The You Can't Make This Shit Up Department

[Anomalocaris]

Because fascism can't exist without taking away your rights, in fascism your rights are submitted to the well being of the national and you lose individual liberties,

Er, you've been arguing that individual liberties, such as freedom of speech and association, be taken away for the well being of the democratic society. You're pretty much saying, we can't let people talk about fascism, because fascism won't let people talk freely.

ETA: I see that CD beat me to it.

I believe he is saying "we can't let people talk about fascism, because fascism will impose far more limits on people's ability to talk freely than we've been forced to impose in the effort to keep fascism from reemerging as a major political force.


Democracy is not an absolute, nor is it a suicide pact. Democracy unto death has died many times in the past, most notably in Germany in 1933. Democracy will most certainty need to be from time to time as undemocratic as it takes to prevent the asecendancy of any even greater undemocracy.

There is a great difference between being vigilant to prevent some people, such as some national security and anti-terrorism opportunists, from using this evident sometime necessity as a false flag to impose undemocracy on their own schedule for the aggrandizement of their own political agenda on the one hand, and not recognizing that odius as it is, democracy sometimes really would need to be undemocratic in order to prevent the emergence of even greater undemocracy, on the other.

[Dystopia]

Because fascism can't exist without taking away your rights, in fascism your rights are submitted to the well being of the national and you lose individual liberties,

Er, you've been arguing that individual liberties, such as freedom of speech and association, be taken away for the well being of the democratic society. You're pretty much saying, we can't let people talk about fascism, because fascism won't let people talk freely.

ETA: I see that CD beat me to it.

There seems to be a huge misunderstanding here... Racist, fascist or nazi propaganda is not an individual liberty to express yourself, it's considered a crime here, not a single right is absolute, from the moment your right puts in abstract danger the rights of others it is restricted. I get it that things don't work that way in the US, it's just a different perspective.

---

[quote='Blackout' pid='704357' dateline='1404934067']
Between the right to free speech and public security we prefer the later because it guarantees democracy's sustainability.

The only public security limitation on our free speech has to do with outing government secrets you've sworn not to reveal.

I guess we see things differently in europe. I'll explain it better, our constitution doesn't use amendments, we use the revision act, politicians can change the constitution to fit society's needs. However there is an article with something called 'Revision Limits', with a set of things the government cannot change in the constitution even if they revise it. I'll give you the primary limits - You can't compromise sovereignty, democracy, you can't change the form of government (republic), you can't take away people's rights that have been established (both social, political, personal or workers rights), you can't abolish representative democracy... These are just some limits. Once again to make it clear, here it is not a right to free speech to propagate fascist, it is considered a crime just like robbery, murder or offenses to physical integrity are. I have a question, is it a crime in the US to burn your flag?

How would you feel if you were a jew and someone made an anti Semitic protest humiliating your kind?

Substitute the word atheist or woman for the Jew, and I do have an inkling how it feels, though perhaps not with the same feeling of fear. But peoples' feelings aren't so important as freedom of speech. If you can't freely discuss, what you have isn't really a democracy because not all ideas can be considered by the people.

Here you don't have a reason to fear or anything alike because protest that promote discrimination and inequality are not allowed, promoting racism or sexual inequality is a crime of incitement to hate. (same for homophobia)

What is important is that the Constitution protects a number of rights from the government: free speech, freedom of religion, freedom from the establishment by government of religion, freedom of assembly, equal rights under the law regardless of race, sex, or religion. And yes those are all limits to democracy.

how does the government want to protect racial and sexual equality by allowing people to promote nazism or fascism? Seems contradicting

---

[quote='Blackout' pid='704119' dateline='1404898102']
I study cases too because jurisprudence has some power, but I spend most time solving fictional or real life cases on paper applying the law. But this really isn't about memorizing, I can take my codes and laws to exams of course, no one would ask us to memorize 2500 articles, it's more about knowing what each article means and what they regulated, where they apply, and the theories that support them.

Lucky! We don't get to take anything to bar exams but a pencil and our I.D. (We walked uphill in the snow both ways too). Seriously, it doesn't sound all that much different. Learning the basics of each area of law so you know where to begin to research it is what law school and the bar exams are all about.

