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Old 10-24-2010, 09:56 AM
froopy seal
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Re: Dutch on verge of getting most right wing government in the EU, in dutch history
Thanks for clarifying your point, Bryant. That sounds a lot more coherent than your first, shortened rambling.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bryantm3 View Post
back to my argument, however, i guess i kind of mixed in my dislike for the limitations of personal expression in europe with my argument against anti-semitism.

i guess that my main point is that europe over the past twenty or so years has set up precedent to remove basic civil liberties with its move towards more socialistic policies (not saying this is a good or a bad thing, just stating what is true). as europe is moving towards those policies, civil liberties get in the way, it's just a fact. so you are slowly seeing things such as cameras on street corners, cameras that snap a picture of your license plate if you are going too fast, strict limitations on hate speech, etc. for better or for worse, we don't have these things in the united states so there is no precedent. however, europe has created a precedent that the wrong sort of people who get in power can use to impose other limitations on personal expression, such as the wearing of a burkha.
I agree that in the States freedom of expression does indeed traditionally have a far greater weight than in Europe, especially compared to Germany with all its bans on free speech due to the Nazi history.

On the other hand, we Europeans have a far greater sensitivy concerning personal data and privacy - which again may constrain freedom of speech (both rights frequently oppose one another in a legal weighting). As a result, "anti-terror" legislation and general powers of American secret services seem to have a considerably more restrictive effect on personal immersion into information technologies, or at least grant authorities an excessive enforcement arsenal, with little monitoring by parliaments and courts. Platitudes such as the SWIFT Agreement, the Passenger Name Records (PNR) Agreement, the level of US privacy law in general (as assessed by the European Commission under the 1995 EU Directive on Data Protection), and revealing social network default preferences come to mind.