Fisking Sorkin Again:The UK

UPDATE: Below.  Germany.

Here are the other posts on Fisking Sorkin 1 and 2.

 

They are based on this rant by Sorkin’s character on the Newsroom, which has appeared on my Facebook page every three weeks because it is so smart!

 

 

And with a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America is so star-spangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom. Japan has freedom. The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom! So, 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.

From Jonathon Turley:

Preacher In Northern Ireland Arrested For Calling Islam Satanic In Sermon

In one of the most vivid examples of the decline of free speech in England, an evangelical preacher named James McConnell, 78, from Northern Ireland has been charged criminally for calling Islam “satanic.” The preacher is charged with spreading a “grossly offensive” message for what should be considered (and protected) as religious and political speech.

I’m not even going to agree or disagree with the preacher, since that’s not the point.  James McConnell, in a free country, would have the right to say something which was “grossly offensive.”  And while Sorkin and others would state that America is not the greatest country, and we don’t have superior everything — we do have the First Amendment.  For now, and forever.

In today’s America, we are very close to creating a de facto speech code for folks who work in universities or for government.  If social justice warriors hear you say something amiss, you’ll be shouted out of a job.  It is not impossible to imagine that these speech codes could become law — especially since public understanding of rights is so poor.

Of course, as you know I respect Sorkin’s right to put any really stupid ideas he might have into a script and even put them on TV.

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UPDATE: German Lawmaker Arrested With Death Camp Tatoo

I hate to stand up for the right to ink yourself with Nazi iconography, but is this a free country?  Aaron Sorkin said they had freedom in Germany.  Jonathon Turley says, not so much:

Civil libertarians have long been critical of the German speech crimes, including the prohibition on any Nazi symbols. Not only have the laws not had any discernible impact on the neo-Nazi movement but they actually make these extremists into victims and force them further underground. The laws also lead to bizarre cases like the arrest of a German man for a cellphone ringtone of Hitler. The latest case is out of Oranienburg where German politician Marcel Zech was arrested due to a tattoo spotted on his back at a pool.

Zech was charged after another bather saw that he had what appeared to be a tattoo of the Auschwitz death camp on his back and the slogan from the Buchenwald concentration camp’s gate, “Jedem das Seine” — “to each his own.”

In a free country, you can get any stupid thing inked on your body.