| I think the disagreement is that Americans (and Brits, and possibly other countries deriving their legal traditions from the Crown) generally consider speech merely expression. Expressing your hatred is not what's illegal in Germany. Inciting violence and hatred is. It just so happens that certain ways of expressing yourself also incite violence and hatred. Saying "I hate Muslims" is in itself not necessarily a crime in Germany. Saying "All Muslims should be killed" on the other hand is a direct call to action, asking people to commit a crime and thus directly attacking public order and human rights. It's similar to shouting "fire" in a theater: it's not illegal because it's expression, it's illegal because it aims to mislead people into thinking there's a threat to their life and to act on that fear (i.e. cause a panic as people run for the exits). It's also no different from the adage "one person's freedom ends where the freedom of another person begins". You can express yourself all you want, you just have to consider how that affects other people (and not so much in the sense of "I am offended" but "You are right and I will go and commit the crimes you're asking me to"). EDIT: FWIW, Germany has "freedom of opinion" and "freedom of expression" in its constitution. But it also strongly defends not just the rights of individual humans but also of "human dignity". Most laws are ultimately derived from that. EDIT2: Also keep in mind that the US in some cases takes it so far that _giving people money_ is considered a form of expression and therefore protected speech. This would never fly in Germany because "expression" doesn't automatically cancel out everything else. |