If you're an Australian, if you woke up tomorrow in an American city of an Australian one, you'd probably have a hard time telling them apart until you saw which side a car drove on or somebody spoke to you.
On the flip side, Canada, which isn't the U.S. and has all of the benefits being claimed here about places that are not the U.S. is so virtually identical to the U.S. in most ways that I've watched entire seasons of TV shows and not known they were filmed in Canada with Canadian actors. After a night of bar hopping in Toronto, I once woke up in Canada and thought we had made it back over into the U.S. overnight. It took me a few hours and trying to pay at a diner with the wrong money to figure it out.
How do you argue for that? Life here is largely fine, but it's tough to support that because "fine" encompasses everything. There isn't much you can do besides shoot down all the incorrect statements about how it's not fine.
Most people here live decent lives, make decent money, live in decent dwellings, don't experience significant quantities of crime, etc.
Yes, there are many problems with the USA at the moment. But that does not mean that life here is somehow terrible for everyone, or even most people.
Robust free speech protections, ability to rough it in a country that's still in the first world, and the ability to enter industries that don't exist to the same extent elsewhere.
We're also much less racist than Europe, for example: We haven't banned wearing traditional Muslim garb, for example, and we don't have the hatred of the Roma which is endemic to the European continent.
The functional difference between free speech in Australia and the United States isn't that strong. On the idealistic part of the spectrum, the US does win, but in terms of how it affects your life, they're pretty comparable. It is interesting to note that Australia is consistently rated superior to the US on the Press Freedom Index, and both are outscored by a passel of European countries.
> In theory, the objective of defamation laws is to balance protection of individual reputation with freedom of expression. In practice, defamation laws are frequently used as a means of chilling speech. A threat of (costly) defamation proceedings and damages, whether or not a plaintiff's claim is likely to be upheld by a court, is often used to silence criticism not only by a particular person or group but also as a threat to others.
Basically, defamation laws in the USA are much more defendant-friendly compared to their equivalents in Commonwealth countries. Australia deserves much praise for apparently being much better in this regard compared to the UK, for example: Australian law recognizes truth to be an absolute defense, which is not generally the case in Commonwealth libel laws.
Canada deserves special approbation for its insane hate speech laws:
There have been just as many substantial fascist parties in places with those laws as there are in places without them: Zero. They're an attack on free expression, a universal human right, and they're an absurd over-reaction, an example of terrified cowering at a few worthless fools. What's worse, they do nothing to solve any of the real problems modern Europe has with anti-Roma and anti-Muslim racism.
-- OK, to begin with, Australia still bans things. This is something the USA grew out of decades ago:
BULL and SHIT. In Australia, there is no routine pixellation of middle fingers, likewise pixellating the mouth of someone swearing.
It's an utter fabrication that there's no censorship on things in the US: It is a violation of federal law to air obscene programming at any time. It is also a violation of federal law to air indecent programming or profane language during certain hours.", from http://www.fcc.gov/guides/obscenity-indecency-and-profanity
And I've already mentioned the Press Freedom Index, which indicates the Australian press is freer (scum that they are) than the US press. There's a difference between idealism and how the place is actually run. Hell, the US even introduced the anglosphere to the concept of "Free Speech Zones".
Hell, even movie ratings are a form of censorship, and the US has those. Those movie ratings cause movies to be modified in order to meet them. The US even introduced the world to "Parental advisory: explicit lyrics" which was a soft form of censorship; some stores would not carry such marked CDs, and some shopping centres would not allow stores within to carry them.
Some US states prevent atheists from holding political office - that's an explicit penalty for exercising freedom of speech.
When I was in San Francisco, it was illegal for me to take a photo of a school. Standing in a public place, it was illegal for me to take a normal point'n'click photo facing one direction but not another. Similarly, both countries ban public nudity except in some specific areas.
Then, of course, there's all the provisions for the support of US IP law and legislating against filesharing that Australia has had to engage in duty to treaty obligations with the US.
Ultimately, when you say "Australia still bans things", you make it sound like a commonplace experience. It really isn't - and banned items are few and far between. Your wikipedia link has little that Australia has banned in the past couple of decades, and includes paragraphs like: Explicit sex scenes have also become more common. Channel Nine's crime drama Underbelly has frequent coarse language and sex (including explicit anal rape) with one episode featuring a "drug-fuelled orgy with prostitutes accompanied by the Spiderbait song "Fucken Awesome"". I am actually interested to hear if you can name more than a handful of banned items from the past couple of decades. By the way, does exporting cryptography count?
