We Had to Destroy Free Speech in Order to Save It

In a recent speech in the Bundestag, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke out in favor of freedom of expression, but said that there must be limits to it, such as when it might “injure the dignity of others”.

I’m an American living in the USA, so the idea that free speech could be curtailed if someone’s dignity is offended seems nonsensical. However, Europe is a different sort of place, with different rules. Most Western European countries have hedged in freedom of speech with a lot of exceptions and restrictions.

Can you imagine the process by which the State would determine whether any particular instance of speech might be injurious to someone’s dignity? The legislature would have to order the formation of a Dignity Assessment Board, with members chosen by the head of government according to rules that guarantee the preservation of “diversity” in the body. The board would be granted a large budget so that it could examine each instance of possibly offensive speech at whatever length the circumstances required.

I’m certain that anyone who said “Islam is inherently violent” would be judged to have injured the dignity of others. However, if someone said “Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs,” he would probably be let off the hook…

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00   Human dignity is sacrosanct and this includes freedom of opinion.
00:09   Freedom of expression exists in our country, and to all those
00:12   who constantly claim that they can no longer speak their mind,
00:15   I must simply say this: Whoever speaks their mind,
00:18   especially in a insolent manner, must live with the fact that there will be opposition.
00:22   Freedom of expression isn’t without cost, and not everyone will agree.
00:32   However, freedom of expression has its limits, and those limits
00:35   begin with inflammatory remarks, when spreading hate, and when
00:38   the dignity of others is injured. We must stand up to that in this
00:43   house, and we will achieve that goal, ladies and gentlemen.
00:48   Otherwise this society will no longer be what it once was.
 

14 thoughts on “We Had to Destroy Free Speech in Order to Save It

    • https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2019-11/npd-slogan-wahlplakat-europawahl-volksverhetzung-gerichtsurteil

      Not so fast: the above link in German to the homoglobalist, Trumpophobe, Clintonite and hence Russophobe presstitute DIE ZEIT shows it is not “German courts ruled” as you allege but merely the Administrative Court of Giessen.

      In fact, as the source you quote, the liberaloid government organ Deutsche Welle says in English:
      ” (Judge Andreas Hofer) alone made the court ruling that the poster was at least partly accurate. The August ruling can be appealed.”

      Giessen is a city in the state of Hesse and about 60 km north of Frankfurt.

      The Gutmensch-municipality will now appeal this ruling at the higher Admin. Court for the whole of Hesse, says DIE ZEIT.

      • what is intersting in the judges ruling is the fact that he sketched a historical survey of thousands of years of migration anywhere in the world and its often deathly effects. That was a very smart move and makes motions against the ruling extremely difficult because plaintiffs will have to study world history, which is good: they might find the same evidence judge Hofer found.

        • Yes,and 2-3 years ago a Newspaper didnt printed the History of the Romanian Empire because some people can think its like today!No joke!!!

  1. insolence, inflammatory, dignity, these are all qualitatively determined. If you wish me a good morning when I am having a bad morning, couldn’t I take that as insolence and be offended and report you to the authorities?
    Freedom of expression has limits? Whose? Are those limits a matter of law or a matter of diktat?
    Nice try Angela, but all you accomplished is to make the pond merkelier.

  2. Did they scrub the www of those “hot” photos of a young Angela in her East German STASI uniform?

  3. Ah, I think in the USA universities that is called a SAFE SPACE.
    I want a safe space too – from Merkel, her cronies and those leftwing loonies.
    Why dont we divide Europe? The southern parts go the multiculti-globalist elites and their supporters and the northern parts go to the sane persons, you know those with common sense.
    And between those parts we make a GDR style border. So that the elites and their loonies must enjoy multiculti to the fullest without the possibility of escape North.

    And yes, I think of the book CALIPHATE where in the last Interlude the Greens and their ilk are described as politically diseased. And infectious.

    PS.: Baron, I know I ask a lot, but could you please put any photos of Merkel or Claudia Fatima Roth (yes, especially she!!!!) behind those Facebook-like obstructions, you know where you see at first only the text: “Warning ugly violent Picture. Do you really want to see this?”
    Thanks a lot.

    • If you are looking for a “SAFE SPACE” you are not researching therefore you are not in a University. You are in a nursery.

  4. Absolutely incomprehensible-as supposedly quoted by Merkel-Europe is now in the hands of a communist regime, its new future having appointed 27 new commissioners-most freedoms will now be curtailed, sovereignty will be eroded. The EU Bureaucracy will rule.

  5. A reminder: “[Former Communist] Angela [Kalergi-Quisling] Merkel awarded the Charlemagne Prize”
    The annual Charlemagne Prize was awarded in Aachen on 30 April to German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her work to unite Europe.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-awarded-the-charlemagne-prize/

    The first Charlemagne Prize was awarded to Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the founder of the Pan-European Movement.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne_Prize

    • Did Hitler or Stalin get one for their efforts? (I’d add Napoleon, but that would be anachronistic.)

  6. But why would Angela receive the World Jewish Congress Theodor-Herzl Prize (“honoring her role in fighting anti-Semitism”) if what you say is true? Free speech is a core Judeo-Christan value, guys!

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel will receive a World Jewish Congress Theodor-Herzl Prize honoring her role in fighting anti-Semitism

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/270732

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