We have an added twist you not be really aware of, or at least not aware of the importance of. That's that every U.S. State is a separate government. The substance of the law changes substantially as you move from state to state, though method of researching and applying it doesn't much. The exception is Louisiana which has civil law rather than common law much like most of Europe though case law still informs application of federal law there. Whether state or federal law applies, and occasionally which state's law applies is one of the very first questions you have to ask when deciding considering a legal question here.

A quick question, do you think it is worth to go study abroad for a semester in a country like england that uses the commonlaw system?

[Jenny A]

I guess we see things differently in europe. I'll explain it better, our constitution doesn't use amendments, we use the revision act, politicians can change the constitution to fit society's needs.

Yes that's a big difference. Ours is quite difficult to change. How well the constitution is enforced is another difference. Ours can be enforced by citizens through the courts.

However there is an article with something called 'Revision Limits', with a set of things the government cannot change in the constitution even if they revise it. I'll give you the primary limits - You can't compromise sovereignty, democracy, you can't change the form of government (republic), you can't take away people's rights that have been established (both social, political, personal or workers rights), you can't abolish representative democracy... These are just some limits.

Our founding fathers worried that if anyone got too much power, that the constitution might not be worth the paper it was printed on. So they very carefully limited how much power any one person or group could have at a time. That's why are presidents powers are relatively small compared to leaders of other nations.

Once again to make it clear, here it is not a right to free speech to propagate fascist, it is considered a crime just like robbery, murder or offenses to physical integrity are. I have a question, is it a crime in the US to burn your flag?

No, it is not, though it took a Supreme Court case to establish that. You can also hang it upside down, shit on it, or print it backwards if you really want to.

Here you don't have a reason to fear or anything alike because protest that promote discrimination and inequality are not allowed, promoting racism or sexual inequality is a crime of incitement to hate. (same for homophobia)
how does the government want to protect racial and sexual equality by allowing people to promote nazism or fascism? Seems contradicting

By anti discrimination legislation. But you must understand that when the Constitution was written there was no fascism and sexism was a given, as was slavery. It is through free speech that the later two became illegal. Free speech has a rather good track record. We call it the market place of ideas.

A quick question, do you think it is worth to go study abroad for a semester in a country like england that uses the commonlaw system?

Only if you intend to represent clients in international trade. No, I take that back. Case law is about reasoning by analogy. That's a useful skill to hone regardless of what you do for a living.

[Dystopia]

Yes that's a big difference. Ours is quite difficult to change. How well the constitution is enforced is another difference. Ours can be enforced by citizens through the courts.

It's different here, you can't actually claim constitutional rights by directly quoting the constitution, you can only ask them based on laws that were made according to the constitution (and those laws always exist, there are laws for everything and the constitution orders the legislator to create them) - The common example, if my employer fires me because I'm black I'm not gonna quote the 13º article of the constitution about discrimination, but the workers code about working policies, no one uses the constitution directly to give you rights since there are laws that implement the constitution to support you, the constitution is a limit to what laws can be made, our constitutional court appreciates laws and bans them if they are against the constitution, but they don't actually lead trials on concrete cases except in rare situations

By anti discrimination legislation. But you must understand that when the Constitution was written there was no fascism and sexism was a given, as was slavery. It is through free speech that the later two became illegal. Free speech has a rather good track record. We call it the market place of ideas.

Well that justifies it since our constitution was made in 1976 after the revolution, they really worked their asses to assure fascism wouldn't repeat itself, lot's of worker and political rights in abundance, limiting the state in everything, and of course I don't need to say germany was even worse, I think they produced an article saying 'human dignity is always sacred' because of the holocaust. I'll give you an example of stupid restrictions - In France it's illegal to deny the holocaust.

Only if you intend to represent clients in international trade. No, I take that back. Case law is about reasoning by analogy. That's a useful skill to hone regardless of what you do for a living.

We don't use analogy for cases but we use analogy to apply different laws and articles. This doesn't mean courts don't take into account other decisions, sometimes there is a 'tradition' to decide a certain way and courts produce more or less similar decisions, but they are are not obligated to do so, it's just a 'judicial custom/tradition', sometimes supreme courts solve decisions and these can limit the decisions of inferior courts, but they never obligate them to make decision A or B, they just get less freedom to decide.

I personally dislike studying international law and hate with a passion european law (I'm a euro skeptical) so I'll guess it's not worth it.

