Scotland's Hate Speech Act and Abuse of Process(craigmurray.org.uk) |
Scotland's Hate Speech Act and Abuse of Process(craigmurray.org.uk) |
Serious question. Assuming I offend some Scott by writing something on my blog, putting an issue on Github, or editing Wikipedia – is it then safe for me to travel to Scotland as a tourist? I'd love to visit Scotland some day – I'm told that it's a beautiful country – but if there is any risk of that, I'd rather stay home or travel somewhere else.
In short, really no country on earth as the freedoms of speech and expression that America does but it's all changing. It's possible you could be arrested but it would really depend on the situation, and the person. You, arrested? Probably not. Jordan Peterson, maybe.
1. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/thai-man-faces-record-50-...
2. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12557713/Our-silent...
Of course, you wouldn't be _arrested_ in the US for saying certain things, but I'm afraid you could be lynched/fired/etc., so _technically_ the freedom of speech is still preserved – but from my point of view it doesn't matter much whether I'm assaulted by the police or an angry mob. (In fact, I would probably prefer the police.)
It is sort of ironic, in a morbid and very sad way. When I was a kid, we looked at America as the "land of freedom", unattainable for us in a communist country. Now I'm much older and I witness the US slowly (or maybe even not that slowly) gravitating towards communism.
I wouldn't be astonished if expressing "unpopular opinions" on certain subjects (in a way not even offending anyone) were more risky in the US than here.
> You, arrested? Probably not. Jordan Peterson, maybe.
That is obvious. Still, the whole situation makes me sad.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/3/enacted
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/section/4/enacted
Uncritically repeating the argument, even as a mere descriptor, shows a social acceptance that we do not wish in a context like this. Such individuals can be clearly described in ways that don't serve to normalize their arguments.
Of course, that's still highly problematic. Is a statement like "Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to replace secular democracy with a theocracy based on a twisted interpretation of Christianity" likely to stir up hatred against fundamentalist Christians? It's ambiguous enough to have a chilling effect.
Also "Christian fundamentalist" isn't a protected class. If anything they're the class many protected classes need protecting from.
Religion is a named protected class in the legislation. There is no reason to believe it couldn't be applied to extreme or fundamentalist religions, and I chose a particularly contemptible example of it to illustrate a point.