scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >  You demonstrate perfectly the kind of mentality. Limiting freedom of
> > speech is completely "acceptable" when the subject in question is taboo
> > enough.

> You *really* believe you have complete freedom of speech?  What gives you 
> the right to expect that?  The general public expect that if you lie to an 
> official, or tell others to commit crimes, or speak in a way that damages 
> anyone else mentally, you should be suitably punished.  I'd hate to live 
> somewhere where those sorts of acts went unpunished.

  You don't get the point. The point is that freedom of speech is more
limited now than it was eg. 20 years ago. And it's getting more and more
limited as time passes.

  And we are not talking about lying and deceiving. We are talking about
*expressing your opinion*, which is a rather different thing. Today
expressing certain types of opinions is so taboo that even law enforcement
is trying to stop these thought crimes.

> >  People are already being fined in many western countries for expressing
> > their opinion *without* causing any trouble.

> Care to give any examples?

  A Finnish person posted an article in his blog citing, among other things,
official crime statistics performed by certain groups of people and using
words which some people consider derogatory (although whether they really
are or not is completely subjective and there's no official stance). He
was sued and fined, and forced to take the article off his blog.

  (Having read the trial logs, the trial was more or less a farce. The
judge was astonishingly biased and basically ignored everything the defence
attorney and the suspect told.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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