| ▲ | alpineman 3 hours ago |
| At least there is still the rule of law and democracy in the EU |
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| ▲ | pschastain 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Is there really? Governments routinely go against the ECHR and the ECJ, and do nothing to rectify past violations when ruled against. On a national level, sure. |
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| ▲ | pjc50 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Which cases are you talking about? Compliance with actual court rulings is pretty high. | | |
| ▲ | pschastain 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Want a particularly egregious example? Here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62... Police in many EU countries was systematically searching suspects phones without mandatory due process. This was prima facie illegal, everyone involved knew it. They did it regardless. Yeah, this decision eventually resulted in many governments issuing new guidance, and some countries rewriting their national legislation. Is that a big victory for the rule of law? I think not, the national governments should not be knowingly violating the ECHR in the first place. | |
| ▲ | rithdmc 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It took Ireland years from an ECHR ruling to rule buggery was not unlawful, and Ireland was given a special exemption to the EUs abortion laws which remained in place for 26 years. |
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| ▲ | input_sh 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Considering who we're comparing it to when discussing this topic: absolutely. Not even a question. Anyone claiming otherwise is delusional at best. | | |
| ▲ | Levitz 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | A whole lot of websites are inaccessible from my country when there's football on, due to a judicial order meant to curb piracy. The whole deal with Chat Control is also not to be forgotten. I do think you guys see this place with rose tinted glasses sometimes. | | |
| ▲ | input_sh 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Does that football scenario mean that the rule of law doesn't exist or that it does exist and is being enforced? I agree with you that both of those laws are stupid, but that's a completely separate discussion to what I'm claiming above. | | |
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| ▲ | rafram 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The baseline level of freedom of speech in the EU, in particular, is much, much worse than in the US. We’re talking about a group of countries with active, enforced blasphemy laws! Completely unthinkable for Americans. |
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| ▲ | microtonal 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The US is at position 57 in the world free speech index. Virtually all EU countries do better and a bunch are top 10: https://rsf.org/en/index American exceptionalism doesn’t seem to know boundaries. | | |
| ▲ | nozzlegear an hour ago | parent [-] | | You linked to a site about press freedom, which is a subset of free speech and not generally what Americans are talking about when they talk about freedom of speech. | | |
| ▲ | dudefeliciano 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | "Congress shall make no law...prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." that does not imply one being the subset of the other to me, if anything they are clearly defined and therefore clearly separate. Trump refuses to answer simple questions and attacks and mocks reporters, that's if they're lucky and he doesn't directly sue them for millions/billions. Hell, the white house banned Associated Press. Is that free speech or freedom of the press? |
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| ▲ | Bewelge 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Boiling down the different approaches to freedom of speech to "The baseline level is higher/lower", has always been a pretty simplistic (and if you would actually delve into the topic a little, flat out wrong) view . Freedom of speech is not absolute. Neither in Europe nor in the US. Both effectively have rules restricting certain speech. For example, speech that may harm others, such as inciting violence or maybe the most famous example: "Shouting FIRE in a full venue". European countries tend to spell out these restrictions more explicitly. It's completely reasonable to disagree with these restrictions. But the simple existence of them shouldn't lead you to the conclusion that one is "more freedom of speech" than the other. And at last I want to add, that that is how it's been historically. Sadly, the recent developments in US show pretty well how freedom of speech cannot be measured by "How many specific laws are there about things I cannot say?". | |
| ▲ | dudefeliciano 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > freedom of speech Oh please. There's free speech without a free press (US ranks 57/190, behind Sierra Leone) people are just amplifying the same BS they heard from some ignorant influencer. I would argue even your idea of "active enforced blasphemy laws" shows that. That's worse than useless, that is detrimental to a society (case in point, the current president and his whole cabinet). https://rsf.org/en/index | |
| ▲ | raincole 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The more I learn about EU's system the more I realize American exceptionalism is just stating facts. | | |
| ▲ | this_user 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The EU is really more middle-of-the-road in most things, while the US tends to be more extreme: more really good ideas, but also more really bad ideas. But that is also the result of the EU being largely controlled by bureaucrats and compliance officers instead of real leaders. | |
| ▲ | haspok 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Is it not true that when entering the US you are required to show all your social media content on request, and if there is anything negative about the current administration, you can be denied entry (if you are lucky, and not detained for an indefinite amount of time)? Truly exceptional indeed. You are basically on par with China. | | |
| ▲ | prmoustache an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Do they really do that and what do they do when you say you don't have one? Do they believe you or not having one is as suspicious as having one with the content they don't like? | |
| ▲ | johncoltrane 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | FWIW, you don't have to do any of that to enter China. |
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| ▲ | krzyk an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah. Try to enter US as EU citizen and see how good it is. Immigration officers are in bad mood (to say lightly). | |
| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | nozzlegear an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| For now – the EU is one AfD win away from following in America's footsteps. |
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| ▲ | krzyk an hour ago | parent [-] | | AfD is a party in single country in EU. | | |
| ▲ | nozzlegear an hour ago | parent [-] | | AfD is a far right populist party in the EU's biggest economic powerhouse country, whose explicit goals are to leave the EU (they probably can't due to the German constitution), exit the eurozone, withdraw from the Paris climate deal, leave NATO, and cozy up with Russia. It's not hard to imagine what kind of damage they could do to the EU if they took power in Germany and started working with Hungary to block EU legislation, veto sanctions, defund programs, etc. |
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