Gurdur

Oh my, this old canard.
With all respect, Jesse, and no offence intended, I think you and other Americans have become so transfixed by the idolization of this principle that you lost sight of the forest for one mythical tree.

Let's take a look at genuine freedom of thought, speech and life, shall we ?

Where's the Western world's largest counter-culture opt-out grouping, long established ?
In the very large Christinia community in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Western world's most critical press ?
Britain.

Most painstakingly investigative press ?
Germany.

Freedom from religion ? Britain, Scandanavia, Germany, etc.

Official Freedom Of Information Act (governmental info) with most success and far-reaching conequences, and real teeth ?
Sweden.

Country witjh atheists whining endlessly about not being socially tolerated and under daily pressure ?
The USA. Only the USA.

Save me from your "freedom". Bah, humbug.

You seem to equate the 'freedom' to indulge in hate speech with freedom; you're aware that it's a fallacy to equate licentiousness with freedom ?
Or democracy with anarchy ?

And finally the blitheringly obvious:
Germany, Britain and France suffered greatly from Naziism, well within living memory; oh cry me a river if modern neo-Nazis aren't allowed to make public propaganda, it's a protection of democracy.
The poor little neo-Nazi boys, so cruelly oppressed by the hate speech laws, are still at perfect freedom to say what they like between themselves and to think what they like; they're only not allowed to cross certain legal borders in public speech is all.

Like I said, I far prefer the freedoms of the rest of the Western world to the USA's hyper-religious, hyper-nationalist maunderings on 'freedom' of speech at an inconsequential level of pseudo-principalled pap masquerading as substance.

Jesse

Gurdur:
Oh my, this old canard.
With all respect, Jesse, and no offence intended, I think you and other Americans have become so transfixed by the idolization of this principle that you lost sight of the forest for one mythical tree.

Let's take a look at genuine freedom of thought, speech and life, shall we ?

Where's the Western world's largest counter-culture opt-out grouping, long established ?
In the very large Christinia community in the centre of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Western world's most critical press ?
Britain.

Most painstakingly investigative press ?
Germany.

Ok, by what standards are you judging "critical" or "investigative"? This would be quite subjective, I'd think. Having been reading a lot more foreign papers because of this Iraq war, I've gotten the sense that the average European paper is just as likely to be slanted, one-sided and uncritical of certain things as the average American one, just in a different direction, on average (I'd guess the silly estimate of Iraqi casualties that the 'Slate' article criticized above was quoted uncritically in quite a lot of European papers, for example). But in any country you will find a wide variety of papers with different slants--leftist, rightist, whatever--and this diversity ensures that if you're interested, you can see different sides of any story. As far as individual papers go, there are plenty of excellent ones in the States, like the NYTimes.

In any case, to me having my own personal freedom of speech enshrined in the law is a lot more important than the quality of the average newspaper, or the average tolerance for atheism in the community, etc. Rights are more important than community to me--I can always self-select the people I hang out with or the newspapers I read, it doesn't really make a difference what the "national average" is, but laws apply to everyone.

Gurdur:
Freedom from religion ? Britain, Scandanavia, Germany, etc.

What does "freedom from religion" mean, exactly? Doesn't taxpayer money go to funding the churches in these countries? What about stuff like this? Also, "hate speech" laws could easily be applied to harsh condemnations of a particular religion. I have seen a few religious groups take exactly this tact--right-wing Catholics sometimes identify anti-Catholic art as "hate speech", for example (see this and this). Perhaps the European courts would never identify this as hate speech, but they might feel differently if the religious group being criticized was also largely an ethnic minority group, like Muslims or Jews.

Gurdur:
Official Freedom Of Information Act (governmental info) with most success and far-reaching conequences, and real teeth ?
Sweden.

In this case I agree, although for me this issue is not as fundamentally important as freedom of speech--I think governments should have a right to keep some information secret for a certain amount of time, although there should probably be legal limits to this.

Gurdur:
Country witjh atheists whining endlessly about not being socially tolerated and under daily pressure ?
The USA. Only the USA.

Again, this is a matter of community vs. rights, and the U.S. is certainly diverse enough that you can find plenty of communities where atheism is the norm--in general, 'middle america' has a higher proportion of fundamentalists while more liberal religious beliefs, including atheism, are more common on the east and west coasts (or as we know them in America, 'red states' vs. 'blue states', referring to infographics showing which states vote republican and which states vote democrat...I would guess that most of the infidels who complain about being atheists in a sea of fundies are from 'red states', as I have encountered very few fundies in my entire life).

Gurdur:
You seem to equate the 'freedom' to indulge in hate speech with freedom; you're aware that it's a fallacy to equate licentiousness with freedom ?
Or democracy with anarchy ?

Calling someone by an ethnic slur may not be so important a freedom (though keeping certain words forbidden strikes me as quite Orwellian), but I do think it is fundamentally important that one should be able to advocate any ideology or belief system, no matter how "hateful." That is neither licentiousness nor anarchy.

Gurdur:
And finally the blitheringly obvious:
Germany, Britain and France suffered greatly from Naziism, well within living memory; oh cry me a river if modern neo-Nazis aren't allowed to make public propaganda, it's a protection of democracy.
The poor little neo-Nazi boys, so cruelly oppressed by the hate speech laws, are still at perfect freedom to say what they like between themselves and to think what they like; they're only not allowed to cross certain legal borders in public speech is all.

Please do not misrepresent me, Gurdur. Half my family is Jewish, and I hardly feel sorry for the "poor little Nazis", I just think that the right to advocate even the most abhorrent of belief systems is absolutely essential. Many countries suffered greatly under communism as well--would you support a ban on all books by communists? When it comes to freedom of speech I think the danger of a "slippery slope" is quite real.

