@Moon @ghost Let me provide you an explicit example that doesn't have to do anything with politics:

Let's say someone puts out ton of false information about certain companies to drop their stocks. In the US that considered market manipulation. Another example is selling you something I don't have or by pretending that something does something, that it doesn't do. That's called fraud, we have laws against that.

One could argue that this has to be covered by absolute freedom of speech.

@Moon @ghost On the political side of things, we also have established boundaries that work quite well. For example Nazi salutes are illegal in Germany for historical reasons. Same goes for denial of the holocaust or other Nazi-related symbols.

There are tons of countries that don't have an absolute freedom of speech and still manage to have a broad political discussion. It's just that you don't hear of them every day in the news.

@sheogorath @ghost I'm not a holocaust denier but I don't think it's a unique thing that should have a law. I also understand the reasons for banning Nazi stuff but speech laws didn't stop Nazism the first time. It seems like in history when people are ready to talk about something good or bad, the law didn't end up mattering too much. I feel like this is happening in the USA currently, There has been a very very strong free speech current in the country for a long time and in a generation a lot of people are outright opposed to that strong interpretation. That's part of why I'm concerned about speech used to shut down other speech.

I respect that people have justifiable differences of opinion on the edges of this topic (especially for historical reasons, like Germany as you mentioned) and I appreciate that you engaged me in good faith.

@sheogorath @Moon I say the offense comes from damage, rather than the speech itself. otherwise any speech can be deemed dangerous if you try hard enough. I'm from a socialist state, so I shall point you to the USSR joke that the USSR constitution protects freedom of speech perfectly well, except it doesn't cover freedom after speech.

@PeterCxy @ghost @Moon To me it seems more that you are concern about how to get (back?) a democracy that is considered "working" by a reasonable divers majority of people.

Means courts work, the democratic process works and the institutions to keep those in power in check are independent and do their job.

@PeterCxy @ghost @Moon You actually need those. Laws are not programs or rules for a table top game. This fuzziness allows courts and judges to use their brain to prevent abuse of laws. (on the other hand, the statement's shouldn't be too open, because then they just provide other angles of abuse).

A simple example would be writing "motorized vehicle" instead of car because the law then also covers trucks, motor bikes and alike, even when they were not invented when the law was written