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- Apr 17, 2007
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No it isn't comparable, cause your analogy is akin to saying Atheism is a religion, to which the retort is that Atheism is the lack of religion, so calling Atheism a religion is like saying being bald is a hairstyle. Religion stipulates a certain dogma and opposes other dogmas, and in the same way those who seek to limit Free Speech want to impose certain dogmas on the populace and want to restrict or oppose other dogmas. Lack of Free Speech and support for restricting Free Speech is actually more apt to being compared to religion, since both want to restrict what people believe and limit peoples' utility to think for themselves.
I lived in England and the MidEast and have been to France many times, and parts of S.E. Asia. The stark difference in having Free Speech and not having Free Speech is evident in all these countries.
Dude, what are you talking about? I feel like normally we have productive conversations, so I'm not sure if my posts are confusing or if you're not reading them right, but we're speaking past each other. I'm not at all discussing the characteristics of free speech. I'm not comparing free speech to religion.
But let's move away from that. You said that a country must have American-style freedom of speech in order to be a free country. Doesn't that seem like a useless definition of freedom? Certainly there are people who have lied in many different time periods or who have lived in many different countries who have felt that they had a free life. Would you argue they are self deluding? Or, perhaps, is it possible to still have a free life even if one doesn't live in a free country?