| I think you have good points, I do think you're introducing a false dichotomy though. I'd prefer if there were no censorship on TV and there was guaranteed freedom of speech. I can definitely understand where you're coming from (in as much as any non-German can understand), but I do wonder if it's possible to allow hate speech and to fight it in other ways. Maybe not, but I do think it's an ideal to strive for. Also, when it comes to US TV, it depends on the channel and whether it's using public bandwidth. Channels like HBO and Showtime don't have to censor anything. But overall I think you're right, the US does have this strange Puritan culture that seems to be in conflict with its idea of personal freedoms. You say that you aren't a fan of hate-speech laws in general. May I ask where you think the line is? I feel like it's incredibly difficult to define what's appropriate without leeway for abuse. I am often envious of how good Germany (as a country/government) is about keeping things within the spirit of the law and being reasonable about how things are implemented. The efficiency of the German bureaucracy is a good example: You tend to see less waste and corruption than in other western countries. So with that in mind, it's sometimes hard to use Germany as the standard since they set the bar too high for the rest of us! |
The key, I think, is that one has to picture "the state" as non-static and plan accordingly. For instance, we have a court system, with the energetic and powerful Federal Court at the top, which is set up in such a way that it inherently favors human rights and freedoms above other concerns. So while the hard core of the Volksverhetzungs-laws remains un-touched, eventual feature creep is rapidly cut back by the court system.
This was designed into the German state, since there was acute awareness at the time that the laws of the Weimar Republic which could be used to curtail freedoms were instrumental in the rapid rise of the Nazi party.
It might well be that, without this process in place, free speech would slowly erode throught this law.