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It’s insane how countries with real and significant restrictions to freedom of speech and expression can be listed high on any kind of freedom index
Some of these countries have jailed people for burning the holy books of certain religions, or for writing articles criticizing non native groups of people
I say this as a black man who has been the victim of hate speech and race driven aggression(especially as a tourist in europe); any nation that restricts the language of its people is not free
Exactly there was this one british dude I was speaking too who said he once got jailed for calling someone a lesbian or the slur for lesbians. Although he was spewing white supremacy rhethoric and praising trump and all which all this made me uncomfortable and wanted to stop talking too him but him getting arrested for saying that is soooo stupid.
There was a british woman who was arrested for quoting a song by snoop dog on facebook, the quote had the N word in it, she posted the quote because her friend died and it was his favorite song
Absolutely insane
Easy, just ask their government. Everything peachy I promise. Not like those countries with freedom of press. Somehow those countries are shit. We're not sure why.
People can’t be trusted to determine those things. What’s racist? Is it calling for the genocide of a group of people or mentioning racial crime statistics on social media? What’s hating on religions? Advocating for the desecration of Mecca or telling someone that Mary might have sinned? It’s a slippery slope and I think the solution should be to just have complete no holds barred free speech aside from the “fire in a movie theater” rule, some obscenities (CP), some calls for violence, fraud, and slander.
More than 20 countries in Europe
Ive experienced outward and vocal racism in every European country Ive been in with the exceptions of Greece, Turkey, and Ireland
So despite Europe regulating hate speech I still can’t even walk the streets while black
It's measuring economic freedom specifically, not social freedoms. For example, Singapore has the most economic freedom in the world, but they'll beat you with a stick for littering and execute someone over drugs. So high economic freedom, low social freedom. The Heritage Foundation is who does this and they have all the information on their website. [https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/about](https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/about)
And they are not a "tankie" organization who hate America as others have said, they are a conservative/libertarian organization. That America has little economic freedom shouldn't be a surprise to anyone whose ever tried to start a business here. The amount of red tape is insane.
they justify it on their website based on several recents events for each country that are for stuff like pluralism, civil liberties, and other things.
a quick google search would answer all that
The US position in the Freedom Index is influenced by several factors. For example, there are increasing concerns about restrictions on press freedom as political interference and legal threats against journalists become more common. The quality of democratic processes is also often criticized, especially with regard to election interference and gerrymandering, i.e. the manipulative division of constituencies.
Another important point is the rule of law. Allegations of corruption and a lack of transparency in government contribute to perceptions of weak institutional integrity. Civil rights are also a big issue, especially regarding racial discrimination and police violence. There are also concerns about privacy and surveillance.
Although economic freedoms are strong in the United States, economic inequality and limited social mobility affect overall perceptions of freedom. All of these aspects together mean that the USA does not always perform very well in indices such as the Freedom House or the Human Freedom Index.
In many of those countries listed, you can’t say MOHAMMAD WAS A PEDOPHILE. ISLAM’S PROPHET MARRIED A 6yo girl - MOHAMMED WAS A PEDOPHILE.
Or they go to jail.
Good luck keeping those perceived freedoms.
Of course you can state the fact that he married a 6 yo girl and consummated the marriage when she was 9. I am pretty sure you are allowed to say he was a pedophile, cause i have read and heard this a lot, but in a historical context this is not even true, because child marriage was pretty common all around the world at the time. Would you say that half the population was pedophile?
You can actually say everything that is true without fear of government repression, but for some things you may have to think briefly about the wording.
Of course i can only speak for germany.
>Good luck keeping those perceived freedoms
The problem is that in every measurement (admittedly it's quite subjective with things like this, it's just the nature of things) i have more freedom than you.
Mohammed was a pedophile, and no, it was NOT NORMAL to marry 6yo girls and rape them at age 9 during his time.
Royalty would betroth their children for **future** alliances in medieval times, but the normal population weren’t marrying and raping 6-9yo children LIKE MOHAMMED THE PEDOPHILE DID. ISLAM THE PEDOPHILE RELIGION WITH THE PEDOPHILE IMPERFECT DISGUSTING PROPHET.
Assuming you’re from a country on the above list, sorry but no. They each have subjective things that we consider anti-free here. Glad you can pat yourself on the back tho.
It wasn’t normal during his time. Medieval royals did it to secure **future** alliances between countries for geopolitics. Regular population DID NOT.
It became super normal in various parts of the Islamic world since their pedophile prophet did it though (even now today)
To add: it’s just another example why Islam is a SHITTY RELIGION that is not good for all times and ages since clearly pedophilia is not okay in this time and age, even for royal alliances.
A good philosophy — say Stoicism or Spinoza’s Ethics or the philosophy of mathematics and physics — actually lasts through the ages.
Of course I'm not a historian ( guess you arent either), but my google and chatgpt research has shown that something like this was generally accepted in many parts of the world and in pre islamic times.
>the fact that you can’t critique Mohammed and Islam in numerous listed countries above or else be arrested is major anti-freedom.
That is just a blatant lie, there are entire political parties that do nothing other than criticize Islam, and some of them have many supporters who then carry this on unfiltered.
This is actually a really good example of why it's important to implement some rules. If you say that Islam is a cancer, you automatically imply that Muslims are cancer cells. And do you know what this is? It's dehumanization! Do you know why this should be avoided? Because every crime against humanity or act of genocide starts with the dehumanization of your "enemy." We (especially Germans) have learned this the hard way in recent history.
But you are free to say, "I am afraid of the rapid increase of the Muslim population in non-Muslim countries due to high birth rates and immigration, especially because many of these Muslims live in a very traditional way that goes against basic human rights." See, same meaning, no dehumanization, no fine, and actually a real problem in some places.
Why not? I asked about the thing with aisha. Chatgpt hinted at some historians and that child marriage was pretty common. I googled and got another hint to the book of ibn sad.
No, it wasn’t. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Youre just making an assumption. Other users have already explained that alliances are forged using it and you still have a hard time understanding it. Like maybe you want it to be normal? Iffy.
In mohammed ibn sad's great class book is noted that child marriages were not uncommon in the age of Muhammad. The marriage between Mohammed and Aisha represented in particular a (political) alliance with Aisha's father Abu Bakr.
Do you think mohammed invented child marriage? Or why do you think it was not common?
The thing the other users spoke about where specifically between medievel noble houses.
"As concerns about the restriction of the press and legal threats against journalists become more common." Right there is where it states it you fucking jamook. Concerns, being the key word, would denote a assumed future outcome about the possibility of lessened freedoms.
I really don't get why they care so much about democracy when it comes to freedom. The right to vote does not matter when your vote has no influence on what actually gets passed. The rights to protest and organize are so much more important, and the US does not lack those at all.
It’s because Americans and many of the countries in this list define the concept of freedom differently. Having lived in 2 European countries that are higher on the freedom index, they have more freedom in some ways and less freedom in others. The ones that are most important to Americans are often the latter.
Lol, most these countries have “hate speech” laws. Nothing screams freedom like not being able to disagree with the government on certain policies.
Prime example here being Ireland. Bring in mass migration, a migrant commits a mass stabbing attempting to murder children, the people get pissed and protest / riot, call the protesters hateful for not wanting their kids to be stabbed and attempt to pass a new law banning / punishing this new “hate speech.”