The US does have better protections for individual freedom of speech, but the gulf between the two nations really isn't all that large, nor is it all in the US's favour.
-- Which are similar to the insane laws against denying the Holocaust or even using certain images in parts of Europe:
One thing that we here in the Anglosphere need to remember is that in WW2, we were unequivocably on the side of moral good. We were fighting the clearest moral evil humanity has known. All of the Anglosphere, undivided. For the European continent, the experience was much more complex and painful, and even those countries that fought against the Axis had plenty of collaborators. Idealism is nice... until it's tested, then pragmatism needs to have a voice.
In any case, you're talking about a very specific incident in history, which in Europe has a very real knock-on effect of lending support to neo-nazism. You can go hog-wild about denying the efficacy of Bismarck's reforms. Question Kaiser Wilhelm all you want. But the pragmatism of legislating against holocaust denial or sporting the swastika is basically the same as anti-defamation legislation: it's saying 'don't diminish this'.
Think about it this way: those laws are very specific in terms of what they ban. So you can't show the swastika in Germany. It doesn't mean that they're going to 'slippery-slope' their way to banning other images. There seems to be a belief in America that Germans want to obscure the past - they don't. From a friend in Germany, they're acutely ashamed of that past, and these laws help to avoid obscuring that past and lessening the impact of the resulting lessons. The laws you speak of here aren't things that hit people in their everyday lives, they're specific, targeted laws. The laws would not be around in an ideal world, but in a practical world, there is a tangible reason for them. As laws go, they're not 'insane'.
I'm not sure how the side-effects you see of these laws is any better or worse than the routine emotional pain that folks like the Westboro Baptist Church deal out under freedom of speech laws. Not showing a swastika in a manner other than historical education, compared against having a lunatic scream at me while I'm burying a loved one? Which one actually has the more social or psychological harm there?
-- What's worse, they do nothing to solve any of the real problems modern Europe has with anti-Roma and anti-Muslim racism.
US free speech also does nothing to solve any of the real problems modern America has with anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim racism. The holocaust denial laws are not there to solve racism. They're there to stem violent nationalism, the European forms of which don't exist in the US.
> BULL and SHIT. In Australia, there is no routine pixellation of middle fingers, likewise pixellating the mouth of someone swearing.
We don't ban whole works. Australia does.
> Hell, even movie ratings are a form of censorship,
Nonsense. Self-imposed rating systems are in no way comparable to governmental censorship.
> Some US states prevent atheists from holding political office
Wrong. Those laws may be on the books, but they could never be enforced, due to the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution.
> Your wikipedia link has little that Australia has banned in the past couple of decades
It's the principle of the thing.
> Idealism is nice... until it's tested, then pragmatism needs to have a voice.
Wrong. Utterly wrong. If you abandon your principles the moment they're tested, they were never your fucking principles at all.
> But the pragmatism of legislating against holocaust denial or sporting the swastika is basically the same as anti-defamation legislation: it's saying 'don't diminish this'.
By making it seem that it can't fight deniers on an equal footing, that it needs laws to bolster its argument.
> those laws are very specific in terms of what they ban
So? That doesn't make it better.
> US free speech also does nothing to solve any of the real problems modern America has with anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim racism.
We don't ban face veils. Talk to me about racism when you've stopped banning veils.
> They're there to stem violent nationalism, the European forms of which don't exist in the US.
We had the KKK, which was just as violent and just as nationalistic as European forms of it. We were able to destroy it (twice!) without resorting to the destruction of fundamental freedoms.
Name some that have happened in the past couple of decades, given that this was your initial point of note. Then explain to me how those particular selected works are anything but a narrow gap between the US and Australia, in real terms rather than purity of ideology.
And need I remind you again about IP laws? Lifetime of author plus 70 years is a very real ban on associated works by other people. Something can enter the public mindspace and yet be forbidden for people to freely reimagine for around a century? Yeah, that's not a 'ban', because in principle, your grandchildren could publicly release your writings, right? US IP laws are particularly onerous and reduce the freedom of expression of people in other countries through treaty obligations, yet apparently the US principles of free speech remains clean as a whistle to you?
-- Your wikipedia link has little that Australia has banned in the past couple of decades > It's the principle of the thing.
So, Australia has the principle of being able to ban entire works and yet doesn't ban anything. This to you is insane totalitarianism. (conveniently you think that partial censorship is okay, it's just total bans that are so outrageously offensive)
On the other hand, states in the US have laws stating that you can't take office if you are an atheist. You state that this is fine and dandy, despite the inherent requirement for someone to challenge those laws to engage in a lengthy and costly court engagement, with plenty of social fallout. This to you is fine principle.
