>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here?
There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people.
What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK).
You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.
'You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.'
Voicing support for the group Palestine Action has been met with quite harsh responses in the UK, even though that group is arguably non-violent in that its criminal actions are directed towards property with the aim of slowing actual violence.
There are other similar developments in UK state policy.
The accused person claims to have panicked due to how the police were interfering. If I understand the article correctly the cop was off work for three months due to the injury.
> You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.
Free speech means the country must tolerate what citizens say; it does not mean the country can't exercise its discretion over its borders to bar entry to foreigners who say things citizens don't like.
To the contrary, it's pro-democratic. In a healthy democracy, people should be able to vote to create the kind of society they want. That includes being able to exclude, through their government, outsiders who don't share their values.
Next up, in a society you should make sure that people you want to exclude have to drink from certain water fountains, can’t be in the same pool and go to separate schools…
Is it not chilling if government can proscribe the things that you say for other people, as if your position is one the government can directly oppose and call illegitimate?
I suspect those who find it chilling also perceive a weak distinction between citizens and visitors. For people who see that difference as foundational, differing treatment of those two groups is not chilling.
Rights can be inalienable but not universal. These rights are conferred by the government, but arise by virtue of membership in a body politic. For example, the right to vote isn’t universal but the government can’t take it away. Free speech arises out of America’s Anglo history and tradition and was viewed by the founders as a political right that protects democracy. There is nothing inconsistent about saying that this right is inalienable for citizens, but doesn’t extend to visitors who aren’t members of our body politic and aren’t entitled to participate in our democracy anyway.
The people you're describing found it consistent with liberty to own other humans, so forgive me if I am skeptical.
I understand your point, I just have a different theory of rights. Just because something is logically conistent doesn't mean I agree with the starting premises.
Personally, are any of your beliefs or statements things that could ban you for entry into the US? Because I have quite a few things that I have said on social media which would likely prevent my entry. It certainly doesn't make me feel like a "member of a body politic" when that body treats my beliefs as intrusive and foreign.
I’m not trying to persuade you about the premises, but only that—as a result of those premises—the slippery slope you fear is longer than you assume. For people who draw fundamental inside/outside distinctions, things that are intolerable for outsiders to say are tolerable for insiders to say.
I view America as a hot cup of coffee, and the outside world as lukewarm day old coffee. I’m not worried about how hot or cold individual molecules inside America are—the average will work out. My concern is about dumping lukewarm coffee from the outside into the cup.
I know you're not trying to convince me, and fortunately many of us see and have taken note of the ambient racism in your position. I understand your point because it is and has been broadcast to me everywhere I have lived in the US.
As a person looking for a cool drink of water, or who might be okay with drinking an iced coffee as the world burns, I am more concerned that the people I live around think that I should be prevented from drinking as I choose. And that's something that has happened here, often, historically, in other places, with many people.
So you can tell me that my concern isn't warranted; I get that all the time. It starts with "you're being hyperbolic" and ends with "well, we are glad they are gone because they weren't 'real people' anyhow."
The reality is that I'm not being hyperbolic in my concern.
> know you're not trying to convince me, and fortunately many of us see and have taken note of the ambient racism in your position.
Culture is not race. Children should be required to write that 100 times on a chalkboard. The third world is the way it is because of the culture of the people who built those societies. Nobody would be more thrilled than me if the only difference between Iowans and Bangladeshis was that we don’t need to spend money on sunscreen. (Except a little for my feet, which burn easily.) But that’s a fantasy world. It’s a fantasy that persists because most Americans have little personal contact with immigrants and can’t see how Bangladeshi mothers raise their children differently than Iowan mothers. Immigrants, meanwhile, actually have limited insight into the inner mechanics of Americans—they can see the results, the institutions, the rule of law, the order. But can’t see the inputs that lead to that. And obviously they have a vested interest in believing flattering falsehoods about what makes societies the way they are.
> I am more concerned that the people I live around think that I should be prevented from drinking as I choose.
You can drink as you choose. What I’m trying to avoid, because we’re all in this cup together, is drowning in the lukewarm coffee that my parents worked so hard to escape. We’re both trying to prevent the world from burning, we just disagree about where the fire is coming from.
That's certainly a stance you can take, but it's not one I'd expect to see from a US administration that's repeatedly (including from the president less than 48 hours ago) got on its high horse to criticise what it perceives as a government crackdown on freedom of speech in European countries.
It's only hypocritical if you believe in universal values that apply to citizens and outsiders alike, which Trump's camp does not. There is nothing inconsistent with supporting free speech for Americans in America and British people in the U.K. while also supporting screening visitors to those countries based on their ideologies.
But even then you can see that they continually talk about the suppression of 'free speech' when the people talking are white supremicists and neo-Nazis. But I am not aware that there is a single instance of them sticking up for Islamic or other radicals that don't fit their agenda.
When the US criticizes Europe for free speech and political suppression, you can be sure they're complaining because the criminalization of literal Naziism harms Trump's allies.
There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people.
What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK).
You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech.
I know which side of the pond I'd rather be on.