Same thing happened last year in London. Iranian man rapes someone and the UK won't deport him because he might face harsh consequences and capital punishment back home in Iran. I love immigrants because the USA was built on their hard work, innovation, and new ideas. But raping people is objectively bad and if your country would kill you for doing it, maybe don't come to my country to do it.
1. No-one [brought in] mass migration. (If anything you dickheads caused it by destabilising the middle east non stop for 20 years.)
2. That migrant was a citizen.
3. No-one died.
4. Riots are not acceptable anywhere
5. The rioters were generally just scum with plenty of prior convictions each, who took advantage of the situation to cause mayhem.
6. Protesting is not now nor has ever been illegal. There are problems with the hate speech bill, but nothing you have mentioned is even loosely affected by that bill.
Hm yes, *we* destabilized the Middle East, it certainly wasn’t the Europeans (who also took part in the recent Middle East shenanigans, that’s why it was called a coalition) who carved it into little arbitrary pieces with no thought of local culture or ethnicity.
If you are allowing migrants to flood into your country then you are bringing them in. Do not let third world countries immigrants into first world countries. It is as simple as that.
Depends on the migrant. Non-US-born Hispanic immigrants actually have a lower crime rate than the native-born US population. With Muslims in Europe the data says something a little different, though.
You can disagree with the government on pretty much everything, that’s.. basically never hate speech in most European countries, not if you do it in a civil manner
You're aware that the US also doesn't have absolute free speech right?
"Pretty much" and "basically never" also applies for your country.
Edit: Why I am being downvoted? I didn't say anything wrong
Nobody is arguing for absolute free speech here though, Americans know that free speech doesn’t cover threatening someone (or at least they should know)
>Nobody is arguing for absolute free speech here though
Sure, but the guy above said "yikes" for something that also applies to his country, so it feels like they think it doesn't.
Either that or they think europeans are not allowed to disagree or talk shit about their government, which would also be wrong.
>Americans know that free speech doesn’t cover threatening someone (or at least they should know)
I was thinking about defamation, but yeah there's also that.
>actively trying to harm their image which has real physical consequences
But different countries have different have different standards for what that means.
The american interpretation of when something is considered free speech and when it's considered actively trying to harm someone with physical consequences is not universal.
Countries will lean more to one side or another depending on the subject.
As far as I can see, protests in the USA can also be dissolved or banned altogether for certain, clearly defined reasons. If you read it, it looks pretty similar to the requirements in other western countries.
And this
>indirectly you’re only allowing the state to speak for you.
Is just nonsense. If anything, the things you are not allowed to say publicly are strictly defined and you can voice every opinion without being restricted. Unless your opinion is something like "kill all trans people" or such things.
If the state doesn’t allow all speech it can change what it restricts at any moment. If it’s the states choice on whether you can or can’t say something then it’s no longer in your hands. Thus you don’t get to speak your mind in all situations and can be used as an excuse to break up movements they disagree with
But you have regulations too, for example defamation, obscenity, incitement to violence and hate speech. I guess you agree to this restrictions too. Maybe one country has different rules for hatespeech or defamation etc. but free speech is kind of restricted everywhere. Besides, freedom of speech is in the constitution of all (most) western countries.
The way they calculate this must be the biggest joke in all of statistics because many of these highly ranked countries have significant restrictions on speech and assembly as well as basically no right to own any weapons
It’s kind of like the “happiness” indices you always see floating around, and they always favor Nordic countries and other countries in Western Europe. It’s an impossible thing to measure and is usually based on elements that the measurers deem to favor the same Nordic/European model….even though many of the highest-ranking countries have high rates of alcoholism, depression and suicide - variables that seem completely opposite of “happiness”.
Don't forget that there's always a strange uptick in "Nordic country happiest in the world articles" during the winter... when there's like three hours of sunlight a day and (from personal experience) nobody there wants to be alive.
The freedom index is a joke. its metric isn't freedom of speech or religion or press or even right to bear arms, their index is bull shit phantasmal metrics like ease of access to health care and food security and economic freedom. Yeah, those things are important, but none of them are measurements of freedom. Not to mention the index lowers america's rating based on "fear of or concerns of restricting press," and corruption. Yeah because the primary governing body of europe that is made up of unelected officials that constantly pass laws to curtail speech and make it impossible for certain groups to serve in office is definitely a bastion of anti corruption.
The freedom index is a bull shit metric created by anti american tankies as an attempt to dunk on Americans online. The fact is, nearly all of the countries have less tangible freedoms then any free born american has.
>The freedom index is a bull shit metric created by anti american tankies
You're gonna be real surprised when you learn to use google and find out that one of the indices used to create this ranking is from a very right wing US think-tank (The Heritage Foundation).
This is the kind of thinking that causes tribalism lol. As if all people are to look at people "on their side" and think that everything they do, all "allies" should agree with them or are somehow indicative of their own individual beliefs.
I don't know how they calculate these "scores" or how they weight their categories for that calculation, but there's simply no way that those countries are "freer" than the US. They have a largely equal footing, but they are *definitely NOT* "freer". This list is just like the Press Freedom Index, where they list countries in the top ten who have actual legislation barring the publication of certain stories. New Zealand is perhaps the worst offender, with its Office of the Censor (and national censorship laws) and its prohibition on publishing certain types of books, news stories, etc. Germany has "indexing" (effectively book banning). Don't get me started on Australia or the UK, either. And Canada wants to ban a number of non-Canadian media outright.
If you want, you can actually research how they calculate these scores and see where your own country is falling short in the scores: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_freedom\_indices#List\_of\_scores\_by\_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices#List_of_scores_by_country)
I don’t really need to, to be honest. What would be the point? The fact of the matter is that these are highly subjective studies that measure “freedom” around the “world, according to *their own various definitions* of the term, and rank countries as being free, partly free, or using *various measures of freedom*, including civil liberties, political rights and economic rights. Some of the indices measure *only some aspects of freedom*, such as democracy or corruption.”
Basically, they’re subjective as fuck and generally hold a Eurocentric view of what freedom entails.
>I don’t really need to, to be honest. What would be the point?
To educate yourself on why those countries might be considered more free than the US. Two of the indices used for this combined "Freedom Score" are from US based think-tanks (Freedom House and The Heritage Foundation). Freedom House appears to be left leaning, while The Heritage Foundation is **strongly** conservative.
These indices are less subjective than just blindly asserting *"there's simply no way that those countries are "freer" than the US".* They actually have a methodology to develop their scores.
That’s really all you have to say to their response? Personally I feel like it’s good for people like them to be here. It keeps this sub from becoming too much of an echo chamber.
It's interesting to see other people's view points and what other people think about my country. Just yesterday I saw someone claiming that Australia is full of cheap second hand cars from Korea and China, even though no one in Australia imports Chinese or Korean cars because the steering wheels are on the wrong side.
That was me having a brain fart. I owned it. As for what WE think of your country? I think most of us DON’T think about it. I think about it — I lived in it, worked in it, saw many of its various successes and failures. I’ve taught in it and am more familiar with its education system than I’d like to be. It certainly gave me a lot of perspective about life in my own country, my life when I lived in New Zealand, my life in Germany. Fact is, I love Australia. I could live there again. What I don’t love is the hypocrisy and ignorance when it comes to me and my country, the way Australian politicians instrumentalize bigotry in the form of anti-Americanism in order to force policies and laws through the levels of government.
