Yeah, the willingness to ban "offensive" speech is one of the most troubling issues in the western world.
Merged Dutch MP to be charged for "hate speech"
- Thread starter ravdin
- Start date
Yeah, the willingness to ban "offensive" speech is one of the most troubling issues in the western world.
Johny2x4
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2010
- Messages
- 472
I dind´t say it should be illegal, I merely said it´s a stupid and tired old meme.
Bob Blaylock
Forklift Operator
It hasn't really won.
In a civilized nation, this would never have happened in the first place. Mr. Wilder's right to free speech would never have been challenged, and he would not have been subjected to arrest and prosecution for his exercise thereof.
Though he was ultimately acquitted of the bogus charges raised against him, the fact that someone can be subject to such charges can only have a “chilling effect” on one's ability to exercise his right to free speech.
What it would take for this to be a victory for free speech rights would be for Mr. Wilder to successfully bring a lawsuit against those who brought the original charges against him, and to win a ruling that establishes that the charges were brought against him in an illegal effort to violate his civil rights, and that he is entitled to compensation therefore.
As long as the possibility remains that in Netherlands, someone can be criminally charged, as Mr. Wilders was, for no other “crime” that exercising his right to free speech; the Netherlands cannot be considered to be a civilized nation that upholds this right.
egslim
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,858
All civilized nations enforce legal limits on free speech. And the US does too: In Virginia v. Black et al., 538 U.S. 343 (2003), the Supreme Court found that "a state, consistent with the First Amendment, may ban cross burning carried out with the attempt to intimidate", upholding that part of Virginia's statute.
Those limits on free speech evolve with society. In the Netherlands cross burnings are not illegal, because they do not carry the same cultural connotations they have in the US. On the other hand, unlike the US the Netherlands have had intimate and unpleasant experience with consequences of hate speech against minorities by populist political leaders, so they're watched with more legal suspicion. Likewise, punishment for bombjokes at Schiphol is a fine of a few hundred Euros, while in the US it's arrest and jailtime. Different, though contaminated, cultural experiences at play.
Even the prosecution demanded Wilders' acquital. This case was more a means to determine legal limits on free speech, than an attempt to shut him up. And as far as I know Wilders has not been subject to arrest, except at Heathrow by the UK authorities.