whole new law for such trivia.

I think the holocaust rule may differ because the cases I've read about involve fundraising for neo-Nazi political groups, and using false pretenses to take money is considered fraud/theft even here. I would be curious to see if there have been any cases where somebody got prosecuted for denying the holocaust without using that denial to take money.

Glenn Greenwald has been reporting on France's hypocrisy:
"FRANCE ARRESTS A COMEDIAN FOR HIS FACEBOOK COMMENTS"
"The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan…"
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/14/days-hosting-massive-free-speech-march-france-arrests-comedian-facebook-comments/
And:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/09/solidarity-charlie-hebdo-cartoons/

curious2 says

I think the holocaust rule may differ because the cases I've read about involve fundraising for neo-Nazi political groups, and using false pretenses to take money is considered fraud/theft even here.

Then they shouldn't need another law.

Holocaust denial should be allowed because stupid bigots must be exposed.

Peter P says

curious2 says

I think the holocaust rule may differ because the cases I've read about involve fundraising for neo-Nazi political groups, and using false pretenses to take money is considered fraud/theft even here.

Then they shouldn't need another law.

That's a good point. Legislators tend to suffer from a dynamic of crowds, trying to outdo each other, with a resulting tendency to excess. Some perceived outrage occurs, a crowd says "there outta be a law," and the temptation is to appear heroic and ride like cavalry over the ridge to the rescue. It makes for better campaign advertising than saying "actually we had already a law to deal with this, the legislature didn't really need to do anything, it would have been better if they had done nothing." The end result as Dan has observed elsewhere is shelf after shelf of laws that nobody can possibly read through but everybody is required to comply with.

The more recent inconsistency was the Dieudonne case (making jokes about Isreal and jews).

France does not have strict free speech laws. Mostly it's politicians reacting to waves of emotions and forbidding this or that. The holocaust is indeed a far more sensitive subject in France than the US since some French participated in it on both sides.

In the case of Dieudonne I think it should be thought as "Enemy Propaganda":
The US, France, Israel are part of the West and are at war with extremists. You don't want extremists to come in France and publish their propaganda against the West without consequences. I don't think there is a country in the world that will let that happen.

Extremist propaganda will simply be laughed away in the US. People here care more about this life than the afterlife, and rightfully so.

What's wrong with making fun of Jews? My Jewish friends make fun of themselves all the time. :-)

This is one of my favorite songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAcf1RF2ps

Peter P says

Extremist propaganda will simply be laughed away in the US. People here care more about this life than the afterlife, and rightfully so.

France has 6 millions mushlims, most uneducated from Africa, most poor with no prospects. They will not laugh. If 1% are convinced, that's 60000 potential terrorists.
That will not be funny.

HydroCabron says

I suspect it's a special guilt-erasure principle. By saying "We're not even going to go so far as to allow raving whackaloons to say it didn't happen," they can atone for the guilt.

That's exactly what it is, an attempt to whitewash history.

indigenous says

Even with free speech there is still an allowable standard status quo of what is acceptable.

A self-contradicting statement.

Dan8267 says

And frequently laws involving "disturbing the peace" or "disorderly conduct" or "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" are thinly masked violations of free speech. Court gag orders are also an affront to the First Amendment.

Once again, for anyone who cares about what the law on the First Amendment IS (versus whatever they happen to think it "should be"), the law has always allowed "content neutral" restrictions, such as the time, place and manner of speech. The First Amendment to the Constitution never gave us the right to say whatever we want whenever, or wherever we want.

Next week the wack job who hangs out near the WWI memorial will be arrested for the umteenth straight year when he tries to walk into the Capitol dome to interrupt the State of the Union to talk about the treatment of his son in jail. Should he be arrested for disorderly conduct, or would you let him proceed?

When judge Perry issued the gag order the thousands of people who came down to the Casey Anthony trial to discuss, child abuse, missing & exploited children, deadbeat dads, tot mom, jury nullification, Jews for Jesus, Darfur, hairstyles of the 1970s, etc, etc, etc, was he wrong for not allowing them to do so on Courthouse grounds?

