What is the limit of western freedom of expresion?

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Yeah, but that's switzerland.

Just kidding.

I would be happier if there would be public votes about constitution changes. But as it is, we need a 2/3 majority in Bundestag to change something. Except the humand and civil rights. As I wrote, they are not changeable. A lection from the Weimar Republic...

 

Iago,

Yeah. I am not against your proposal. Just pointing out how in "our" modern countries, such ever-changing constitution would play a negative effect of people's psyche.
We would need a total new system for this to work out. I don't think the current mindset and state structure would support your proposal.
Take for instance the US constitution. Why is it that people worldwide regard it as a success? Because it remains "unchanged" since it's birth. So yeah, it might seem an only theorical observation, but people indeed relate "rigidness" with functionality. And if people can't find functionality in their constitutions, they won't respect it, and it will become a mere piece of paper; and a constitution is supposed to be much more than a piece of paper...

Drew,

A while ago I have posted an article disproving the mythical fairy tales about Serbian ethnic cleansing, so it would be good that you read it thoroughly before making hasty conclusions and repeating lies you were fed with by mass media. I can look it up if you want. End of off topic.

 

They were trying to kill each other. When I was in the Navy, I had buddies (mostly Marines)who were there and saw it.

@Iago: Hitler was a dictator. That much is true. It doesn't change, however, the fact that the majority of Germans (and, unfortunately, much of the western world) either wanted it, were OK with it, or didn't care. Without a Bill of rights and checks on the ability of the majority to ignore the interests of minorities, such things could happen again.

 

@Drew
About that genocide issue for Milosevic.
Please do not look only at the one side. Slaughters did happened by both sides and pretty vicious too. So to blame Milosevic as a slaughterer of the Albans or the Croatians or the Bosnians is at least biased.
Why is that assumption, that only Serbs did these attrocities is another subject.

@Fabius
when i said that the minority is de facto ruling. I really meant that, since the politicians are the ones who get the right to have a vote on the laws that come before them, or even the Constitution (when it is in the process of changing).

The fact that we vote for a party to come to power is at least a fake choice. At least here in Greece (and i know this is valid for the whole world more or less), the politicians remain the same over the years and the very few that manage to get themselves in that position to be elected, have effectively been baptized in the same principles the beforementioned have.
And the person that emerge every time there is a need to fill a gap of an aged or dead politician, are people who have allready been in the party for many years. And allthough not in the front line, they were still supporters of a mentality that at some point you (or any citizen) did not liked. We just get the same food served in various manners.

So we have a group of politicians that is like a swamp if you look it from an ethical and intellectual positions. The same persons, the same beliefs, the same ideas over the years.

They resemble (IMHO) more the nobility of the middle ages, which was a isolated caste from the mob, and remaining the same intellectualy and ethically over the years. Untill the revolutions came, which effectively changed the persons radically.

And finally i do believe that the Constotution of every country should be put to a test every 20 or more years. Because things do change and at some point, some legislations are not serving any purpose or worse yet they are hindering evolution of the state.
I don't mean to completely change the Constitution of the country every 20 or more years. I just mean that it should be examined if it still serves the purpose it was made as well as it did, and if not to fix this problem.
Naturally there should be some articles of that, that should never change.

 

In truth, that isn't my assumption. I apologise if that was the impression I gave. In the US, we consider both sides responsible and the Genocide attempt mutual. We still mainly blame Milosevic since he was in charge and he certainly fanned the flames. The leader of a nation is always considered somewhat responsible for the actions of its people and very much responsible for his response to it.

 

Allthough this is a little off topic, i will use it as a good example for both the fact that minority does rule and for the freedom of expression subject.

[snip]

[I don't make warnings just so that you can ignore them. When I say open a new thread to discuss something, I mean it. -Tal]

Because the previous message was edited by Tal (for the right reasons allthough i was unaware of them) I wanted to say something that has to do mainly about the freedom of expression issue.
We do get a lot of information in this technological booming era.
And the fact is that most of the information we get our hands on, is most of the times fragmented.
We are watching in the news media a constant promotion of certain subjects or (worse yet) point of views, while the opposite side(s) get none or the bare minimum (which is next to none) shed of spot lights.

Allthough most may disagree, i want to remind that we are not talking here only for the people who know how to find the whole story. And that is because the majority of the human population doesn't know how to get that, or willingly decides not to search (since that would mean a lot of unwanted thought or realisations).

And since freedom of expression points both the journalists and their audience, that is a very disturbing truth.
We express our feelings towards an event based on what info we have.
They (the journalists) inform us according to what?
How can one journalist defend the freedom of expression, when he/she is making decisions based on the policy of the media he/she works in?

How can we ensure that we react towards events as freely as we want to think, since we can't ensure that we indeed know the truth?

