> I would deem Europe a dangerous place to visit for anyone that aspires towards original and critical thinking.

Only if your "original and critical thinking" is racism, homophobia, and similar.

You could argue that banning this comes with more downsides than upsides. Fair enough. But to call this "original and critical thinking" is very odd to put it mildly.

In the EU, freedom of expression has explicit limits on hate speech and holocaust denial, mainly because dignity and equality supersedes the "freedom" of speech.

The general idea behind EU's freedom of speech is that its totally acceptable for expressing controversial ideas or questioning norms, like a religious leader could do. Calling for harm or hate (like some religious leader do) is not acceptable.

> do they really forbid people from speaking their minds entirely?

"Yes" could be an answer here, but we could legitimately wonder if a right mind would think "we should kill all the ones I don't like"

The problem is, people should be free to question even that belief that dignity and equality supersede freedom of speech. Who defines what is dignity and equality? If people can't express unpopular views (without making specific threats) that question what dignity and equality mean, then how do you know the current definition of those concepts is valid according to the people? It boils down to the EU essentially stating "certain concepts are beyond debate, they cannot be questioned".

> "Yes" could be an answer here, but we could legitimately wonder if a right mind would think "we should kill all the ones I don't like"

You're right, but the point is not whether such persons are in their right mind, evil, horrible,etc... society can view them as such just fine. The point is, should the state be imprisoning such people simply for stating their views. For example in the US, I'm sure you've seen videos of people being explicitly racist in public, they don't get arrested but they do lose their jobs and livelihoods.

the concept of hate-speech gives the state the right to police speech that is merely unpopular, with no immediate harm to anyone. What if Europe slides to the far-right, and Nazis become a protected group and criticizing them is now considered hate-speech? That has dire implications. You can see this happening in the US right now, but at least we can still be critical of MAGA, the concept of making that hate-speech does not exist, so we still have a fighting chance, they can't pass laws that will allow them to spread false information without others criticizing it by redefining legal definitions of such terms (which they can do).

> the concept of hate-speech gives the state the right to police speech that is merely unpopular

Not true. Legislators write the laws, courts interpret them. Basic civics. Laws are not written as "we can police any speech", and courts don't interpret them as such.

I understand all that, I was making the slippery-slope argument, it isn't a fallacy in this case. What groups are considered equal and worthy of protected dignity has gone from "just straight white property owning men" to the myriad of groups we have today. This is a constantly evolving definition. Whoever is in power gets to define that. In times of peace, it is easy to assume things will remain as they are. Look at us here in America, the majority were deceived (or just didn't show up to vote) and now those in power who can change such definitions are horrible evil people. The same can happen in Europe if you don't learn from us. It wasn't that long ago fascists almost took over all of europe and caused the greatest war in the history of our species! Free speech is the only real defense against that. It's either that or violence and war.

You said what you said. And your clarification here is just fear-mongering: "complete free speech absolutism or fascism, war, and holocaust". Okay, fine, whatever. I'm in favour of the Jews being gassed then, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fair enough. Don't know what to tell you other than those things happened and are in the process of happening here in the US. No mongering, just observations based on reality.

Yes, they should be free to question it, but I think that the US view on freedom of speech makes dumber people because they don't need to think about the consequences of their speech.

They usually say whatever they want, usually surrounded with a "it's my right" without thinking about the whole process. Once they said whatever they said, what's next? What's the purpose of their message? Is it to express your anger in life and that you think that the source is some random ethnicity or community or do you want to improve everyone's quality of life?

With the recent shift towards extreme individualism, the philosophy behind the essence of freedom of speech has disappeared. Some are now focusing towards improving one individual's quality of life at the expense of the others.

In Europe, they FAFO the extense of free speech and that led to WWII. They said never again because they understood the consequences of full freedom of speech.

Even in the US, nobody has a full freedom of speech. How would a parent react if their kid would say "fuck off" to an elementary school teacher?

Even in the US freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. quite the opposite. I'm sure in Nazi times in europe, being critical of the Nazis wasn't allowed speech. Both then and now in the US, nazis prosper because we didn't use free speech to fend them off enough, we were complacent. You can see trump trying to retaliate by firing people, banning journalists, cancelling contracts, etc.. for anyone critical of his administration. speech is how fascists gain power, but opposing speech across europe (look at UK and France) is also how they just recently fended of right-wing fascists.

In a democracy, the government gets its power from the people. if it can silence the people in certain contexts, then in those contexts the people lost their power. When politicians with bad intent take power, they'll use this crack in the system to tear it apart.

That's where I think you're wrong, they won't use a restriction on speech to arrest someone, they will do anything because there won't be consequences.

The current US administration is trying to officially get rid of habeas corpus, even though the government has already arrested people without due process.

Even when freedom of speech is fully enshrined into law, anyone with bad intent won't care.

> people should be free to question even that belief that dignity and equality supersede freedom of speech. Who defines what is dignity and equality?

I define what dignity is, and I think you should have none. And I actively incite others to remove your dignity.

If this was real, I am not really sure if you would think I should exercise my free speech to your standards, especially if you thought that harm to you was tangible.

It's all fun and games until we are enacting a Kristallnacht.

You're right, if tangible harm is involved, or a specific threat is made, free-speech can't be used as a defense. There is no debate there. But I'm sure you'd agree hating Nazis shouldn't be a crime right? The fact of the matter is hatred or belief in harm is not a bad thing in anyone's mind so long as it is directed at something you consider evil. you're supposed to hate evil.

The reason the US isn't like EU in this regard is that hating tyranny is the cause of its founding. Being able to hate the british's oppressive rule was crucial, being able to organize a rebellion around that hatred is how the US exists. And in current times, being able to hate MAGA and neo-fascism is important.

However, hatred and conspiracy to harm people are different things. Inciting specific harm against anyone is illegal both in the EU and the US today. "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowd" and all.

Let's get a bit more practical, why can't Muslims living in Europe consider anything critical of their prophet is hate-speech? Or laws opposing revenge killings and their treatment of women is hate-speech and religious bigotry? I can assure you to them it feels severely harmful, their passionate response is from a place of hurt and pain. I don't see why any of that is not banned under hate speech laws.

The crucial point here is that the people have a contract with their government such that the government is allowed certain powers. The question here is "can the government police speech that doesn't involve potential and specific harm?". In the US, Islamic imams can preach sermons on Sharia law in promotion of revenge killings and other imams or even other religious leaders can criticize that sermon and preach in its opposition. From what I understand, in the EU, they can't preach that and no one can really criticize them, but their followers still hold that belief with no opportunity to observe the topic debated.