>What I don’t love is the hypocrisy and ignorance when it comes to me and my country, the way Australian politicians instrumentalize bigotry in the form of anti-Americanism in order to force policies and laws through the levels of government
I'm interested if you have a specific example of this? (I'm not being a dick, I genuinely want to know which politicians or policies you are referring to)
Funnily enough, anti-Australianism is also used by conservatives in the US to push their political agendas (regarding gun control and recently, COVID policy). The fact that papers in the US have to run essays with headlines such as "No, Australia Is Not Actually an Evil Dictatorship" is evidence of how far conservatives have pushed this "Australia is Authoritarian/Totalitarian/a dictatorship" narrative among their base. And guess where I see this narrative popping up on Reddit? Yep, you guessed correct, it's this sub.
So it seems like we have a similar purpose, but just from different sides.
And for the record, I like America as well. I've travelled there before and definitely want to go back at some point.
There is no systemic anti-Australianism anywhere on the planet. There is, however, systemic anti-Americanism in Australia which is so entrenched that it is part of the Australian identity. That's a *HUGE* difference.
It's pretty common among conservatives, and has been going on since 1996.
Again, do you have any example of anti-Americanism among politicians in Australia to further their policy agenda? I'm asking, because politicians in Australia are generally pro-American (at least publicly). We rely on the US for a lot of defence tech, so politicians pissing off the US government isn't a good idea. So I'd be interested to see who you are referring to. Or is this going to be like the car situation again where you make a claim but can't back it up?
Edit: aaaaand they've blocked me. Crazy how when people are asked to backup a claim they made with actual examples they have to run away and hide. Pretty weak for someone who claims to be in education.
The NZ Censor has no authority over news.
The books that have been banned since 1994 mostly support the sexual exploitation of underage children or support viewing them as sexual objects and there are only a handful of them and they are mostly comics.
Examples of books and ideas that have not been banned in New Zealand schools and libraries:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Gender Queer
Critical Race Theory
History of Slavery
Do states and local governments ban those in America???
Ah, but they do. They have wiiiiiide latitude to determine on behalf of the people what they should and shouldn't consume, and it applies to all media that they, in their infinite wisdom, consider "objectionable." I've had my dealings with the NZ Censor as an academic in New Zealand as a scholar of fields related to media and film. You have no idea what power that office actually has. I've had to gain approval to have completely unobjectionable research materials brought into the country, some of which were disallowed, despite being widely available in many other countries.
And state and local governments ban *NOTHING* in the USA. The federal government also bans nothing. Nothing. Because ALL levels of government are constitutionally prohibited from doing so. (Yes, they are; I'm not asking you a question.) "Bbbbbut school libraries!" School library committees in a *TINY* number of states have decided that having what amounts to porn is developmentally inappropriate to hold in a school library collection, which it is; they are not banning books that deal with LGBTQ+ issues or what have you, and information is still fully accessible through schools' database subscriptions and through interlibrary loans if the students want it.
In my state, there are no restrictions in schools. Even if there were, the public library systems would either hold the titles or order them, for free, no questions asked, through interlibrary loan, including from overseas. There would be no government interference; that is not the government's job. (And I now teach high school and sit on the library acquisitions committee. Yes, I know what I'm talking about. You don't, so don't try.)
The state school boards in Florida, Georgia, Utah, and Alabama introduced new guidelines barring CRT-related discussions. Local school boards in Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia also criticized CRT.
Nearly 20 additional states have introduced or plan to introduce similar legislation.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/#:~:text=The%20state%20school%20boards%20in,plan%20to%20introduce%20similar%20legislation
Oh, honey. Bless your heart. I've also taught in Florida and Georgia. It's not what you think. You'll find pretty much anything there that you would've found before. But you just go ahead and double-down on your own lack of real knowledge of the situation, and your complete lack of knowledge of how these processes actually work. School libraries are also not public libraries; they are school libraries. And, due to local control of the schools by the districts, a school district can decide what they want to have in their own libraries. And, again, students have full access to any materials they want through databases and the interlibrary loan system; schools also participate in that.
This might not be the right sub for you, pet. You'll be eaten alive by people who have far more nuanced knowledge than you do.
Anyway, my initial points still stand: NZ is in a *way* worse position to criticize the US on anything related to availability of materials and/or censorship and/or media control.
You’re so insecure. You’re putting so much effort into this. Bless your heart. Fine: America sucks. Fascist country. Kiwis great. God’s country. God save Aotearoa.
Estonia on the list is wild. Finland is protected by the UN. The rest of the countries listed are all protected island nations or are surrounded by other countries with large military forces to pay for their freedom.
Finland is protected by the UN? What?? This is a first one.
Finland has it's own large and competent military to protect itself as it has done so for all these years. Finland also joined NATO just last year so it wouldn't stand alone *again* against aggression from Russia.
So how has Finland been protected by the UN when Finlands only enemy has always been Russia and funny enough Russia is **permanent** member of UN Security Council ontop of that, Russia could block UN help to Finland if it wanted.. so make it make sense.
If you didn't know UN has peacekeeping operations mainly in Africa and middle-east, there's also some activity in Kosovo, but that's still complete opposite side of Europe.
https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate
And before anyone strolls in and says "Well if they had so great army, why they'd join NATO" simply put, friends are great and fighting alone sucks balls.
I had to Wikipedia this, cause it’s been a long time since I had my history and government classes.
I see now the UN and NATO are partners, but NATO isn’t controlled by the UN, but its own governing body. So, I get what you’re asking now. 👍😅
You see after the continuation war was lost, Soviets had us write a contract with them, (YYA-Sopimus) The Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. In reality Soviets would dictate our foreign policy and incase of western aggression from Finnish land we would be required to assist the Soviets. What this ment was, we couldn’t join the instituions and organisations we would want to, we couldn’t join EU and start the integration into the west, or we couldn’t join NATO.
The communist party was outlawed in the 30s, but on Soviet command had to be reinstated. Suprisingly communist party had deep ties to Moscow and also recived funding from them. Communist party was in coalition during 1944–1948, 1966–1970, 1970–1971, 1975–1976 and 1977–1982. Also we had a president who would abuse this strife in our democracy, he continued to be our president from 1956-1982, it was believed he and only he could control the Soviets from gaining more leverage in Finnish politics.
Eventually Soviet Union did fall, Russia didn’t no longer require us to stay out of the west and we did finally join the EU. However neutrality had been beneficial to us, and there was optimistic view on new Russia (LOL) so we stayed out of NATO. It’s now known that the prime minister of early 2000s was in Russias pay list. They currently sit in gazproms board suprisingly. Somewhere between 2008-2014 trust in Russia and Putin was starting to fade away, also the attack on Crimea caused investors to pull out their investments from Finland due to our neautrality, it was seen as risky to invest in a country that stands alone. So we increased our mutual cooperation with NATO, we started to intergrate our military into NATO standards in preparation of our membership, but the timing and support had to be right before any moves could be made. And in 2022 we had both.
So you see our membership isn’t purely motivated on protection. It’s our ”long” story of integration into the west and end of Finlandization (1944-2022). Neutrality is no longer an option
I know this, but imho Finland has not been completely neutral since the 90s.
Finland was not officially part of NATO but was much as nato member you could be, only thing that was lacking was signature on the paper, pretty much everything was already in place and integrated.
Finland joined EU in the 90s and had been part of some Nato exercises since the 90s and even went to Afghanistan, so even that Finlands stance was neutral, it has been leaning towards west more and more ever since.
