That said, in terms of your opinions and your right to say them, that is pretty much protected in the US where in Europe is not.
There are very constrained edge cases where the US is more permissive than Europe (holocaust denial being a big one), but on the whole it's ridiculous to say there are no protections for free speech or freedom of expression in Europe.
There is no 1st amendment like protections. That is what I meant. There is nothing to stop any new legislation being passed tomorrow. Which is why we have hate speech in Europe. There is nothing to protect us from not having hate speech laws.
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you are using Europe very liberally here, because Sweden does have both freedom of the press and speech constitutionally protected, meaning that it would take two parliamentary sessions with an election inbetween to change them
Yeah. I will choose my words carefully here as I'm just going to get the same argument back. What I would have said is that Sweden has 'hate speech' laws which makes the protection of free speech misleading. It is free speech with pretty big concessions. Of course as we have already been through, the counter argument would just be, there is a line somewhere even in America.
I'm just going to say that concessions to 'free speech' like this are a pretty big obstacle in the way of people being able to freely express an opinion. I mean disrespecting someone's faith is classed as hate speech in Sweden. Seems like a pretty big concession to me..
i'm not sure why you think disrespecting someones faith is hate speech here? You aren't allowed to hound/instigate against a group of people (like muslims, immigrants, swedish), but disrespect is allowed as long as it doesn't cross that magical line.
i do prefer the kkona speech laws, but the Swedish laws aren't as restrictive as one may think. you can't legally call a black man a distinguished black fellow, but you are still allowed to sing along to rap music
