[BizyDev]

Colin Kaepernick's NFL career has been destroyed just because he kneeled during an anthem.

More recently, Kyrie Irving had a lot of problems "just" because he shared a controversial documentary available on Amazon.

That's not what I would call "freedom of expression".

[barbazoo]

The difference being that in the US you don't have to fear prosecution for most things you'd get prosecuted for in, say, Quatar. You might get cancelled on Twitter but you don't end up in jail or get killed at least.

[nautilius]

You do get jailed, though, for talking to the authorities in a way they don't like.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/06/1121322520/a-black-protester-...

[barbazoo]

Totally there are cases like that but let's not pretend it's as bad as in many other countries. Cases like this also consistently make the news in NA and Europe.

[nautilius]

How fast we went from "Best and unique in the world" to "let's not pretend it's as bad as in many other countries" ...

[nells]

Exactly. In countries of Europe denying the Holocaust occurred can get you fined or even land you in jail. Americans should appreciate what they have.

[bogomipz]

And neither of them were imprisoned, beaten or detained for exercising those expressions. Nor did either have a fear of those things happening to them. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Both men are still free to to express themselves as they see fit.

You seem to be conflating two different issues. Freedom of expression although closely linked to freedom of association is distinct from it. Freedom of association is the right to form and join clubs, societies, trade unions or political parties with anyone you choose. In your two examples both of those individuals chose to join professional sports clubs as contract employees. As such they were beholden to whatever codes of conduct their employers set forth, the same as any job. Contrast this to Kanye West who was also recently shoveling a bunch anti-semitic garbage. Kanye works for himself and so was not beholden to an association's code of conduct.

By the way the net result of Kyrie Irving's "problems" were an 8 game suspension. He's back playing as of yesterday. And just to put in perspective how different Kapernick and Irving situations are, four years ago Kyrie Irving was pushing "flat earth" nonsense.[1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/08/movies/kyrie-irving-nba-c...

[nautilius]

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/06/1121322520/a-black-protester-...

[bogomipz]

I really don't understand what your URL is meant to convey and you don't provide any detail yourself. Per the ACLU:

>"WHAT DOES FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ACTUALLY MEAN?"

>"The First Amendment guarantees our right to free expression and free association, which means that the government does not have the right to forbid us from saying what we like and writing what we like; we can form clubs and organizations, and take part in demonstrations and rallies." [1]

However the The First Amendment has limits, it does not cover what's classified as "true threats."[2][3] And of course context matters. In this case Brittany Martin was standing chest to chest with a police officer in extremely tense situation and exclaimed:

“Y’all want war, y’all got it,” “We’re ready to die for this,” and “You better be ready to die for the blue. I’m ready to die for the Black” [4]

Do you believe had if she been in the middle of the crowd or in an empty parking lot exclaiming the same with a megaphone she would have been arrested? And while I don't agree with the outcome of any of this, she did in fact have a jury trial. It was a jury that found her guilty. A jury of eight men, five being white and the other three being Black, and six women, five of whom where Black and one white.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/other/your-right-free-expression

[2] https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1025/true-threats

[3] https://www.aclumich.org/en/cases/true-threats-case

[4] https://www.theitem.com/classifieds/stories/jury-finds-sumte...

[nautilius]

> Do you believe had if she been in the middle of the crowd or in an empty parking lot exclaiming the same with a megaphone she would have been arrested?

No, that's my whole point. She said something that the authorities did not like. She did not do anything whatsoever. And she was jailed for it. She was punished by the government for saying something she liked to say.

You consider a single unarmed woman speaking a 'true threat' to a phalanx of armed police men? I guess there's not much right to free expression left then. The cops on the photo sure do look frightened. I guess she can be happy that she wasn't simply shot on the spot.

[bogomipz]

If any stranger, man or woman, got in my face and told me "You better be ready to die", then yes I would find that threatening. I think most people would feel threatened by such behavior. I think you would as well. This is generally considered aggressive behavior.You are no longer expressing an opinion when you tell someone they "better be ready to die." Further, you would also have no idea if that person was armed or not. Lastly the idea that the police officer was part of a phalanx appears to be a detail you made up and it's irrelevant anyway, as a particular formation means nothing if you are outnumbered.

[nautilius]

Here's another good one where some guy gets "arrested, jailed, and prosecuted because he made fun of his local police department on Facebook".

https://ij.org/press-release/new-supreme-court-appeal-asks-c...

Unless in your world jokes on facebook are also "true threats".

[bogomipz]

Yes of course you can always find an outlier to support your case but this is not the general case in the US. And certainly not at all comparable to what your options for self-expression would be in any of the United Arab Emirates which is actually the context of this whole discussion. The idea that they might be in any way comparable is absurd.

[yummypaint]

That is exactly freedom of expression. The first amendment protects against government action, which it did in both cases. What it does not and cannot do is force other people to continue doing business with someone, as that would violate their own rights to free expression.

It's shocking how common this misconception is recently. To maintain our democracy citizens need to understand and care about civics. If we reach a critical mass of people who fundamentally don't care what the constitution says, we are in for big problems.

[twinbedlam]

I don't think it's so shocking as it is not as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

> What it does not and cannot do is force other people to continue doing business with someone, as that would violate their own rights to free expression.

If I fire someone after they change their religion to one I disagree with, would I be free from legal consequence?

[bogomipz]

Yes, as you would be guilty of religious discrimination. Colin Kaepernick was not fired. He opted out of his contract in 2017 and became a free agent.[1]

[1] https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2695566-colin-kaepernick...

[psychphysic]

100% even when BLM took off as mainstream he was persona non grata

[_-david-_]

My understanding is that Kaepernick wasn't even that great of a player and wouldn't have had much of a career regardless of the kneeling. Maybe another season at most so he didn't really lose anything. He also didn't even want to play, he said the NFL players were slaves... Unless he wanted to be a slave?