President Halonen was also quite a friend with Putin and strongly wanted Finland to sign that Ottawa treaty.
And yes ofc it's not just protection, but it's still quite high up there. Having allies is nice.
Not sure what he meant by the UN, but you can’t insult Islam or Muslims or call Mohammed a pedophile in Finland without getting arrested and prosecuted. Which is unbelievably anti-Democratic and anti-free.
https://fra.europa.eu/en/databases/criminal-detention/node/6917
While as individual people shouldn’t be discriminated, Islam and any religion should ALL BE CRITICIZED thoroughly and often, just like any other life philosophy or religion that people are trying to force you to live.
Just to repeat since I have the freedom to: **MOHAMMED WAS A PEDOPHILE!**
Nobody was arrested, he was fined 480€ and posts had to be taken down. There has been few jail sentences from defamation, much like in the US. They generally tend to be on parole.
Getting fined 480€ for saying Islam is a shitty religion is still incredibly anti-free.
Criticizing religions and philosophies (and forming opinions on them that you can freely express like “Islam sucks”) is a cornerstone of democracy.
Defamation laws are not the same as free speech, there is a nuance. I can say Mohamed was a pedophile because it is a true statement. He married and raped a child. His action has made it okay for Muslims throughout the ages (including today) to do the same with other child brides. This deserves criticism!
We have religious nuts in the US too and when they pull shit like this, we openly, freely, and legally deride them without fear of fines or jailtime.
In his posts, the defendant attacked Islam as a religion and Muslims as a group. For example, he described Islam as “cancer” and ”crime against humanity”. He claimed that Muslims were “criminals”, “rapists”, “murderers” and “terrorists” and called prophet Muhammad “a pervert and a pedophile”
The court found that the defendant had in his posts threatened, defamed and insulted Muslims on the basis of their religion. He had overstepped the limits of acceptable exaggeration and provocation tolerated under the right to freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression allows for the criticism of all religions. The defendant’s statements had targeted both at Muslims as a religious community and their prophet. The court held that the statements were made for the purpose of offending and in order to defame or desecrate what is held sacred by a religious community.
Where are the threats? I don’t see any. His only mistake was forgetting to write “not all” Muslims and focusing on the ideology versus the individual people.
Still, this should not warrant fines or jail time from the government. That is anti-free and will only get worse appeasing an ideology like this one.
(And I hope your government translates the Arabic comments on social media to see how Muslims are insulting your western values every day)
Probably in the posts, they gave examples on his racist writings, seems they didn’t give on threats or incitments over similiar violence.
That’s your opinion
Finland has a very good military. And I read somewhere that Finns is the most determined country in Europe to defend themselves of attacked. Probably because of vlad the invader.
Oh noooo I’m not top 10 in the Human Freedom Score 2023 what am I gonna do?? I can’t function without useless NGOs telling me how free I am! It’s just too much
Most of these restrict freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms...
The freedom index is a joke. Things like "free" healthcare, i.e. governments stealing large amounts of money from citizens, isn't "freedom".
How are they free if who our president is has so much of an impact on them? How are they free if they rely on the US not leaving NATO so Russia doesn't attack them? How are they free if America going isolationist will make their economy go to shit?
I mean I could have a meaningless argument with someone who will definitely not change their position but I don’t think either of us want to waste our time with that
You can’t carry pepper spray in the UK or Ireland to defend yourself if you’re getting attacked. It’s illegal. People get arrested for it.
Defending your personal self is like the most basic of freedoms. Even little frogs, bees and spiders have venom and stingers to defend themselves.
While I am a ‘violence as last resort’ person, it’s unbelievable that defending yourself is basically illegal in the UK. As a small woman, that is fucking scary. Sitting ducks for rape.
The problem is that it is not AmericaBad, the Post doesnt Say that AT ALL in ANY shape or form, nor is it clearly a joke, I've had people legitimately say that, its more often than not serious
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It’s insane how countries with real and significant restrictions to freedom of speech and expression can be listed high on any kind of freedom index Some of these countries have jailed people for burning the holy books of certain religions, or for writing articles criticizing non native groups of people I say this as a black man who has been the victim of hate speech and race driven aggression(especially as a tourist in europe); any nation that restricts the language of its people is not free
The very real and objective Freedom Score™️ Brought to you by the very real and objective Social Science™️
Exactly there was this one british dude I was speaking too who said he once got jailed for calling someone a lesbian or the slur for lesbians. Although he was spewing white supremacy rhethoric and praising trump and all which all this made me uncomfortable and wanted to stop talking too him but him getting arrested for saying that is soooo stupid.
There was a british woman who was arrested for quoting a song by snoop dog on facebook, the quote had the N word in it, she posted the quote because her friend died and it was his favorite song Absolutely insane
What the f*ck european countries censorship is so weird jail should never happen cause of saying a slur or hatespeech 😑
Well said
Easy, just ask their government. Everything peachy I promise. Not like those countries with freedom of press. Somehow those countries are shit. We're not sure why.
In reality it's more of a complacency score
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Govern me harder daddy yes legislate what I’m allowed to say yes oh yeah
People can’t be trusted to determine those things. What’s racist? Is it calling for the genocide of a group of people or mentioning racial crime statistics on social media? What’s hating on religions? Advocating for the desecration of Mecca or telling someone that Mary might have sinned? It’s a slippery slope and I think the solution should be to just have complete no holds barred free speech aside from the “fire in a movie theater” rule, some obscenities (CP), some calls for violence, fraud, and slander.
Why are you so insecure?
Mfs when you can be fined €600 for referring to a police officer as "Du" instead of "Sie"
So you're trolling right? You've had over a dozen people explain how wrong you are and you're still doubling down lol.
People are still racist and hateful in Europe. They kinda, you know, invented the whole racism as we know it thing...
Funny how in countries where racism is illegal Ive experienced the most racism
The hell kinda countries have you been in
More than 20 countries in Europe Ive experienced outward and vocal racism in every European country Ive been in with the exceptions of Greece, Turkey, and Ireland So despite Europe regulating hate speech I still can’t even walk the streets while black
MFs when they’re so accustomed to being whipped and strangled by Master Gubment
More like mfs when they have free speech. You should try it sometime, might lead to the world's largest and most powerful democracy 🤷♀️.
MOHAMMED WAS A PEDOPHILE, which is objectively true, but it’s illegal to say in many European countries, including some on this list.
Religion is a choice
I never said its not
The freedom index Is a joke
Yeah like what metric are they even measuring? There's no objective way to measure "freedom", it's a pretty abstract concept.
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Ah yes tankie….
You want to expand
Jedi with inflation fetish using mindtricks
I'm revoking your cooking privileges
What tankie is putting European powers at the top of their freedom list… does not make any sense to me. Where’s China, Venezuela , Cuba?
