> If we look at the press freedom index from Reporters without Borders, we find that the country with the most absolutist approach to speech, the United States, is ranked at 42 on the press freedom index.
>
> Germany, in contrast, which has many explicit rules against hate speech, holocaust denial and so on, is ranked in 16th place.
The natural conclusion from this is that the Reporters without Borders' press freedom index is total BS.
> Few Western other countries ban as many books in schools as the United States. In 2022 there was a record as reported by PBS:
The books in question are pornographic books being put in school libraries. Do you support exposing children to porn?
Reporters without Borders ranking of press freedom is very much in line with what others find. I elaborated on why the US is much lower than Germany. It isn't merely about laws on the books, but also the environment that exists for journalists, media and others. The US ought to be quite far down simply for the reason that it is among the few Western countries where you will see journalists straight out attacked. We had journalists from Scandinavia who got physically attacked by US police when covering demonstrations. That was hardly unique to them. It happened to many other journalists. That doesn't happen in countries like Germany. Also the ability for journalists to speak their mind isn't that good. Corporate masters really set the agenda.
If you are American I don't put much stock in your claims about what is pornographic. In my experience American religious conservatism tends to claim almost anything is pornographic. I know very well how bad US sex education is. It is all designed around Christian moralism. The end result is a country with some of the highest teenage pregnancies in the Western world.
> It was a topic which was put on center stage in relation to the murder of Dutch artist Theo van Gogh and Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn about a decade ago.
I'm confused. Do you support or oppose van Gogh's and Fortuyn's rights to free speech? After all most of the "hate speech" laws would include criticizing Muslims as "punching down" at a religious minority, and hence "hate speech".
You seriously cannot distinguish between hate speech towards a religious minority and legitimate criticism of a religion and religious practices?
The whole premise of your question is flawed as there are no "hate speech" laws against criticizing religion.
But I am well aware of the numerous attempts by various racists to try to characterize their xenophobia as criticism of religion. We have a group like that in Norway called SIAN. They claim to criticize Islam as a religion but it is very clear with only a short exchange with those people that that is just a really shitty excuse for racism.
I challenged these guys on this point once. Asking if this was really just about religion then why didn't they advocate for reform and moderation of Islam or alternatively conversion of muslim immigrants. But no in their view religion was all tied in with their very being. They could not be reformed in any way. The only solution was deportation.
If muslims is just shorthand for "brown people I don't like" then your issue is not really about religion anymore.
> If we look at the press freedom index from Reporters without Borders, we find that the country with the most absolutist approach to speech, the United States, is ranked at 42 on the press freedom index.
>
> Germany, in contrast, which has many explicit rules against hate speech, holocaust denial and so on, is ranked in 16th place.
The natural conclusion from this is that the Reporters without Borders' press freedom index is total BS.
> Few Western other countries ban as many books in schools as the United States. In 2022 there was a record as reported by PBS:
The books in question are pornographic books being put in school libraries. Do you support exposing children to porn?
>
Reporters without Borders ranking of press freedom is very much in line with what others find. I elaborated on why the US is much lower than Germany. It isn't merely about laws on the books, but also the environment that exists for journalists, media and others. The US ought to be quite far down simply for the reason that it is among the few Western countries where you will see journalists straight out attacked. We had journalists from Scandinavia who got physically attacked by US police when covering demonstrations. That was hardly unique to them. It happened to many other journalists. That doesn't happen in countries like Germany. Also the ability for journalists to speak their mind isn't that good. Corporate masters really set the agenda.
If you are American I don't put much stock in your claims about what is pornographic. In my experience American religious conservatism tends to claim almost anything is pornographic. I know very well how bad US sex education is. It is all designed around Christian moralism. The end result is a country with some of the highest teenage pregnancies in the Western world.
> It was a topic which was put on center stage in relation to the murder of Dutch artist Theo van Gogh and Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn about a decade ago.
I'm confused. Do you support or oppose van Gogh's and Fortuyn's rights to free speech? After all most of the "hate speech" laws would include criticizing Muslims as "punching down" at a religious minority, and hence "hate speech".
You seriously cannot distinguish between hate speech towards a religious minority and legitimate criticism of a religion and religious practices?
The whole premise of your question is flawed as there are no "hate speech" laws against criticizing religion.
But I am well aware of the numerous attempts by various racists to try to characterize their xenophobia as criticism of religion. We have a group like that in Norway called SIAN. They claim to criticize Islam as a religion but it is very clear with only a short exchange with those people that that is just a really shitty excuse for racism.
I challenged these guys on this point once. Asking if this was really just about religion then why didn't they advocate for reform and moderation of Islam or alternatively conversion of muslim immigrants. But no in their view religion was all tied in with their very being. They could not be reformed in any way. The only solution was deportation.
If muslims is just shorthand for "brown people I don't like" then your issue is not really about religion anymore.