[Jenny A]

It's different here, you can't actually claim constitutional rights by directly quoting the constitution, you can only ask them based on laws that were made according to the constitution (and those laws always exist, there are laws for everything and the constitution orders the legislator to create them) - The common example, if my employer fires me because I'm black I'm not gonna quote the 13º article of the constitution about discrimination, but the workers code about working policies, no one uses the constitution directly to give you rights since there are laws that implement the constitution to support you, the constitution is a limit to what laws can be made, our constitutional court appreciates laws and bans them if they are against the constitution, but they don't actually lead trials on concrete cases except in rare situations

Um not exactly. Here too you must sue under legislation granting you that right to receive damages against private individuals. There isn't a constitutional guarantee that people won't discriminate, only that the government can't pass discriminatory laws. If you sue based on the constitution, what you are asking is to have the discriminatory law repealed.

Well that justifies it since our constitution was made in 1976 after the revolution, they really worked their asses to assure fascism wouldn't repeat itself, lot's of worker and political rights in abundance, limiting the state in everything, and of course I don't need to say germany was even worse, I think they produced an article saying 'human dignity is always sacred' because of the holocaust. I'll give you an example of stupid restrictions - In France it's illegal to deny the holocaust.

We don't see it that way. Our bill of rights is about limiting what the government can do to citizens, not requiring it to do things for or to citizens. Thus the limits on laws prohibiting free speech.

Only if you intend to represent clients in international trade.

I personally dislike studying international law and hate with a passion european law (I'm a euro skeptical) so I'll guess it's not worth it.

I didn't mean international law, I meant representing clients doing business internationally. If you represent someone doing business in England, knowing a little bit about case law might be useful.

[John V]

There seems to be a huge misunderstanding here... Racist, fascist or nazi propaganda is not an individual liberty to express yourself, it's considered a crime here, not a single right is absolute, from the moment your right puts in abstract danger the rights of others it is restricted. I get it that things don't work that way in the US, it's just a different perspective.

There's no misunderstanding on my side. I thought we were discussing which of these perspectives is better. You're not a fascist, so you don't have a problem with prohibition of fascist speech. But, if political or social speech can be banned, then one day they may ban something you do support.

[Dystopia]

There seems to be a huge misunderstanding here... Racist, fascist or nazi propaganda is not an individual liberty to express yourself, it's considered a crime here, not a single right is absolute, from the moment your right puts in abstract danger the rights of others it is restricted. I get it that things don't work that way in the US, it's just a different perspective.

There's no misunderstanding on my side. I thought we were discussing which of these perspectives is better. You're not a fascist, so you don't have a problem with prohibition of fascist speech. But, if political or social speech can be banned, then one day they may ban something you do support.

That never happened, it's not illegal to talk about fascism or to declare yourself a fascist, it's just illegal to propagate, like trying to create associations or putting posters all over the city saying 'fascism rocks!'.

[John V]

That never happened, it's not illegal to talk about fascism or to declare yourself a fascist, it's just illegal to propagate, like trying to create associations or putting posters all over the city saying 'fascism rocks!'.

That is a prohibition of fascist speech.

[Dystopia]

That never happened, it's not illegal to talk about fascism or to declare yourself a fascist, it's just illegal to propagate, like trying to create associations or putting posters all over the city saying 'fascism rocks!'.

That is a prohibition of fascist speech.

And? That's the intention in the first place. We consider it equal to hate speeches, racist propaganda and promotion of social segregation... Didn't you see Marine Le Penn in France almost getting sued for hate speech for comparing Muslim immigrants with Hitler's occupation during the holocaust? You can use your free speech all you want but if you offend certain groups of people you can be fired. If I said 'All religious people are dumb and stupid' I could get sued by the church and other religious institutions, not to mention religious people.

[John V]

And?

And as already noted, the danger is that something you do support may someday be deemed equal to hate speech.

That's the intention in the first place. We consider it equal to hate speeches, racist propaganda and promotion of social segregation... Didn't you see Marine Le Penn in France almost getting sued for hate speech for comparing Muslim immigrants with Hitler's occupation during the holocaust? You can use your free speech all you want but if you offend certain groups of people you can be fired. If I said 'All religious people are dumb and stupid' I could get sued by the church and other religious institutions, not to mention religious people.

It's just a short step from that to restricting access to websites such as this, where such things are said. Would you support such restriction? How about for racist or fascist sites?