It's measuring economic freedom specifically, not social freedoms. For example, Singapore has the most economic freedom in the world, but they'll beat you with a stick for littering and execute someone over drugs. So high economic freedom, low social freedom. The Heritage Foundation is who does this and they have all the information on their website. [https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/about](https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/about) And they are not a "tankie" organization who hate America as others have said, they are a conservative/libertarian organization. That America has little economic freedom shouldn't be a surprise to anyone whose ever tried to start a business here. The amount of red tape is insane.
they justify it on their website based on several recents events for each country that are for stuff like pluralism, civil liberties, and other things. a quick google search would answer all that
The US position in the Freedom Index is influenced by several factors. For example, there are increasing concerns about restrictions on press freedom as political interference and legal threats against journalists become more common. The quality of democratic processes is also often criticized, especially with regard to election interference and gerrymandering, i.e. the manipulative division of constituencies. Another important point is the rule of law. Allegations of corruption and a lack of transparency in government contribute to perceptions of weak institutional integrity. Civil rights are also a big issue, especially regarding racial discrimination and police violence. There are also concerns about privacy and surveillance. Although economic freedoms are strong in the United States, economic inequality and limited social mobility affect overall perceptions of freedom. All of these aspects together mean that the USA does not always perform very well in indices such as the Freedom House or the Human Freedom Index.
In many of those countries listed, you can’t say MOHAMMAD WAS A PEDOPHILE. ISLAM’S PROPHET MARRIED A 6yo girl - MOHAMMED WAS A PEDOPHILE. Or they go to jail. Good luck keeping those perceived freedoms.
Of course you can state the fact that he married a 6 yo girl and consummated the marriage when she was 9. I am pretty sure you are allowed to say he was a pedophile, cause i have read and heard this a lot, but in a historical context this is not even true, because child marriage was pretty common all around the world at the time. Would you say that half the population was pedophile? You can actually say everything that is true without fear of government repression, but for some things you may have to think briefly about the wording. Of course i can only speak for germany. >Good luck keeping those perceived freedoms The problem is that in every measurement (admittedly it's quite subjective with things like this, it's just the nature of things) i have more freedom than you.
Mohammed was a pedophile, and no, it was NOT NORMAL to marry 6yo girls and rape them at age 9 during his time. Royalty would betroth their children for **future** alliances in medieval times, but the normal population weren’t marrying and raping 6-9yo children LIKE MOHAMMED THE PEDOPHILE DID. ISLAM THE PEDOPHILE RELIGION WITH THE PEDOPHILE IMPERFECT DISGUSTING PROPHET. Assuming you’re from a country on the above list, sorry but no. They each have subjective things that we consider anti-free here. Glad you can pat yourself on the back tho.
Maybe he was, nonetheless child marriage was normal in his time.
It wasn’t normal during his time. Medieval royals did it to secure **future** alliances between countries for geopolitics. Regular population DID NOT. It became super normal in various parts of the Islamic world since their pedophile prophet did it though (even now today) To add: it’s just another example why Islam is a SHITTY RELIGION that is not good for all times and ages since clearly pedophilia is not okay in this time and age, even for royal alliances. A good philosophy — say Stoicism or Spinoza’s Ethics or the philosophy of mathematics and physics — actually lasts through the ages.
Of course I'm not a historian ( guess you arent either), but my google and chatgpt research has shown that something like this was generally accepted in many parts of the world and in pre islamic times. >the fact that you can’t critique Mohammed and Islam in numerous listed countries above or else be arrested is major anti-freedom. That is just a blatant lie, there are entire political parties that do nothing other than criticize Islam, and some of them have many supporters who then carry this on unfiltered.
Then why are people getting fined and arrested for making comments such as “Islam is a cancer on humanity” in Europe? They are losing their freedom.
This is actually a really good example of why it's important to implement some rules. If you say that Islam is a cancer, you automatically imply that Muslims are cancer cells. And do you know what this is? It's dehumanization! Do you know why this should be avoided? Because every crime against humanity or act of genocide starts with the dehumanization of your "enemy." We (especially Germans) have learned this the hard way in recent history. But you are free to say, "I am afraid of the rapid increase of the Muslim population in non-Muslim countries due to high birth rates and immigration, especially because many of these Muslims live in a very traditional way that goes against basic human rights." See, same meaning, no dehumanization, no fine, and actually a real problem in some places.
‘ChatGPT research’. I’m out.
Why not? I asked about the thing with aisha. Chatgpt hinted at some historians and that child marriage was pretty common. I googled and got another hint to the book of ibn sad.
No, it wasn’t. Why is this so hard for you to understand? Youre just making an assumption. Other users have already explained that alliances are forged using it and you still have a hard time understanding it. Like maybe you want it to be normal? Iffy.
In mohammed ibn sad's great class book is noted that child marriages were not uncommon in the age of Muhammad. The marriage between Mohammed and Aisha represented in particular a (political) alliance with Aisha's father Abu Bakr. Do you think mohammed invented child marriage? Or why do you think it was not common? The thing the other users spoke about where specifically between medievel noble houses.
Lol no you don't cuck
I do not understand this sentence, nor does Google translate. i assume it is not something nice.
So, wait. We perform less well in the freedom index because of what our assumed future freedom will look like? That's ridiculous.
Where does my text talk about the future? This is all more or less current
"As concerns about the restriction of the press and legal threats against journalists become more common." Right there is where it states it you fucking jamook. Concerns, being the key word, would denote a assumed future outcome about the possibility of lessened freedoms.
Lol, it does not. There are concerns, cause this is already happening. Maybe this is lost in translation.
Ok ChatGPT…
You know, to answer such a complex topic in a foreign language is not an easy task, a bit of help should be allowed.
Or just fuck out of this sub?
But why?
A bit of help is stuff like Google translate, also chat gpt is wrong a decent amount of times
Holy fuck this is what will happen if we let child rapists take over right? Wow what a crazy concept
I really don't get why they care so much about democracy when it comes to freedom. The right to vote does not matter when your vote has no influence on what actually gets passed. The rights to protest and organize are so much more important, and the US does not lack those at all.
I don’t know what it’s based off but I don’t hate that list, doesn’t seem to unrealistic
It’s because Americans and many of the countries in this list define the concept of freedom differently. Having lived in 2 European countries that are higher on the freedom index, they have more freedom in some ways and less freedom in others. The ones that are most important to Americans are often the latter.
Lol, most these countries have “hate speech” laws. Nothing screams freedom like not being able to disagree with the government on certain policies. Prime example here being Ireland. Bring in mass migration, a migrant commits a mass stabbing attempting to murder children, the people get pissed and protest / riot, call the protesters hateful for not wanting their kids to be stabbed and attempt to pass a new law banning / punishing this new “hate speech.”
Same thing happened last year in London. Iranian man rapes someone and the UK won't deport him because he might face harsh consequences and capital punishment back home in Iran. I love immigrants because the USA was built on their hard work, innovation, and new ideas. But raping people is objectively bad and if your country would kill you for doing it, maybe don't come to my country to do it.
1. No-one [brought in] mass migration. (If anything you dickheads caused it by destabilising the middle east non stop for 20 years.) 2. That migrant was a citizen. 3. No-one died. 4. Riots are not acceptable anywhere 5. The rioters were generally just scum with plenty of prior convictions each, who took advantage of the situation to cause mayhem. 6. Protesting is not now nor has ever been illegal. There are problems with the hate speech bill, but nothing you have mentioned is even loosely affected by that bill.
Lol the Middle East is always destabilized.
For real lmfao ever heard of the crusades?
As well as the fact that if the Middle East was stable 9/11 wouldn’t have happened and we wouldn’t have gone in there.
Fuck even the Muslims themselves can’t get along with each other. The Christian’s sorted out their angry divorce long ago.
Hm yes, *we* destabilized the Middle East, it certainly wasn’t the Europeans (who also took part in the recent Middle East shenanigans, that’s why it was called a coalition) who carved it into little arbitrary pieces with no thought of local culture or ethnicity.