Classic example is what happened with the drawings of Mohammed. Some guys decided to show in the Muslim countries some drawings which were not published in the first place, but still yet they were made by someone. But noone published them in the newspaper.

Yet as you can see the info was biased to fit the goals of those who rose the fuss.

Does the idea of freedom of expression gives anyone the right to publish or even make public his opinion on something? Even if it is a twisted one?
And allthough i would say yes too, i wonder how can we (as people) protect ourselves from such opinions, articles, whatever. Which in the end is only a twisted and usually false point of view

[ March 10, 2006, 04:24: Message edited by: Mithrantir ]

 

@Mithrantir: You bring up many good questions. The reason I advocate limiting the ability of the government to make decisions that could potentially limit the rights of any of its citizens is primarily because what is generally purported to be the "truth" by media, often is not even close. If we are going to make rash decisions based on inaccurate data, we should at least have some set in stone limits on our ability to act in order to protect us from ourselves.

I would also point out that if the majority makes a decision based on inaccurate data, it was still the majority that made the decision. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I am convinced that this utopian "educated public" that so many seem to think will solve our problems is just not possible. It can't or won't happen, so we need to look for other solutions. We need to look for a power structure that takes into account that many people are out there trying to manipulate the truth into something more advantageous to them in the interest of swaying public opinion. We can't take all power away from the public, but because of our historical precedent of opressing our minorities over and over again, I feel that the one thing the public should never be allowed to do is limit the rights of it's people. It's just too easy to cross the line into opression.

[ March 11, 2006, 20:01: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

The problem IMHO lies with the people who disturbute the information, that is noone specific (allthough journalists are the big players on this) and everyone.

People should and must have a correct information flow. They must know what is going on in their country/world. But the freedom of expression here is a very delicate issue.

Noone can use censorship to its extreme, on the other hand the total lack of cencorship has led to spreading of many dangerous ideas for the common wealth.

In Greece we have reached a point where the journalists become experts to ever issue at hand. And worse yet, they also have become the procecutors, the judge and the jury. They do that by expressing the outcome of their judgement as if it is the only possible outcome. And by this way they turn the public opinion, towards verdicts even though the case they speak of, haven't even reached the court yet.
To give you an example during the last month we had in Greece severe weather phenomena. If someone watched the news in almost every channel, he would see journalists which were acting as if they were meteorologists for years, and were among the best too. They only knew how to accuse the goverment of not being able to protect the citizens, while the citizens themselves were putting themselves in the wolfs den.

A couple of weeks later a big scandal popped out. There was a big illegal cell phones abstraction. The victims were members of the goverment and the PM himself.
The goverment did the mistake to try and investigate it for a period of time (granted big one 11 months) before they make it known to the public.

All we Greeks could see in the news was the same journalists (and some more) that were expert meteorologists, to have gained a Master in Electronic and wireless communications. And their verdict was as immature as always.

What stupid things i have heard is beyond the scope of what i want to say, but the fact remains that i have a knowledge of this issue, so i could filter the junk out. But most people don't know nothing and most propably believed these guys blindly.

This is a case where the freedom of expression we enjoy (since everyone is a member of this society) has been misused.

And that is what it must prevented. The misuse of our rights. Somehow there must be a way that we can enjoy our rights without misusing them.

And finally Drew if the majority has been misinformed and takes a wrong decision based on the information she has, then it is still a wrong decision and that does not change.

Worst yet that wrong decision will de facto affect the lives of those who weren't misinformed and that makes it a very wrong decision.

 

My point is that there is no way whatsoever to make sure that the public has all the correct information. Misinformation is a reality that we must account for. It will never go away. Some misinformation could be used, for example, to justify a war that destabilizes an entire region of the world or to cause people to destroy the lives of non-existant "communists" within its own borders. The bottom line is that there need to be limits on what the government, which is elected by the majority, can do in response to (mis)information it recieves. Mcarthyism in the US is a great example of this. A single senator caused a modern day witch hunt for communists in the US. A great many lives were destroyed as a result.

As an example of when the will of the majority is a bad thing, the majority of Americans didn't desire an end to segregation. It wasn't actually ended until case about segregation made it to the supreme court, which reversed an earlier decision and ruled it unconstitutional. What the majority wants is not always a good thing. However, this is a question more about where the limits of government power should lie than it is about freedom of expression. I'll start another thread.

 

The beauty of the Internet is that it is the ultimate form of freedom of speech. Forget countries, forget constitutions and forget censorship: the Internet trumps them all. Anyone, anywhere, can say anything they want and that message can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, so long as they have Internet access via any of dozens of devices capable of accessing it, from high-end mainframes to tiny little cellphones.

Try though they might, governments have been unable to completely block information on the Net. If you are a resident of Saudi Arabia (or Denmark, for that matter) you can track down and view these cartoons. It may take a bit of an effort for the Saudi resident, but it's do-able. A resident of China may have to be a bit clever and even *gasp* break the law, but he can certainly track down all the information on Democracy he wants.

