Poland criminalizes accusing the country of complicity during the holocaust

[*michaelsean*]

(02-09-2018, 10:11 AM)hollodero Wrote: My slippery slope remark just intended to describe the reality in my country or Germany and others. Which is that the Nazi Prohibition Acts did not lead to such a slope for 70 years now.
Also, I do not think we're way behind the US regarding free speech. It's in our constitution (Austria/Germany,  don't know about all the others), we just have this one notable exception. - The free speech aspect is not taken as an absolute anyway, it isn't in the US either. Aside from that strange "don't yell fire in a theatre" example, there are other things I'm not allowed to express freely, like slandering someone or sedition or shouting obscenities. In that sense, it seems like no big deal to add things like holocaust denial to these things.

I'm actually, as I guess I said, torn on that one. I'm all for free speech. The problem is that it's tough to be in favor of Nazis being allowed to freely be Nazis just to please that sacred cow that isn't that 100% sacred in the first place. Also I wouldn't necessarily say these laws serve no purpose anymore. Nazism is deeply enshrined in some people's concience still, it takes more than one generation dying away to get rid of this.
Also, if we were to overthrow these laws foreign nations would frown upon us. Most of these laws were ordered by the victors - so in a sense, you.

Slander isn't illegal.  It can just wind up in a civil suit.

Also I don't see free speech as a sacred cow.  I have free speech because nobody else has the right to tell me I don't.  Limitations are meant to protect other people and that should be all.