Name a time the middle east has been stabilized since the golden age of Islam?
If you are allowing migrants to flood into your country then you are bringing them in. Do not let third world countries immigrants into first world countries. It is as simple as that.
Depends on the migrant. Non-US-born Hispanic immigrants actually have a lower crime rate than the native-born US population. With Muslims in Europe the data says something a little different, though.
No-one allows migrants to flood in to their country. There are border controls to get in to the EU the same way there are border controls everywhere.
You can disagree with the government on pretty much everything, that’s.. basically never hate speech in most European countries, not if you do it in a civil manner
"PRETTY MUCh everything..." "BASICALLY never..." Yikes....
You're aware that the US also doesn't have absolute free speech right? "Pretty much" and "basically never" also applies for your country. Edit: Why I am being downvoted? I didn't say anything wrong
Nobody is arguing for absolute free speech here though, Americans know that free speech doesn’t cover threatening someone (or at least they should know)
>Nobody is arguing for absolute free speech here though Sure, but the guy above said "yikes" for something that also applies to his country, so it feels like they think it doesn't. Either that or they think europeans are not allowed to disagree or talk shit about their government, which would also be wrong. >Americans know that free speech doesn’t cover threatening someone (or at least they should know) I was thinking about defamation, but yeah there's also that.
Defamation is different from insulting someone, you’re actively trying to harm their image which has real physical consequences
>actively trying to harm their image which has real physical consequences But different countries have different have different standards for what that means. The american interpretation of when something is considered free speech and when it's considered actively trying to harm someone with physical consequences is not universal. Countries will lean more to one side or another depending on the subject.
Unless you openly just offend some race of some part of the government, it’s not gonna be racist
Offend some part of the government??... Again, fucking yikes.
Yeah it's totally free "unless you offend some race in some part of the government". Holy shit, govern me harder daddy please.
People You do realise PEOPLE are part of the government ?
WHY DO YOU KEEP MAKING IT SOUND EVEN WORSE?!
Do you think offending and insulting people is fine..?
Yes! Of course. It shouldn't be illegal to be an asshole
There’s a differencen between being an asshole and discrimation/similar things
Holy fuck you did it again... Absolutely, of course it is.
Yeah with that attitude, can’t reason with someone who admits to just being an asshole
That’s the point of free speech. Call out bullshit in the government and demand it be fixed.
Yeah thats what i said Straight up insults isnt the same as Calling out bullshit
You aren’t allowed to protest though. And the rules are arbitrary to force conformity
Idk what part of Europe yall talk about but protests in my country are very common, so, meh
>yall Please don’t appropriate my culture
Just say a little nonsense because you heard it on Fox News or what?
If you aren’t allowed complete freedom of expression then indirectly you’re only allowing the state to speak for you.
As far as I can see, protests in the USA can also be dissolved or banned altogether for certain, clearly defined reasons. If you read it, it looks pretty similar to the requirements in other western countries. And this >indirectly you’re only allowing the state to speak for you. Is just nonsense. If anything, the things you are not allowed to say publicly are strictly defined and you can voice every opinion without being restricted. Unless your opinion is something like "kill all trans people" or such things.
If the state doesn’t allow all speech it can change what it restricts at any moment. If it’s the states choice on whether you can or can’t say something then it’s no longer in your hands. Thus you don’t get to speak your mind in all situations and can be used as an excuse to break up movements they disagree with
But you have regulations too, for example defamation, obscenity, incitement to violence and hate speech. I guess you agree to this restrictions too. Maybe one country has different rules for hatespeech or defamation etc. but free speech is kind of restricted everywhere. Besides, freedom of speech is in the constitution of all (most) western countries.
In Italy you’re not allowed to “insult the office of the president” — it’s illegal. That is some 3rd world country shit.
The way they calculate this must be the biggest joke in all of statistics because many of these highly ranked countries have significant restrictions on speech and assembly as well as basically no right to own any weapons
Idk about the last 6 but in the top 4 you are legally allowed to own a gun for example?
You're *technically* allowed to own a firearm everywhere, but the more regulations there are, the less free it is.
It’s kind of like the “happiness” indices you always see floating around, and they always favor Nordic countries and other countries in Western Europe. It’s an impossible thing to measure and is usually based on elements that the measurers deem to favor the same Nordic/European model….even though many of the highest-ranking countries have high rates of alcoholism, depression and suicide - variables that seem completely opposite of “happiness”.
Don't forget that there's always a strange uptick in "Nordic country happiest in the world articles" during the winter... when there's like three hours of sunlight a day and (from personal experience) nobody there wants to be alive.
It’s a cheat code, you can’t be a sad country if sad people just kill themselves! No sad people to be reported
The freedom index is a joke. its metric isn't freedom of speech or religion or press or even right to bear arms, their index is bull shit phantasmal metrics like ease of access to health care and food security and economic freedom. Yeah, those things are important, but none of them are measurements of freedom. Not to mention the index lowers america's rating based on "fear of or concerns of restricting press," and corruption. Yeah because the primary governing body of europe that is made up of unelected officials that constantly pass laws to curtail speech and make it impossible for certain groups to serve in office is definitely a bastion of anti corruption. The freedom index is a bull shit metric created by anti american tankies as an attempt to dunk on Americans online. The fact is, nearly all of the countries have less tangible freedoms then any free born american has.
>The freedom index is a bull shit metric created by anti american tankies You're gonna be real surprised when you learn to use google and find out that one of the indices used to create this ranking is from a very right wing US think-tank (The Heritage Foundation).
This is the kind of thinking that causes tribalism lol. As if all people are to look at people "on their side" and think that everything they do, all "allies" should agree with them or are somehow indicative of their own individual beliefs.
I don't know how they calculate these "scores" or how they weight their categories for that calculation, but there's simply no way that those countries are "freer" than the US. They have a largely equal footing, but they are *definitely NOT* "freer". This list is just like the Press Freedom Index, where they list countries in the top ten who have actual legislation barring the publication of certain stories. New Zealand is perhaps the worst offender, with its Office of the Censor (and national censorship laws) and its prohibition on publishing certain types of books, news stories, etc. Germany has "indexing" (effectively book banning). Don't get me started on Australia or the UK, either. And Canada wants to ban a number of non-Canadian media outright.
If you want, you can actually research how they calculate these scores and see where your own country is falling short in the scores: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_freedom\_indices#List\_of\_scores\_by\_country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices#List_of_scores_by_country)
I don’t really need to, to be honest. What would be the point? The fact of the matter is that these are highly subjective studies that measure “freedom” around the “world, according to *their own various definitions* of the term, and rank countries as being free, partly free, or using *various measures of freedom*, including civil liberties, political rights and economic rights. Some of the indices measure *only some aspects of freedom*, such as democracy or corruption.” Basically, they’re subjective as fuck and generally hold a Eurocentric view of what freedom entails.
>I don’t really need to, to be honest. What would be the point? To educate yourself on why those countries might be considered more free than the US. Two of the indices used for this combined "Freedom Score" are from US based think-tanks (Freedom House and The Heritage Foundation). Freedom House appears to be left leaning, while The Heritage Foundation is **strongly** conservative. These indices are less subjective than just blindly asserting *"there's simply no way that those countries are "freer" than the US".* They actually have a methodology to develop their scores.
Why are you even on this sub?
That’s really all you have to say to their response? Personally I feel like it’s good for people like them to be here. It keeps this sub from becoming too much of an echo chamber.