If you think the US has free speech, go to a campus newspaper and try to publish a story that women are bad at maths.

CDon says

Once again, for anyone who cares about what the law on the First Amendment IS (versus whatever they happen to think it "should be"), the law has always allowed "content neutral" restrictions, such as the time, place and manner of speech. The First Amendment to the Constitution never gave us the right to say whatever we want whenever, or wherever we want.

By definition "content neutral" means you can say whatever you want. And gag orders are the very definition of not content neutral as what's being gag is specific content.

In reality, America has never followed the First Amendment or the Second. We have neither the right to free speech or press, nor the right to bare arms. Whether or not we should have those rights is an entirely different matters. In practice, we do not have those rights and never did.

Heraclitusstudent says

Peter P says

Extremist propaganda will simply be laughed away in the US. People here care more about this life than the afterlife, and rightfully so.

France has 6 millions mushlims, most uneducated from Africa, most poor with no prospects. They will not laugh. If 1% are convinced, that's 60000 potential terrorists.

That will not be funny.

Why did they even let these people in? At least in the US, even undocumented immigrants are hard-workers who want a better life.

Heraclitusstudent says

If you think the US has free speech, go to a campus newspaper and try to publish a story that women are bad at maths.

Bad example. Freedom of speech and press means that the government cannot prosecute you for the content of your speech. It does not mean that people cannot think you are an asshole regardless of whether or not their opinion has any foundation.

A good example would be the government fining a person for indecency or arresting a person for violating a gag order or holding a person in violation of parole for chatting in a forum.

Peter P says

Why did they even let these people in? At least in the US, even undocumented immigrants are hard-workers who want a better life.

Many undocumented then regularized. Others, just there to pay social security for french boomers.

Authorities always want to add population because it adds growth. They didn't pay too much attention to the nature of who they let in.

Heraclitusstudent says

Peter P says

Why did they even let these people in? At least in the US, even undocumented immigrants are hard-workers who want a better life.

Many undocumented then regularized. Others, just there to pay social security for french boomers.

Authorities always want to add population because it adds growth. They didn't pay too much attention to the nature of who they let in.

Perhaps they should have an auction-based system.

Humanitarian immigration rarely makes sense.

Dan8267 says

By definition "content neutral" means you can say whatever you want. And gag orders are the very definition of not content neutral as what's being gag is specific content.

But not wherever you want. No matter what you may think it is, a "content neutral" restriction in legal parlance is as follows:

Judge issues an order - nobody is allowed to protest ANYTHING for the next 48 hours on courthouse grounds.

All of humanity could bloviate about whatever they want, all day long across the street from the courthouse. Or they could wait til the time restriction was over and then go back to the court complex to bloviate for the rest of their lives. All was limited by that order was the time and the place, not the content.

Likewise, in legal parlance a "content specific" restriction would be as follows:

Judge issues an order - nobody is allowed to speak about hairstyles of the 1970s for the next 48 hours on courthouse grounds.

Do you understand this now?

Dan8267 says

In reality, America has never followed the First Amendment

No. You are arguing for something that never even existed in the first place. In this regard, I dont blame you in that most people conflate the First Amendment to be some sort of flag wrapped romantic notion of a free speech freeforall which was never what it was, nor was intended to be. I forget now which one of the Federalist Papers it was now, but the philosophical underpinnings for the First Amendment were to keep people from being subject to the various Acts of Sedition they were potentially subject to under common law...maybe the 78th? The vast majority of people who today claim to have their 1st amendment rights "trampled" probably have no idea what sedition even means.

Either way, as I said before and will say again, you would be much better equipped to act as the patnet authority on all things legal if you had some sort of actual knowledge about what these laws really are by auditing a class or two at your local lawschool.

Heraclitusstudent says

France has 6 millions mushlims, most uneducated from Africa, most poor with no prospects.

