Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Obenberger
With respect, the First Amendment is a distinctly American innovation and was a reaction to England, continental Europe and a history of torturing men to death because of how they worshipped God. Try to debate fee elections in Beijing, or to defend a newspaper accused.of libelling a politician in Sydney or to by a copy of Mein Kampf in Prague and then get back to me aboutt the imperfections of free speech here. And yes, the idea started on these shores. In the meantime, I' ll be fighting for the repeal of obscenity laws in the US. Acquired the domains last week and.forming a.plan. Feel free to join me in that cause.
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With respect, it's absolutely ridiculous to even suggest ideas of freedom of speech or expression, or other ideas behind the Revolution, started on these shores. I'm astounded you're even attempting to argue that, when any schoolkid should know the founders of this country were so heavily influenced by Enlightenment thinkers in Britain and France.
References to Beijing are equally ridiculous, since every democracy in the world is clearly more free than China. And while I don't agree with banning books, I can understand that countries that suffered under the Nazis in ways we can't imagine might make an exception for Mein Kampf.
I seriously doubt the unavailability of that book is a practical hindrance to free speech for people in those countries, and I'm fairly sure schools, and maybe even libraries, in the US have banned more worthwhile books for political/religious reasons.
With regard to this particular event, one thing we unfortunately do have more of in the US is moral majority puritans. I seriously doubt this statue would even raise an eyebrow in most other countries of the world, let alone have people organizing and petitioning for its removal.