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by eropple 3838 days ago
Thank you for writing this (and I say that as an American). We as a country are are gargantuan hypocrites about this whole thing; the idea of free speech in our Constitution--to say nothing of plenty of other privileges that we pretend are rights--is one of many things we don't pass on to the people we claim hegemony over.

We are tremendously bad at owning our shit. I wish we were better.

1 comments

As a human...

The GP was just as condescending as the GGP. His rush to stereotype Americans was largely comical. He makes it quite clear at the beginning that his buttons were simply (and easily) pushed; and this his rant was justified in his eyes. He simply emoted all over this thread to the benefit of no one but himself.

It is not my status as an American that I defend or his status as a German(?) that I attack when I point out the hypocrisy or limits in his version of free speech. Nor does my acknoledgement of those limits imply I am not familiar with the history and hypocrisy of the United States and its voracious appetite for hegemony, empire building, and oppression of peoples (including the restriction or punishment of ostensibly free speech) both within and without its borders.

This entire thread reads like a bunch of petulant children pointing fingers. Neither side defends the merits of their version of free speech nor makes salient points about the others' version of free speech; leading to no greater understanding and apparently prompting people to take sides in a conflict that doesn't even have to exist.