Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.
> 
>   Maybe not. Perhaps you just don't understand what the situation here is,
> perhaps because it's different there.

Yes, we have all that stuff here. Indeed, some of it is written into law in 
the form of affirmative action.  Certainly it's almost impossible here to 
get a hate crime by black people against white people prosecuted as such. 
And of course any bashing of gays is not only seldom prosecuted but indeed 
often lauded.

>   The very concept of "freedom" has shifted its meaning in Europe during
> the past decade or two. It used to mean that the government has no right
> to limit certain basic rights of people. Nowadays "freedom" is more like
> concessions and permissions granted by the government to the citizens.

Same here.  "That's a privilege, not a right."

>   As far as I understand, this is slightly better in the United States.
> For example, the first amendment to the constitution says "Congress shall
> make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
> free exercise thereof" and so on. It limits what the government can do.

Yes, but it's a constant on-going battle. If you wear a T-shirt into a 
government building that implies you're an atheist, you get kicked out. When 
an atheist or muslim puts up a display next to the christmas tree in the 
city hall, it gets broken and stolen and nobody will investigate the crime.

And the first amendment is pretty much the only one that people really pay 
much attention to any more. You can forget the rest of the rights, both 
explicit and implied. And forget anything not specifically written down and 
just listed as "oh, and anything not listed here is also a right."

>   The freedom in the US goes even beyond that. If you, for example, burn
> a Koran and a Bible in the US as a form of protest or social commentary,
> and post a video of it to YouTube, that's completely legal and protected
> by freedom of expression. However, do that here in Finland, and you *will*
> get jailtime. This is no exaggeration. You will literally get sentenced
> to jailtime.

The first amendment is really one of the very few that are well-protected 
here. It's stuff like assault, habeus corpus, the government accusing your 
money of a crime and then taking it because it can't take the stand in its 
own defense, locking up people for no reason, deporting brown people who 
were born here because they don't speak english, etc etc etc.

But sure, you can *complain* about it.

>   Yes, I know that some people will argue that "well, that's proper
> because you can't do that". The only thing I can say to that is that
> I disagree. Burning a bunch of paper should not be a crime. It's paper.
> Last time I checked, burning paper is not illegal.

And this is exactly my point, that I can't seem to explain to you.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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