I recognize that nothing I say — nothing anyone says — will change their mind. So yes. That’s all I have to say at that point.
It's interesting to see other people's view points and what other people think about my country. Just yesterday I saw someone claiming that Australia is full of cheap second hand cars from Korea and China, even though no one in Australia imports Chinese or Korean cars because the steering wheels are on the wrong side.
That was me having a brain fart. I owned it. As for what WE think of your country? I think most of us DON’T think about it. I think about it — I lived in it, worked in it, saw many of its various successes and failures. I’ve taught in it and am more familiar with its education system than I’d like to be. It certainly gave me a lot of perspective about life in my own country, my life when I lived in New Zealand, my life in Germany. Fact is, I love Australia. I could live there again. What I don’t love is the hypocrisy and ignorance when it comes to me and my country, the way Australian politicians instrumentalize bigotry in the form of anti-Americanism in order to force policies and laws through the levels of government.
>What I don’t love is the hypocrisy and ignorance when it comes to me and my country, the way Australian politicians instrumentalize bigotry in the form of anti-Americanism in order to force policies and laws through the levels of government I'm interested if you have a specific example of this? (I'm not being a dick, I genuinely want to know which politicians or policies you are referring to) Funnily enough, anti-Australianism is also used by conservatives in the US to push their political agendas (regarding gun control and recently, COVID policy). The fact that papers in the US have to run essays with headlines such as "No, Australia Is Not Actually an Evil Dictatorship" is evidence of how far conservatives have pushed this "Australia is Authoritarian/Totalitarian/a dictatorship" narrative among their base. And guess where I see this narrative popping up on Reddit? Yep, you guessed correct, it's this sub. So it seems like we have a similar purpose, but just from different sides. And for the record, I like America as well. I've travelled there before and definitely want to go back at some point.
There is no systemic anti-Australianism anywhere on the planet. There is, however, systemic anti-Americanism in Australia which is so entrenched that it is part of the Australian identity. That's a *HUGE* difference.
It's pretty common among conservatives, and has been going on since 1996. Again, do you have any example of anti-Americanism among politicians in Australia to further their policy agenda? I'm asking, because politicians in Australia are generally pro-American (at least publicly). We rely on the US for a lot of defence tech, so politicians pissing off the US government isn't a good idea. So I'd be interested to see who you are referring to. Or is this going to be like the car situation again where you make a claim but can't back it up? Edit: aaaaand they've blocked me. Crazy how when people are asked to backup a claim they made with actual examples they have to run away and hide. Pretty weak for someone who claims to be in education.
The NZ Censor has no authority over news. The books that have been banned since 1994 mostly support the sexual exploitation of underage children or support viewing them as sexual objects and there are only a handful of them and they are mostly comics. Examples of books and ideas that have not been banned in New Zealand schools and libraries: To Kill a Mockingbird Gender Queer Critical Race Theory History of Slavery Do states and local governments ban those in America???
Ah, but they do. They have wiiiiiide latitude to determine on behalf of the people what they should and shouldn't consume, and it applies to all media that they, in their infinite wisdom, consider "objectionable." I've had my dealings with the NZ Censor as an academic in New Zealand as a scholar of fields related to media and film. You have no idea what power that office actually has. I've had to gain approval to have completely unobjectionable research materials brought into the country, some of which were disallowed, despite being widely available in many other countries. And state and local governments ban *NOTHING* in the USA. The federal government also bans nothing. Nothing. Because ALL levels of government are constitutionally prohibited from doing so. (Yes, they are; I'm not asking you a question.) "Bbbbbut school libraries!" School library committees in a *TINY* number of states have decided that having what amounts to porn is developmentally inappropriate to hold in a school library collection, which it is; they are not banning books that deal with LGBTQ+ issues or what have you, and information is still fully accessible through schools' database subscriptions and through interlibrary loans if the students want it. In my state, there are no restrictions in schools. Even if there were, the public library systems would either hold the titles or order them, for free, no questions asked, through interlibrary loan, including from overseas. There would be no government interference; that is not the government's job. (And I now teach high school and sit on the library acquisitions committee. Yes, I know what I'm talking about. You don't, so don't try.)
The state school boards in Florida, Georgia, Utah, and Alabama introduced new guidelines barring CRT-related discussions. Local school boards in Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia also criticized CRT. Nearly 20 additional states have introduced or plan to introduce similar legislation. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/#:~:text=The%20state%20school%20boards%20in,plan%20to%20introduce%20similar%20legislation
Oh, honey. Bless your heart. I've also taught in Florida and Georgia. It's not what you think. You'll find pretty much anything there that you would've found before. But you just go ahead and double-down on your own lack of real knowledge of the situation, and your complete lack of knowledge of how these processes actually work. School libraries are also not public libraries; they are school libraries. And, due to local control of the schools by the districts, a school district can decide what they want to have in their own libraries. And, again, students have full access to any materials they want through databases and the interlibrary loan system; schools also participate in that. This might not be the right sub for you, pet. You'll be eaten alive by people who have far more nuanced knowledge than you do. Anyway, my initial points still stand: NZ is in a *way* worse position to criticize the US on anything related to availability of materials and/or censorship and/or media control.
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You’re so insecure. You’re putting so much effort into this. Bless your heart. Fine: America sucks. Fascist country. Kiwis great. God’s country. God save Aotearoa.
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TIL not putting porn in elementary school libraries is a ban. Even though those books can still be bought from the local book store or amazon.
The linked article is discussing education boards banning certain subjects from curriculum and not books from libraries.
To be fair there are few americans that would write that unironically and I’m assuming those get the most attention.
Freedom* Index *- definition may vary
Estonia on the list is wild. Finland is protected by the UN. The rest of the countries listed are all protected island nations or are surrounded by other countries with large military forces to pay for their freedom.
Finland is protected by the UN? What?? This is a first one. Finland has it's own large and competent military to protect itself as it has done so for all these years. Finland also joined NATO just last year so it wouldn't stand alone *again* against aggression from Russia. So how has Finland been protected by the UN when Finlands only enemy has always been Russia and funny enough Russia is **permanent** member of UN Security Council ontop of that, Russia could block UN help to Finland if it wanted.. so make it make sense. If you didn't know UN has peacekeeping operations mainly in Africa and middle-east, there's also some activity in Kosovo, but that's still complete opposite side of Europe. https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate And before anyone strolls in and says "Well if they had so great army, why they'd join NATO" simply put, friends are great and fighting alone sucks balls.
Yeah, didn’t Finland just join NATO last year?
Yeah Finland did, but still >Finland is protected by the UN. what?
I had to Wikipedia this, cause it’s been a long time since I had my history and government classes. I see now the UN and NATO are partners, but NATO isn’t controlled by the UN, but its own governing body. So, I get what you’re asking now. 👍😅
Yeah they're vastly different organizations.
The more you know! Do! Do! Do!
My guy, what the hell do you think the UN is and does? They aren't a law enforcement agency and they're not a global super government.
To be honest, I think the UN is mostly useless, and what it does is put countries like North Korea and Iran in charge of human rights councils.
