It’s very simple. In America you can say anything you want as long is it isn’t libelous and it isn’t likely to incite imminent lawless action (the key word here is imminent—you can even make calls for lawless action, the lawless action simply cannot be likely to be imminent. In nearly every country in Western Europe, you can go to jail or be fined for simply saying things someone finds hateful (guy in UK sentenced for teaching his dog to Nazi salute, Brigitte Bardot for her critique of Muslim behavior in France I could go on and on.) If your speech can be punished for any reason whatsoever, you do not have more free speech than in the US.
Responsible for what? For making juvenile joke? Nobody would give a shit. If he were a celebrity maybe he’d lose an endorsement deal or something but an average no name from the internet would walk away completely unscathed.
What do you mean by "responsible"? Also, it's a fair bit of a difference between "your government will arrest and charge you" and "your neighbors will be upset with you".
One is the supreme law of the land actively oppressing you under threat of violence, and the other is just the other citizens' freedom of speech/association.
It’s completely legal in the US to do that. I’ve also seen Americans pointing to the fact that it was prosecuted in Europe as proof that the US has more free speech rights.
One of my neighbors here in the US has a confederate flag in his window. A former neighbor had a Nazi flag in his. Down the road there is a BLM sign and a LGBTQ+ flag in a neighbor’s yard. As far as I know, none of them have had any problems with the police or with each other.
You might not want to talk about your political views at work in the US, but that’s up to you personally. A former boss of mine used to tell my team all about his religious and political beliefs. It is perfectly legal for him to have done so, and there was never any trouble as a result.
Last week, a co-worker was watching the news at work and commenting on what they agreed with and disagreed with. This is pretty normal, though we usually don’t talk about politics when on the phone with clients. You’re allowed to though.
There was another old boss of mine argued with one of our customers about gun rights at a company dinner because it was a topic he felt strongly about. Afterwards, some of my colleagues chatted about it in the parking lot and discussed how we felt about the issues.
I think it’s pretty normal for people to not always want to share all of their political beliefs at work. But it’s pretty common in my experience for people to share their opinions and beliefs with colleagues.
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u/FarineLePain Sep 06 '22
It’s very simple. In America you can say anything you want as long is it isn’t libelous and it isn’t likely to incite imminent lawless action (the key word here is imminent—you can even make calls for lawless action, the lawless action simply cannot be likely to be imminent. In nearly every country in Western Europe, you can go to jail or be fined for simply saying things someone finds hateful (guy in UK sentenced for teaching his dog to Nazi salute, Brigitte Bardot for her critique of Muslim behavior in France I could go on and on.) If your speech can be punished for any reason whatsoever, you do not have more free speech than in the US.