Bullshit. Most muslims in france have been there a long time. Many came from the former french colonies (probably 90% of muslims in france are maghrebis from algeria, morocco, tunisia, libya, mauritania) during the labor immigration of the 60's and 70's. Then in 1976 a law was passed allowing them to settle and bring in their families. Many have french citizenship. France heavily tightened up immigration in the 80's and got very strict with muslim immigration in the laws passed in 2003 and 2006. The proposal of what became the 2006 law was what kicked off the riots in muslim communities in 2005.

Muslim's in france are heavily and openly descriminated against. Unemployment is high. Poverty is high. I've sat in france many times and listened to a harangue about how poorly americans treat blacks, but when I ask what about how the french treat north africans the response is always "that's different".

Heraclitusstudent says

Many undocumented then regularized. Others, just there to pay social security for french boomers

Yea right, the poorest 6% of the population is there to pay social security for french boomers. Sure.

Dan8267 says

A self-contradicting statement.

Tis not

bob2356 says

Heraclitusstudent says

France has 6 millions mushlims, most uneducated from Africa, most poor with no prospects.

Bullshit. Most muslims in france have been there a long time. Many came from the former french colonies (probably 90% of muslims in france are maghrebis from algeria, morocco, tunisia, libya, mauritania) during the labor immigration of the 60's and 70's. Then in 1976 a law was passed allowing them to settle and bring in their families. Many have french citizenship. France heavily tightened up immigration in the 80's and got very strict with muslim immigration in the laws passed in 2003 and 2006. The proposal of what became the 2006 law was what kicked off the riots in muslim communities in 2005.

You say "Bullshit", then agree with me. (algeria, morocco, tunisia, libya, mauritania) are in Africa, yes?

bob2356 says

Yea right, the poorest 6% of the population is there to pay social security for french boomers. Sure.

Yes, added population, even poor, contribute to the economy, makes sure wages are not too high, spend the money they earn, etc...

Real growth = population growth + productivity gains.

Dan8267 says

Freedom of speech and press means that the government cannot prosecute you for the content of your speech

Mostly correct. Now, say next week I walk in to the Capitol while the President is delivering the SOTU and shout: BARRACK OBAMA IS THE GREATEST PRESIDENT EVAH!!!

In this case, does the government have the right to arrest me for "disorderly conduct" or should I be permitted to continue to say how great he is?

Heraclitusstudent says

You say "Bullshit", then agree with me. (algeria, morocco, tunisia, libya, mauritania) are in Africa, yes?

I don't agree with you. Their parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were from africa a generation or two or three ago. Most muslims in france today were born and educated there. They aren't coming across the border by the thousands every day like the US. France takes something like 70-80k immigrants a year from all of africa. Not all of those are muslim.

Heraclitusstudent says

bob2356 says

Yea right, the poorest 6% of the population is there to pay social security for french boomers. Sure.

Yes, added population, even poor, contribute to the economy, makes sure wages are not too high, spend the money they earn, etc...

France gets less than 200k immigrants a year from the entire world, many are retirees. That's not any kind of substantial contribution to the economy of a country of 64 million people.

Your original statement was that the undocumented were there to pay for french baby boomers social security (not called that in france). Obviously you don't understand the difference between immigrants and undocumented workers. There are very few undocumented workers in france. Best estimate 200-300k tops. Good luck with 300k workers paying for the french baby boomers retirement. France isn't america were everyone goes wink, wink, nod, nod then hires illegals without any worry whatsoever. Living and working is just about impossible without a valid visa and anyone caught living there illegally gets booted out right now.

CDon says

But not wherever you want. No matter what you may think it is, a "content neutral" restriction in legal parlance is as follows:

I'm not arguing what the courts say. I'm arguing what the concept of liberty means. The courts frequently pay lip service to the Constitution while undermining it.

According to our government, the term due process means whatever the fuck the government wants it to mean, thus rendering the term meaningless.

CDon says

No. You are arguing for something that never even existed in the first place.

Now you're quibbling over phrasing. We're saying the same damn thing. Freedom of Speech has never existed in this country. How you want to phrase that is irrelevant.