Freedom Of Speech

This may be of interest to friendly wiki-folk across the big pond to help understand where some present European trends are going.

From the DailyTelegraph, Saturday 16 September 2000

Article 'Eurofile' by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels

The European Court of Justice met on Tuesday to decide whether the European Union could restrict freedom of speech. The case involves Bernard Connolly, a British whistleblower who wrote The Rotten Heart of Europe after serving as a leading economist in Brussels. The European Commission tried to silence him. It was backed by the ECJ's lower court, the Court of First Instance, which ruled last year in a landmark case that the general interest of the Communities overrides freedom of speech.

Now the issue has flared again. Connolly's lawyers argued this week in Luxembourg that this ruling gave Brussels the power to restrict hostile criticism and even punish offenders. They said it amounted to a raison d'etat claim of absolutism that violated the European Convention of Human Rights.

The convention was drafted after the Second World War - largely by British lawyers - to check authoritarian government and make it impossible for abusive regimes to suppress human rights by claiming raisons d'etat. The case is regarded as significant because Article 50 of the EU's new Charter of Fundamental Rights states in almost identical language that the rights of EU citizens can be suspended in pursuit of the general interests of the Union, whatever those may be. The ECJ's 11 Euro-judges in this case will rule on whether the EU has given itself the power to limit political freedoms.

curious, the this defense of free speech, written (it appears) very similarly to the USA 1st Amendment, was written mainly by British lawyers, yet the British often claim that they don't need a written guarantee of personal rights like the US Constitution.

That said, I applaud the efforts to keep free speech alive in the EU.

moved from CorporateGovernment

"one mechanism by which hegemony is maintained, wherein the ruling class constrains not only what answers may be given, but also what questions may be asked"

This quote from the reference - (with regard to constraining answers and questions) assumes nothing more than that communication is managed in that questions are limited to a permitted set, and that answers allowed must be "correct". I do not see how this is possible with the present scenario where individuals have computers corporations would have spent small fortunes for years ago, and present state of internet, which allows almost any one to say what they want anout nearly everything. Class warfare is a tool of despots, not the exercise of free men. I think therefore I am free!

I am not the powerless victim of an overriding conspiracy of a "ruling class". I still have a voice and a place to speak with that voice. It would be a good thing if more of those who want to blame "them" for collective conspiracy to enslave - would accept individual responsibility for the exercising and maintaining the freedoms enjoyed on this planet.

It assumes nothing of the sort, and having a voice is not the same as having a say.

Exercising and maintaining the freedoms is 'say' in the sense of free speech, if say is meant to mean control, I agree that say is limited by such devices as vesting, voting and stock ownership.

Freedom of speech does not prevent propaganda when different people have so wildly different broadcasting abilities, and no, a scrawl on the internet is not an ad campaign. Saying citizens should have stayed vigilant does not diminish the consequences of their failing to do so, and I do not see how misinformed citizenry can be expected to safeguard against anything.

True, you as an individual can not prevent propaganda, expect a single scrawl on the internet to be viewed as a campaign, expect citizens to be vigilant, expect them to fasten their seatbelts, or expect them to utilize protection where it is called for, or expect those who are drunk not to drive, the list goes on and on. Individually you can exercise your freedoms to do what has has no negative consequences, as well as to do what does have negative consequences. The choice in a free society is left to the individual. The best defense is for individuals to tell and act out the truth - see: http://web.archive.org/web/20020915102506/http://www.informamerica.com/They_Told_The_Truth.htm

There we go. Anyone with resources can spread propaganda, and it's up to the people he's influencing to stop him. It's no surprise to me that the inevitable result of such a system should be corporate government. Equality is something you have to maintain or it goes away. How long do you think democracy would last if people could lose their voting ability?

I thought we were talking about FreedomOfSpeech, not the ability, privilege and responsibility to vote. Obviously voting is an expression, but is a collective, not an individual expression.

Apparently you take issue with whomever moved the above section from CorporateGovernment to this page but you seem too confused to express what it is you mean.

It can be argued that "free speech" is hollow and meaningless without having any corresponding say. If that is so then you're quibbling and trying to segregate the separate topics is ConversationalChaff.

It can also be argued that the above section doesn't make that point explicitly enough, that its context is wholly that of corporate governance and not of freedom of speech. If that is so then moving that section to this page was a mistake.

Either way, your argument is a non-sequitur.