[virmundi]

You're making an assumption about best. What is best?

Is it personal liberty within the confines of enough law to provide some semblance of stability? The US is straining with that and it is arguably the most free of the Western Nations. Before the EU apologists jump on, keep in mind the EU Human Rights Court ruled that no one is allowed to speak against Mohamed (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/european-court-ind...). Gun violence appears to be leaving the ghettos and moving into more civilized neighborhoods.

Is it an authoritarian power that feeds, houses, and medicates its population? China does a lot of this. Hunger is down dramatically. People are still largely free to go about their daily lives.

Is it in-between? I don't know. The EU is starting to fray there. Nationalist movements are seeing that countries have to give up their current individual identities to conform with a Brussels/German worldview. Is this wrong? How are you to say?

My whole point in all this is that you've alluded to some truth claim as an attack on Google. Can you a) clearly define your truth claim, at least to yourself, and b) say why it's more true than the Chinese view that people are sheep and need a shepard? The Left in the US holds this view to varying degrees. That's why we need all this regulation. No one should be free to buy plastic straws.

[DanBC]

> Court ruled that no one is allowed to speak against Mohamed

No they didn't. They said you're not allowed to incite religious hatred by focussing attention on one particular religious figure from one particular time when the practice was common.

If that commentator is interested in paedophilia she will have made comments about the practice of child marriage among Christians -- something still happening in the US today. She did not mention any other region because she's not interested in attacking paedophilia, she's interested in attacking Muslims.

[virmundi]

Her argument was cogent and to the point. In Islam Mohamed is the ideal man. You should emulate him as a result. You see in Pakistan younger brides as a result. We in the West call that pedophilia. She said that. Oops, stating theological facts are now tantamount to hate speech. Welcome to your free speech world, EU. War is Peace. Silence is speaking.

The greater part of the ruling is that you can't say something that might incite to violence a 3rd party. If I say that Manchester is a terrible team, am I not at risk of loosing my free speech? Many of those footballer fans are violent, as shown by numerous riots. Clearly making them fussy is a risky thing. Am I liable if some adults fair to act rationally when the honor of their team, of which they are not personally members, is attacked? According to the EU court, maybe.

Child marriage is not now, nor has it even been common in Christianity. There are fringe groups that endorse it, and they are rare. They are operating well outside of the bounds of the historic teachings of the church. This is not a no-true-scottsman argument. There are teachings of the churches throughout the ages. If someone behalves in a manner that countermands those teachings, they are an apostate (assuming they still claim fidelity to the great religion). You've created a false-dichotomy in order to remove the true issue here: as the West embraces Muslims with open arms, you're going to run afoul of cultural differences. The West can either say, "No, you many not mutilate a 9 year olds vagina and marry her!" Or it can say, "Sure, why not?" At present, the vanguard of the process such as Sweden, is already ruling on such unions [1]. It is a thorny issue, but the EU will do what it always does: capitulate to invading forces.

https://www.quora.com/Did-Sweden-legalize-child-marriage-and...

[mLuby]

Ensuring your citizens are safe, fed, housed, and healthy is the bare minimum for any government (Looking at you, SF). "Peace, land, bread", you know?

But any time an entity is afraid to be challenged, it is selfishly choosing its own survival over the possibility that there exists a better provider for its citizens. That part is the "not best" part, and it's also the part Google is accused of helping with. If Google was secretly working with the PRC to improve Chinese citizens' medical care, there wouldn't be any concern.

[virmundi]

How do you know that the entity isn't better than its people? The long term stability of governments correlates with general wellness. Technology helps make the government more stable.

If 90% of the population's standard of living improves at the expense of the 10%, is that wrong? Where is the line? Even when a rising tide raises all boats, there are many who will still get swamped. Should we stop forward progression due to that?

[tomp]

Does it? The government of North Korea is far more stable than the government of e.g. Slovenia. Still, I'd never switch countries from the latter to the former.

(Well, maybe it correlates, but then I'd argue you're just optimising the wrong variable...)

[mLuby]

Are you describing a situation where government A is objectively better for its citizens but they want government B (which wants to supplant A and is objectively worse) more than A for some reason?

I'm not following how your second paragraph is connected to the question of governments protecting themselves at the expense of their citizens' well-being. It sounds like you're talking about the trolley problem, and tying that to some notion that we can halt 'progress'? What do you mean?

[virmundi]

I’m saying it is not obvious that an authoritarian government that suppresses a minority for the betterment of the majority is bad.

[tomp]

Technically, EHRC isn't part of the EU (it's part of the Council of Europe). I agree with your point though, I was terribly disappointed by that decision, and I think that all EU countries should quit EHRC immediately.

[detaro]

Because the ECtHR decided that member states have (relatively) lots of freedom in how they regulate speech pertaining religion, instead of pushing through a rule centrally? Typically, people dislike european institutions for the opposite.

GPs framing of this as "EU Human Rights Court ruled that no one is allowed to speak against Mohamed" is very misleading, the court ruled no such thing. (I still don't like how that case went, on all levels, but it's no-where near extreme as some people claim)

[tomp]

Then what's the point of a centralized human rights court? "Well member states can decide whom to murder." Or maybe I just think that freedom of speech is a human right while EHRC does not.

[detaro]

Freedom of Expression is a human right, but the Convention on Human Rights explicitly argues for restrictions of free speech in this section, and the court allowed countries to follow that. The countries are the ones that decided on that Convention, despite criticism of that specific part of it. The court works in the framework provided to it by the Convention, which is fairly clear on murder, less so on free speech. IMHO it would have been good to strengthen that somewhere in the 65 years since, but the countries haven't done so - and given the geographic reach of the convention, it seems unlikely to happen. Could maybe be done on an EU-level, or in a new sub-treaty.

IMHO no need to go from "this treaty isn't as absolute on free speech as I'd like" to "what's the point of any of it then?".