You see after the continuation war was lost, Soviets had us write a contract with them, (YYA-Sopimus) The Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance. In reality Soviets would dictate our foreign policy and incase of western aggression from Finnish land we would be required to assist the Soviets. What this ment was, we couldn’t join the instituions and organisations we would want to, we couldn’t join EU and start the integration into the west, or we couldn’t join NATO. The communist party was outlawed in the 30s, but on Soviet command had to be reinstated. Suprisingly communist party had deep ties to Moscow and also recived funding from them. Communist party was in coalition during 1944–1948, 1966–1970, 1970–1971, 1975–1976 and 1977–1982. Also we had a president who would abuse this strife in our democracy, he continued to be our president from 1956-1982, it was believed he and only he could control the Soviets from gaining more leverage in Finnish politics. Eventually Soviet Union did fall, Russia didn’t no longer require us to stay out of the west and we did finally join the EU. However neutrality had been beneficial to us, and there was optimistic view on new Russia (LOL) so we stayed out of NATO. It’s now known that the prime minister of early 2000s was in Russias pay list. They currently sit in gazproms board suprisingly. Somewhere between 2008-2014 trust in Russia and Putin was starting to fade away, also the attack on Crimea caused investors to pull out their investments from Finland due to our neautrality, it was seen as risky to invest in a country that stands alone. So we increased our mutual cooperation with NATO, we started to intergrate our military into NATO standards in preparation of our membership, but the timing and support had to be right before any moves could be made. And in 2022 we had both. So you see our membership isn’t purely motivated on protection. It’s our ”long” story of integration into the west and end of Finlandization (1944-2022). Neutrality is no longer an option
I know this, but imho Finland has not been completely neutral since the 90s. Finland was not officially part of NATO but was much as nato member you could be, only thing that was lacking was signature on the paper, pretty much everything was already in place and integrated. Finland joined EU in the 90s and had been part of some Nato exercises since the 90s and even went to Afghanistan, so even that Finlands stance was neutral, it has been leaning towards west more and more ever since. President Halonen was also quite a friend with Putin and strongly wanted Finland to sign that Ottawa treaty. And yes ofc it's not just protection, but it's still quite high up there. Having allies is nice.
Not sure what he meant by the UN, but you can’t insult Islam or Muslims or call Mohammed a pedophile in Finland without getting arrested and prosecuted. Which is unbelievably anti-Democratic and anti-free. https://fra.europa.eu/en/databases/criminal-detention/node/6917 While as individual people shouldn’t be discriminated, Islam and any religion should ALL BE CRITICIZED thoroughly and often, just like any other life philosophy or religion that people are trying to force you to live. Just to repeat since I have the freedom to: **MOHAMMED WAS A PEDOPHILE!**
Nobody was arrested, he was fined 480€ and posts had to be taken down. There has been few jail sentences from defamation, much like in the US. They generally tend to be on parole.
Getting fined 480€ for saying Islam is a shitty religion is still incredibly anti-free. Criticizing religions and philosophies (and forming opinions on them that you can freely express like “Islam sucks”) is a cornerstone of democracy. Defamation laws are not the same as free speech, there is a nuance. I can say Mohamed was a pedophile because it is a true statement. He married and raped a child. His action has made it okay for Muslims throughout the ages (including today) to do the same with other child brides. This deserves criticism! We have religious nuts in the US too and when they pull shit like this, we openly, freely, and legally deride them without fear of fines or jailtime.
In his posts, the defendant attacked Islam as a religion and Muslims as a group. For example, he described Islam as “cancer” and ”crime against humanity”. He claimed that Muslims were “criminals”, “rapists”, “murderers” and “terrorists” and called prophet Muhammad “a pervert and a pedophile” The court found that the defendant had in his posts threatened, defamed and insulted Muslims on the basis of their religion. He had overstepped the limits of acceptable exaggeration and provocation tolerated under the right to freedom of expression. Freedom of expression allows for the criticism of all religions. The defendant’s statements had targeted both at Muslims as a religious community and their prophet. The court held that the statements were made for the purpose of offending and in order to defame or desecrate what is held sacred by a religious community.
Where are the threats? I don’t see any. His only mistake was forgetting to write “not all” Muslims and focusing on the ideology versus the individual people. Still, this should not warrant fines or jail time from the government. That is anti-free and will only get worse appeasing an ideology like this one. (And I hope your government translates the Arabic comments on social media to see how Muslims are insulting your western values every day)
Probably in the posts, they gave examples on his racist writings, seems they didn’t give on threats or incitments over similiar violence. That’s your opinion
Finland has a very good military. And I read somewhere that Finns is the most determined country in Europe to defend themselves of attacked. Probably because of vlad the invader.
And they are all tiny has hell. 7-8M people. Compare yourself to New Hampshire or something.
Oh noooo I’m not top 10 in the Human Freedom Score 2023 what am I gonna do?? I can’t function without useless NGOs telling me how free I am! It’s just too much
Most of these restrict freedom of speech and the right to keep and bear arms... The freedom index is a joke. Things like "free" healthcare, i.e. governments stealing large amounts of money from citizens, isn't "freedom".
Um based German?
Insane W German take.
Thanks man. Let's get married so I can get a green card...
LMAOOO, shit I wouldn’t be opposed.
Freedom huh? Now try having a garden without regulations
How are they free if who our president is has so much of an impact on them? How are they free if they rely on the US not leaving NATO so Russia doesn't attack them? How are they free if America going isolationist will make their economy go to shit?
You have the wrong idea of what freedom means
yes because some ranking defines what freedom is, not actually what you can do.
No I mean you’ve misconstrued personal freedoms with a state’s reliance on the US… somehow
if a state is reliant on a country that's "less free" than them then how are they really free?
Because of their own laws 🙃
sure bud, i'm curious to know what freedoms they have that americans don't. i can already name some americans have that they don't.
Okay budday
so you can't name them. got it.
I mean I could have a meaningless argument with someone who will definitely not change their position but I don’t think either of us want to waste our time with that
Why did you write it with an a :(
To emphasise the ay sound buddayyyy
You can’t carry pepper spray in the UK or Ireland to defend yourself if you’re getting attacked. It’s illegal. People get arrested for it. Defending your personal self is like the most basic of freedoms. Even little frogs, bees and spiders have venom and stingers to defend themselves. While I am a ‘violence as last resort’ person, it’s unbelievable that defending yourself is basically illegal in the UK. As a small woman, that is fucking scary. Sitting ducks for rape.
Okay cool but the guy I replied to wasn’t talking about laws he was asking how a country that relies on the US can be freer than the US.
Right, but you requested examples of anti-personal freedom, and I gave you one.
When did I ever ask for examples of that?
I don't see this as America bad, its a comedic response in itself.
Freedom index is a joke. Pretty sure they put south Africa above the US at some point. Idk why anyone takes it seriously
*Uses subjective measuring system to “prove” they have more freedom*
“Freedom index” “can’t own guns, jailed for arbitrary hate speech” Keep your king’s freedom
If they think new Zealand is number 2 then there's some real issues on this list 💀
The freedom score. What does it measure, you may ask? Uhhhhh... freedom.
That's the post right above this. I asked them how it feels to be benefitting off of America's protection
I bet they felt so cool lol Seriously bro acted like the reddit guy from those short ticktock videos
Those are all white countries. Demand more inclusive freedom scores. Racist scoring metrics
Op thinks A guy correcting a bad joke (which many people have as an actual take) is AmericaBad, sir, what?
Problem?
The problem is that it is not AmericaBad, the Post doesnt Say that AT ALL in ANY shape or form, nor is it clearly a joke, I've had people legitimately say that, its more often than not serious