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by GauntletWizard
3236 days ago
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Ag-gag laws are abhorrent. Most Americans agree. They're a relatively recent problem (Most have been passed or on the ballot since 2012, so last five years) caused by corrupt politicians that Americans are working to solve. Pointing at them is classic whataboutism. We have problems in the US. We mostly confront them headon rather than pretending they don't exist. Suppression of speech is pretending they don't exist. Another example: Americans are constantly blasted by Europeans for racism. Racism is a very real problem in America - That's why groups like Black Lives Matter exist. We deal with these problems with speech, like the aforementioned group. As such, some fairly basic indicators, like the public opinion on miscegenation have been trending in a good direction - Less than 20% of America disapproves of it[1]. The data is not quite quantified in the same way, but there's an argument that in Germany, that number is more than 40%[2]. Across the EU, 35% of people would be upset if their child were dating a black person. The numbers are not directly comparable - The US numbers are about interracial marriage as a whole, not personalizing it about "your child", and I've seen firsthand that there's a difference. But those aren't numbers that swing that far. It might be equally bad, it might be a little worse in the US. It's not the sea change that it's so often presented as - Racism is a global problem, not a US one. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interracial_marriage_in_the_Un...
[2]http://www.equineteurope.org/IMG/pdf/ebs_437_en.pdf |
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I don't think that my comment was whataboutism. Not when I reply to the following quote:
"As an American, I look down on the limits of speech in Europe with disdain"
Which implicitly puts an absolute to free speech in America. Which it's most definitely not.