You are a victim of the Nirvana fallacy [1]: "Europe is better than Turkey in terms of freedom of speech, but since neither is perfect, they are equally bad."
The US is not that exceptional nor principled. The concept of "freedom of speech" is absolute when Republicans want to say Republican things, but it's a "national security issue" when Muslims make too much noise. When sexual minorities want to speak, the priority is to "protect family values" instead. Corporations have "freedom of speech", but TikTok boosting black-green-red flags isn't protected speech, but an agent of the enemy corrupting the youth.
European countries have their own dogmas and hypocrisy, only draw the line at different topics (especially where everyone had their grandparents traumatized in a war started by the Grok's favorite character).
Could you give examples of when a U.S. citizens speech rights were legally taken away? Lets go with one of your examples of "When sexual minorities want to speak". Please elaborate.
None of the examples you gave are actually examples of speech being restricted. Its people (sometimes politicians) freely voicing their opinions on others speech, that is not restriction.
Literally in the last week, the Supreme Court ruled that books featuring gay couples need to be opt-out in schools. They've quite literally taken the stance that someone literally just seeing the existence of a gay couple in a children's picture book is a violation of their freedom.
> They've quite literally taken the stance that someone literally just seeing the existence of a gay couple in a children's picture book is a violation of their freedom.
No.
They've taken the stance that parents get to decide what books their kids see.
Other parents are free to make a different decision.
Do you really think that there's a "right" to force others to read books that you choose?
> They've taken the stance that parents get to decide what books their kids see.
So why draw the line at books depicting gay couples, rather than literally all books? Because this has nothing to do with the ban, except for being a “family-friendly” bullshit justification.
That's not how the Supreme Court works. They are selective about the cases they hear. Especially looking at a 6-3 ruling with this court it's clear to see this was an ideological selection.
Yes, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court who chose to hear it instead of choosing not to hear it. That is ultimately why they ruled on the case.
Given that, it really does seem that the court ruled 6-3 in favor of the plaintiffs who are trying to draw a line around gay couples because the court is trying to draw a line around gay couples.
Other parents making a different decision doesn't matter if the schools find it virtually impossible to have these books because of the logistical requirements of allowing kids to leave the classroom every time certain books are read.
> Do you really think that there's a "right" to force others to read books that you choose?
Do I really think that public schools have a right to assign reading of certain books for classes? Is this even a real question? How do you think English classes work?
Do you even know what you are talking about? Do you know how many journalists are in prison in Turkey? "Restricting speech", whatever that means, is nowhere near as putting journalists, mayors, and citizens in prison for "insulting" the president or for saying things that the president and his shills do not like.
It would help to read the article we're discussing.
> Journalist posted a fake image online of the interior minister holding a sign that read “I hate freedom of opinion” and was subsequently handed a seven-month suspended prison sentence. A woman who posted images of politicians with painted-on Hitler mustaches and called a minister a terrorist was fined about $690.
It's probably useless to answer, but you are not addressing the question, which was about whether there are actually journalists in prison in the EU or not (there are not) whereas imprisonment of journalists in Turkey is an occupational hazard.
I've given you the most direct example anyone can give, a journalist that was legally handed a prison sentence for basic speech. There are more cases in other EU countries in the article, just read.
