[chairmansteve]

Yes, there are definitely problems, but at least you can criticise the speech laws. And fight to change them. In fact if you feel strongly about it you can do something about it. The article mentions the Free Speech Union in the UK. There is also the EFF in the USA. Democracy requires that we fight for it. Otherwise it will disappear.

In dicatorships there is no opportunity to speak out.

[bluecalm]

Imo the biggest problem in Western democracies is that in a lot of ideological cases we don't have democracy at all. It doesn't matter what majority thinks as no major party is going to implement it.

I get why democracy has to be indirect when it comes to many complicated, interconnected issues but things like free speech laws, abortion laws, public decency laws, smoking bans etc. should all be decided in a direct vote (repeated every N years). As it is we often have a situation where significant majority have a different view but a small strong group is able to influence the law. It's not a democracy but a farce in my view.

[ethbr1]

Some, mostly-western, US states have citizen-initiated state constitution amendment processes. [0]

I especially like Nevada's -- a majority in two successive general elections.

Sustainable democracy needs a jury nullification-like direct popular escape catch to solve legislatively-intractable issues (term limits, party primaries, redistricting, etc).

[0] https://ballotpedia.org/Initiated_constitutional_amendment

[ayrtondesozzla]

You can criticise things, but if you are effective, or if you criticise the wrong thing, you risk jail, harassment, ostracisation, threats, campaigns of vilification and slander, etc. Your doctor visits and lawyer visits will be surveilled, your basic diplomatic rights violated. You can be tortured in public view.

Wikileaks' Julian Assange is perhaps the archetypal recent example, but there are others.

Westminster has undergone a violent authoritarian shift in recent decades. Stating that clearly is a prerequisite to beginning a fight for "democracy", as you put it.

[chairmansteve]

Yes. Westminster has become more autoritarian.

But Julian Assange is not a good example, for many reasons. He didn't just criticise the government. He broke laws. Maybe for good reason.

Are there any examples in the UK of people being jailed for simply criticising the government? Excluding hate speech and civil disobedience?

[naasking]

> Excluding hate speech and civil disobedience?

Why would you exclude civil disobedience, one of the primary means by which you protest government?

[chairmansteve]

Civil disobedience is illegal by definition. The point is to get arrested.

[cassianoleal]

> In dicatorships there is no opportunity to speak out.

There is always opportunity to speak out.

In dictatorships, it usually costs more energy, money and sometimes lives. It tends to culminate in revolutions, and then the system changes.

In censored quasi-democracies like what we see in "the west", it tends to culminate in being ignored and the status quo being maintained or gradually worsened. Alternatively, you may become a pariah and either have to self-exile [0] or suffer years of isolation and torture [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Asylum_applicat...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange#Imprisonment_in...

[soco]

I'm not sure I follow the logic. I mean all the arguments are valid when taken separately, but the construct fails me. You mean, the dictatorship is then better because you might die but the survivors can have a revolution? Why couldn't then a democracy have a revolution as well, by exactly the same argumentation? And how's all this black and white thinking, like because democracy is not perfect, dictatorship becomes suddenly acceptable???

[cassianoleal]

You're reading both too much into it.

First, I don't really consider what exists in "the west" as actual democracies. They are oligarchies or autocracies disguised as democracies instead. They've always been that, only now it's becoming more obvious.

> the dictatorship is then better

No, not at all. But it does have a clear path toward something better. This doesn't make it better, but it is a silver lining.

> Why couldn't then a democracy have a revolution as well

It could, but more frequently what happens are coups - and they descent into authoritarianism. Or the authoritarians get elected.

> And how's all this black and white thinking, like because democracy is not perfect, dictatorship becomes suddenly acceptable???

I definitely didn't say or think that.

[chairmansteve]

Only a fool would think a dictatorship would "have a clear path toward something better".

The evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

[cassianoleal]

Is it? Having lived in one and having studied it extensively, I don't think there was a single moment in time since the coup all the way throughout the 21 years it lasted when the people fighting against had doubts about what they had to do and where they wanted to get.

[chairmansteve]

Snowden and Assange did a lot more than speak out. They broke laws. Maybe they were justified. Maybe not.

But they were not prosecuted for voicing their opinions.

[option]

you can criticize speech laws for now. And tbh, not sure to which extent it is true.

There is no switch front democracy to dictatorship, there is a transition.

[lttlrck]

As they said:

> Democracy requires that we fight for it. Otherwise it will disappear.

[arp242]

> you can criticize speech laws for now. And tbh, not sure to which extent it is true.

You are commenting on an article which critiques these laws. It's not the first either. So what you're saying is demonstrably nonsense.

[beej71]

So how do you think dictatorships come to be?

[soco]

I'm sick of all this doomsaying coming from the bench. If somebody thinks the dictatorship is around the corner, then please get on your ass and do something about it! Organize, vote, find your own way. Because the world has zero uses for more oracles, but a lot of use for _involved_ people.

[beej71]

> please get on your ass and do something about it!

I do! I wish more people would.

[arp242]

I don't see Britain heading towards dictatorship. Certainly not under the current Labour government.