And like Prometheus' fire, this information can be a tool used for good or bad. Mostly bad if you're a censoring, lying, totalitarian government. So hurray for the Internet.

 

Drew

No. Hitler had a minority goverment. He wasn't voted into office, he was put there by a president. So much about making senile imbeciles to presidents.

Hitler is the product of a complete failure of a constitution and checks its balances.
The modern German consitution is mainly dealing with the way a classic liberal constitution and its checks and balances and granted rights and liberties were torn apart after some years of state-crisis and shred into pieces by ememergency measures and literally went up into smoke after the Reichstag was burned down.

When Hilter said he took power, he meant it. He was not voted into power. And no theoretical existing constitution or granted rights could do anything against it. But even with being into office and banning all other parties, becoming the international standard for propagana and being corrupt as hell, he could not win a majority of the Gemran votes. His dictatorship stayed until the end a tyranny of a minority. Supported by the silent indifference of the majority.

here
The problem with Weimar was being "the republic without repulicans". A big part of the Germans at that time could care less about democracy and the republic.

The sin is even bigger than you can possibly imagine. Because there is a German word that can 't be really translated in other languages. Rechtsstaat. The state were the law governs (that's way more than simple "rule of law"). Aren't we all happy that Germans are back to good old kaiserlich-wilhelminischen Gesetzen?

Drew:

Yes, that is true: here is no way whatsoever to make sure that the public has all the correct information Not all, but lots and lots more than in a represantive goverment. One of the clear advantages of direct democracy. There is a lot more of expertise involved.

Misinformation is a reality that we must account for. It will never go away. That's true. But likewise, this problem is way bigger in a represantive goverment than in a direct democracy. People that rule themselves are way more interested in information, therefore consume way more quality papers and aren't easily sold for stupid like it's so often the case with countries that are ruled by represantive goverments.

It is a consequence of being ruled to become apathic and lethargic. I think the number of people sitting with a six-pack in a front of a tv and badmouthing everyhting while thinking about nothing is way higher in countries were people do not participate in any decision process. A consequence of being ruled.

I think it's a problem with infelxible constitutions that they eternalise what's inside of them. The good points and the bad points. Ever thought about that the supposed wholeness and superiority of the consitutions and it's bill of rights are one of the reasons that a kind of apartheid lasted so long in the US? With more democracy maybe a necessary thinking process would have evolved way earlier to establish equality and get rid of the apartheid system?

A law or constitution is not bad or good just because its flexible or unflexible. It's what's written on it. And if the judges that sit over the constitution are voted there by a people that staunchly believes in apartheid?

And wasn't the judges that ended segregation. I rather thinnk it was equality coming over the atlantic with returning soldiers. There was a lesson to be learned, wasn't there?

 

Direct democracy isn't possible. Most Americans do not have time to read every single, solitary bill before they vote on it. They will only read the (biased) cliff note version (if they read about it all) before a direct vote, which means they are likely to be misinformed or uninformed. Let's not even talk about the infeasibility of holding up every single point of national business to a vote by 3 hundred million people. It just isn't logistically possible, and would be a gargantuan waste of government funds. Direct democracy is only possible with smaller populations.

 

We have a representative democracy, not a direct democracy. The problem is that people tend to focus on Federalism. Look at what happened in CA a few years back: The people got up a petition and threw governor Gray out of office in the middle of his term. What could be more democratic than that? The people took the government into their own hands and decided for themselves to make a change at the highest level of their state. Of course at the federal level things are more confused. But if the will of the people is ignored they will make a change once the wheel comes around. People can argue the fine points of whether it is a republic or a democracy. But either way it is the people's govenment in the end, and they will get the representation that they deserve, because ultimately it is their choice; maybe not always in the short run, but in the long term that is certainly the case.

Jefferson said that each generation had the right to change its govenment to suit its own needs, regardless of what came before it, and that the people were competely justified in doing so - because it's their government.

 

I have two questions here Chandos.
How is possible for the people to have the representatives they want or deserve since the politicians are becoming more and more a closed circle, who is recycling the same persons. Bringing some in the front row, while hiding the worn out faces in the back rows. The ideology remains the same and stagnant.

And secondly a rhetorical question (nothing mean meant).
If this happened in CA how does this not happens for the President too? Nixon was not thrown out. He was forced to resign IIRC

To get to the topic anyway, i wonder why we presume that freedom of expression will always be followed by misinformation.

I know that this is a valid fact, but i really think that this is due to the people and not the principle itself.

Somehow there must be some mechanics involved that will exclude the incompetent and dangerous people from the process of spreading their pont of views among too bored to think people.

