> In western tradition governments exist to protect rights, such as the freedom of expression, not to grant them.
You may be overgeneralizing here, only the US has enshrined freedom of expression in their constitution. Pretty much in any other western government such protections do not exist and freedom of expression has been under attack for a long time
> Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in legislation in the UK and Ireland, and offers protections for signatories of the convention.
it's enforced nowhere, since the European Convention on Human Rights has never attacked any of its members for putting people in jail or fining them for what they posted online. So, you can have all the laws on paper that you want, if nobody respects them, they might as well not exist.
> So, you can have all the laws on paper that you want, if nobody respects them, they might as well not exist.
Are you talking about the US at the moment?
- https://www.context.news/big-tech/us-prison-social-media-cra...
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3rnzp4ye5zo
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/04/un-human-rig...
Basically freedom of expression is fine, as long as you don't:
- criticize the genocide that the US government is partial to (and funds) in Palestine
- criticize the US government for backing out of all climate deals
- criticize Trump for being orange and weird and Musk for being a robot?
I wonder if in recent political history we can find a parallel with some parties in Germany and Italy in the past century.
> You may be overgeneralizing here, only the US has enshrined freedom of expression in their constitution.
Sounds very progressive considering voting for the African American population came about in 1965, and having McCarthyism in the 50s (which was basically persecution of free speech and freedom of expression, the same thing the Trump administration is doing atm).
Freedom of expression being "enshrined" in the Constitution sounds good, but if it comes with no voting if I am black, and with being persecuted for leaning left, maybe that's not exactly "freedom of expression".
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is enshrined in legislation in the UK and Ireland, and offers protections for signatories of the convention.
(Edit: Oh, and the Bill of Rights gives parliamentarians quite an extreme version)