If we were to rank "civilized" by restrictions on speech, as you seem to be doing here, the US would be so far ahead that it's not even a comparison. Like of all things to go "America bad, europe good" on, free speech is absolutely not it.
(Yes, the excuse is that Europe has a different definition of free speech but the UAE would probably say the same. And even then I don't see how the US would be uncivilized according to the european definition of free speech lol)
Are you implying you'd get arrested? I remember attending a Palestine/BDS protest in NYC a few years ago and nothing happening to me even as a canadian (muslim arab) visitor.
I agree though that the restrictions on supporting BDS in some parts of the US are completely absurd. And I always find it funny that conservatives turn a completely blind eye to those laws (especially since it's in Texas! Pretty ironic). Yet the same laws often also apply in europe, and they are usually a lot stricter so my original point stands.
>Hervieu pointed to a recent ruling by the Court of Cassation, France’s court of final appeal, which upheld the criminal convictions of 12 BDS activists who burst into a supermarket in 2009 wearing “Boycott Israel” shirts and handing out fliers that read, “Buying Israeli products means legitimising crimes in Gaza.”
>The legislation means that what BDS activists regarded as political statements denouncing Israel’s violations of international law could be – and indeed were – treated by French courts as an "incitement" to hatred.
I wonder where you get this theory from. Because it's illegal IN GERMANY to lie about the holocaust?
The US' "free" speech mantra has become a running gag with the post-9/11 developments already. I is peaking right now with all the evangelically influenced madness that is happening there.
(Yes, the excuse is that Europe has a different definition of free speech but the UAE would probably say the same. And even then I don't see how the US would be uncivilized according to the european definition of free speech lol)