So, a 'bad' law seldom enforced = terrible, while a 'bad' law that can be overcome only through heavy investment of resources (ie: limited to the very wealthy) = awesomesauce. There is a world of difference between idealistic principle and how things work pragmatically.
-- If you abandon your principles the moment they're tested, they were never your fucking principles at all.
I didn't say anything about principles. I was talking about idealism being tested. These are not the same thing.
-- We don't ban face veils. Talk to me about racism when you've stopped banning veils.
You have a pretty tortured definition of racism, if it requires the banning of face veils before it's a problem.
How about the US's problem with 9% of black men currently being either in jail or on parole? Can we talk about that as a problem of racism, or is it off the cards because US muslims can wear face veils, unlike a couple of selected European countries?
And, once again, I'd like to point out that despite your lauding of how free speech is in the US, the US press is still less free than the Australian press - actual implementation of speech is curtailed in the US more than it is in Australia when it comes to the press. All your pontificating about one particular ideal means little in terms of how things are actually done pragmatically. I mean hell, in the US, despite your puritanical ideal of free speech, you have a whole selection of two political parties to vote for. What a range of expression available for your political voice! Here in Australia, there were so many parties available for the last federal election, that the ballot paper was over a meter long. Yeah, you're right, Australia has such a limited freedom of expression, because one book on euthanasia was banned in the past 20 years. That single point completely trumps all other freedoms a country has, and means that there is a vast gulf in comparison to the US.
Get over your puritanical idealism and have a look at how things are actually run - this is what affects peoples' lives, not the nominal principle they say they adhere to. There are plenty of avowed christians who behave in a very non-christian manner, for example. In real terms, there really isn't that much difference in free speech between the US and Australia.
To the best of my knowledge it is not "illegal to dress as a Muslim" anywhere in Europe. In France it is prohibited to cover one's face while in public. The argument for this law is not grounded in any religious objection, as I understand it, but rather in the fact that face coverings make identification difficult and do not fit in with the expected norms for social interaction in that country.
France also has a ban on the display of religious symbols in public schools. The ban is applied wholesale and does not discriminate against any one particular group. This law, as I understand it, is motivated by a strong desire for secularism in the public education system.
> but rather in the fact that face coverings make identification difficult
A poor reason to assault someone's culture and religion. Rather Big Brotherish, in fact.
> and do not fit in with the expected norms for social interaction in that country.
Back in the day, allowing blacks and whites into the same schools didn't fit in with the expected norms for social interaction in the USA. We got over it.
> France also has a ban on the display of religious symbols in public schools.
This I don't have a huge problem with, even though it seems a bit over-broad. Does it also prohibit people from wearing cross necklaces, for example? How about if someone had put ashes on their face for Ash Wednesday?
I can only comment on the situation as I understand it; I.e. that the law does not specifically mention Islam and it does not prohibit, as you have misrepresented, "dressing up as a Muslim". Moreover, as others have pointed out, there are already plenty of places that prohibit face covering attire.
Also accusations of Big Brother coming from Americans at this point is rather hilarious.
I agree with your entire comment, but the "Rather Big Brotherish" part made me laugh, considering the recent NSA scandal, and the fact that the entire public is basically carrying around a 'telescreen' for all intents and purposes.
Off-topic but funny in and of itself. Also a small note, but even in America some places view face coverings with extreme caution, wearing one in a bank for instance is a big no-no. Not a religious issue in those sorts of cases, really an identification, wariness that you might rob the place issue.
With a few seconds on your favorite search engine, you could discover that "rough it" is an idiom commonly used to refer to camping in a nature-heavy setting (without electricity/plumbing.)
Haha, excuse me for not jumping to that conclusion straight away, I have never heard the ability to live in the bush being used as an argument for another country in a discussion about Australia!
Also first link in Google: rough it - to live in a way that is simple and not very comfortable
Don't pretend search engines deliver the same content to everyone
I'm not suggesting you jump to conclusions. I'm suggesting you do basic research when you don't understand an expression. By the time you skim the first page of results, whether or not it's the same as my first page of results, you should have a clear idea what the idiom means.
> "an argument for another country in a discussion about Australia!"
The immediate discussion was about whether there were arguments for living in America, not whether there were arguments against living in Australia. The US has a lot of things going for it; whether or not some of those things also apply elsewhere isn't really relevant.
