The Economist has declared Europe the Land of the Free.
One proof is that in Europe, no tech oligarchs are “spending their weekends feeding bits of the state ‘into the wood chipper.’”
This is an ill-considered allusion to the efforts of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency to reduce the bloat and fraud in U.S. government spending. And the trillions in U.S. federal debt. Which are unsustainable. Because magic doesn’t work.
“Europeans can say almost anything they want, both in theory and in practice.”
In Britain you can be arrested or jailed for praying, tweeting a wrong-thinking tweet, reading from the Bible, holding up street signs.
Nor is freedom of speech safe in Germany. To prove the continent’s theoretical and practical freedom of speech, The Economist piles up carefully unelucidated half-truths but declines to cite, for example, the conviction of German journalist David Bendels.
In February, Bendels, the editor in chief of Deutschland-Kurier, published a satirical post slamming a German minister, Nancy Faeser, for opposing freedom of speech. An obviously doctored photo showed Faeser with a sign saying “I hate freedom of speech.” Faeser, who loves freedom of speech, filed a criminal complaint after being alerted by German police, who also love freedom of speech.
Bendels has been fined 1,500 pounds, given a suspended prison sentence of seven months, and ordered to apologize.
He is appealing the verdict, and others are fighting the law under which he was prosecuted.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “Europe, Land of the Free?”
Decades ago, The Economist was my principal source of news. It was flawed even then, but not terribly so. However, it came under new ownership and under new management. I gave-up on it.
Mind you that most of what people in general want to say is quite banal, and most of what remains of what people in general want to say is in-line with whatever narrative is mainstream in their nations. So The Economist is not actually lying when it claims “Europeans can say almost anything they want”; but anyone should see that this “almost” is not nearly good enough. The principles by which European states now limit the liberty of expression of their subject peoples are the same principles as used by totalitarians, but with presently less aggressive application.
Indeed, I’m quite sure that whoever currently writes as Charlemagne understands just this point; but he’s not a liberal, and moreover he embraces the common European vice of bashing Yanks, by means fair or foul.
While it would be nice if true, I have yet to see much evidence that Musk/DOGE are making “efforts … to reduce the bloat and fraud in U.S. government spending .… and the trillions in U.S. federal debt.”
They’re trying to get deck chairs rearranged for the comfort of their friends, but the Titanic remains on course and continues to get lower in the water.
Trump is threatening anyone who says anything he doesn’t like! No free speech for Harvard and other universities. No free speech for lawyers. And republican congressmen are quaking in their booties. Why don’t you write about what has done illegally in his first 100 days? Guess you are afraid also!