The problem lies between these two categories IMHO. Those who want to bias the public opinion (and therefore they misinform it) and those who are too bored to filter what they are receiving, agreeing to anything it is being put in front of them.

 

The people (us) get the representatives that they deserve by failing to fully participate. People complain about "politicians" and "the same choices all the time" but don't join a party, volunteer for a good candidate or run for office themselves. And then they wonder why their elected official is someone they don't respect or agree with.

 

Because California has a mechanism in place for a popular vote to unseat the governor, while the federal government has no mechanism in place for a popular vote to remove the president (or even elect him in the first place, if it comes to that. In theory).

 

Direct democracy in the modern sense. Or if you'd prefer other terminolgy, semi-direct democracy or particapotory democracy.

A democracy with tools like initiative, referenda, recall and a proportional vote system and still a parliament. A direct democracy in the modern sense.

which means they are likely to be misinformed or uninformed I think that's pretty much the case in represantive democracies , but not in democracies that grant possibilities to participate. The more democratic a society or a country is, the better informed its population. Therefore, the quality of the media gets automaticly higher, because the media has to follow the demands of it's consumers, which demand more quality as they have to inform themselves to make the right decisions. The right decisions will improve their quality of life. The quality of life interests the average person to a great extend. Therefore the demand for qualitly information is the bigger the more it can be put to direct use by the consumer.

In short, democracy starts with the refuse collection. That's an interesting topic for everyone concerned. And once addicted...

I think your pessimism stems from a symptom of a soley represantive democracy, which is growing disinterest and apathy...

here
P.S. I think Iceland is number one.

 

Mithrantir - Those are very good questions because they go straight to the heart of the two major problems of governing America.

First, to answer your rhetorical question of Nixon/Gray and local government versus Federalism: The major problem of governing America from the beginning has been which should have the greatest role in governing. To make it overly simple, the argument between Hamilton and Jefferson, in the country's first administration, was over this issue. The bottom line is that Hamilton's view has prevailed. And in order to hold fifty states together it's pretty clear that a strong central government is needed to be in place (the Civil War proved that). The Constitution was supposed to be a guarantee that there would be balance, and as one of the chief framers of the orginal document, Hamilton argued that nationalism was more important than regionalism in order to achieve unity. But the whole reason the Constitution was crafted was to create a strong federal government, something a lot of people did not want. That's one of the main reasons why almost everything the Framers did was in secret and away from the people. In fact, many of the "anti-federalists" considered the Consitutional Convention of 1787 to be a betrayal of the Revolution of 1776. But it's no mistake that the Constitution opens with the statement, "We the People," even though the People were not involved in its crafting.

Hamilton argued against Jefferson's postion by drawing on the "Necessary Powers" clause of the Constitution; that the federal government needed to take power from the states whenever it was necessary for it to perform its functions for the greater good of the country. In the end Washington sided with Hamilton. Also, take a look at George Washington's Farewell Address to the country. Washington's thoughts are in the document, but it was actually written by Hamilton. The joint effort is in part, a plea to the country for national unity over regional interests. That was almost an impossibility at the time because the states were more powerful in the beginning. Most thought of themselves as "Virginians" or "New Yorkers" first, and Americans second. Washington's hope was that the people would come to think of themselves as Americans. But in the end, it really took the Civil War to make that happen.

Now look at the media: Almost every American knows about the president and he is covered everyday in the news. Anyone with a passing interest has almost constant access to what the major federal actions of the day were. Yet, as Iago points out, everyone in more democratic countries reads the newspapers. Where is the best source of news regarding the local government and what the representatives are doing? It is not the major news sources, but the local papers. To find out what the local government is doing requires greater effort. I won't even discuss local TV news, at least as I have experienced it, because this is a half-way serious topic. And when the personal lives of the people are affected in some way by government action, the people suddenly notice what local government is doing. Otherwise, it "appears" to be fairly seamless for them.

Many still argue that it was Jefferson who was actually right, and that a government closer to the people provides, at least in theory, the best representation. And as I argued, the case in CA proves that point. But the president is the only national figure, and as such, the only one who is elected by the entire country (the vice president is really attached to him). And in this representation, regional interests have to be taken into account in some way, because otherwise the more populous states would have their interests provided for by the sheer number of population. The electoral college is one way to protect regional interests, which was the major problem in framing the Constitution in the first place. It was alomst not approved because of the issue regarding the power of the larger states. It is no accident that George II was elected by regional ideology over that of the popular vote. It also proves that the country is regionally still very ideologically divided, as it was in 1787.

In the end Nixon was forced from office because he lacked the support of the American people, and he said as much in his "farewell address" to the country. The media played a huge role in Nixon's downfall, and even with all the imperfections of the media, it is still necessary for the democracy to function. To think that the government can place "limits" on the media is to invite disaster in any type of democratic state.

[ March 21, 2006, 23:29: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]