Gurdur:
Like I said, I far prefer the freedoms of the rest of the Western world to the USA's hyper-religious, hyper-nationalist maunderings on 'freedom' of speech at an inconsequential level of pseudo-principalled pap masquerading as substance.

So my belief in freedom of speech is simply due to my hyper-religiosity and hyper-nationalism, eh? I suppose this profile would fit the average ACLU member as well? I don't think "anti-americanism" is quite as prevelant as some would have us believe, but this sort of caricaturing and generalizing looks to be a pretty good example.

Danya

I am sure that's true to an extent...but the US media is becoming a joke. It simply regurgitates press releases and then asks 'the experts' to try to fill in the missing questions. I've seen more guess work by retired generals and ex administration officials trying to explain what should be coming from the President and his staff (Ari the evader doesn't count). Unfortunatley, they don't answer questions...they just gives statements so our media is content to hire experts to analyze situations for us.

What ever happened to those rogue reporters that lived for uncovering a real story? Where are all of the on-the-scene reporters asking for answers from real witnesses? Now we get official statements that no one questions. What happened to healthy suspicion that saved our press from becoming propaganda outlets? Now you have to find several sources and try to weed out the spin. Maybe it's always been this way and I just never noticed it until now.

What I find especially annoying is how they pick stories almost at random and lock onto them for months, retelling them over and over, while real news flys over their radar. Some examples being the Lacey Peterson story or Trent Lott's racist comments being repeated every 15 minutes while neglecting stories on things like the Patriot Act, Total Information Awareness, or the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.

Why short change yourself on freedom of personal expression over freedom of the press? You have the right to all of it, all conveniently located in one Ammendment that appears to me to mean they were all equally important to those that drafted it. You may value one over the other but, IMO, they all work together to achieve real freedom.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Jesse

Danya:
Why short change yourself on freedom of personal expression over freedom of the press? You have the right to all of it, all conveniently located in one Ammendment that appears to me to mean they were all equally important to those that drafted it. You may value one over the other but, IMO, they all work together to achieve real freedom.

That's not what I meant when I said I valued rights over community--I would be just as opposed to government interference with freedom of the press as I would be to interference with freedom of personal expression (I don't know if it's really possible to differentiate the two anyway). But the fact that most news sources just aren't very good is another matter--like I said, there are enough choices out there that I'm free to self-select the sources that I think are doing higher-quality reporting. Of course I would prefer that the average news source was better, but I'd rather live in a country that has legally guaranteed freedom of the press than one that doesn't, even if the press in this country is slightly lower-quality on average, for whatever reasons.

Gurdur

well, now, Jesse, in line with your request here I'm answering you --- however, if responses are not substantive I will simply drop it again.

Just what European papers are you referring to ?
They have a huge range, not just in seriousness and depth, but also in culture.
A Greek newspaper is as different to a German newspaper as chalk and cheese.
Do not commit your implicit mistake of terating "Europe" and the USA as two similar entities within one cultural/socioeconomic category --- they are simply not comparable.
BTW, do you ever read:
Stern
Das Spiegel (both weekly magazines)
The Guardian (UK newspaper)
The Sydney Morning Herald (Australian newspaper, once better than it is now but still worthwhile)

I read these often, along with the BBC News Online, as well as the American newspapers The International herald Tribune and (occasionally) The New York Times.
Then you are either missing or evading the point.
A written right is useless if it is not in practice.
A community which practises certain rights is more worthwhile than a community with rights enshrined on paper, but not in daily life.
You should go read the Constitution of The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics ---- a beautiful piece of paper, enshrined in law (supposedly), not worth topo much at all in daily life. Again, you are missing or evading the point; at a certain level, you would not be free in a community to "self-select the people you hang out with or the newspapers you read" if that community exerts eough pressure --- not through law but simply socially and economically --- upon you. And written rights can be worth bugger all in such situations.
Actaully,not all that much, and the taxes that go to the churches are purely voluntary in Sweden and Germany, meaning you do not have to pay the tax if you do not wish to.

I could add an interesting argument I had here with a German Protestant minister on exactly this topic --- we'll see how you respond.They can be, but tend not to be.
It's called the evolution of common law, as well as statute law, and represents the outcome of practical living compromises between all segments of the populations, as well as ever-developing ethics.
Strawman. Sweden keeps some info private, but makes far more public than the UK or the USA.
I prefer Sweden; I like to know what's going on.
I refer you to the constant fears of theocracy and social pressure complained about by Americans constantly on this board.
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"

You've merely repeated a canard, a strawman, and your own (American) prejudice.

Think opf it this way:

1. we are talking about public speech.[b]
   
2. In public speech, there are legal remedies against libel and slander. even in the USA
   
3. And therefore in public speech, it can be seen as merely an extension of that to outlaw the libellling or slandering of entire ethnic groups --- especially when history has provided so many good illustrations of just why such hate agitprop has no place in public life.

Your problem, not mine.
The slippery slope fallacy is just that.
Please point out any real instances of your supposed dangers in Germany, Sweden or the UK.
*yawn*
Did I say you were hyper-religious ?
hmmm ?
Keep up this misrepresentation, and our conversation will be very short --- the ironies do not escape me of you asking me not to misrepresent you, then proceeding blithely to misrepresent me busily.

Jesse

Gurdur:
well, now, Jesse, in line with your request here I'm answering you --- however, if responses are not substantive I will simply drop it again.

I actually requested that you respond to the second thread I posted rather than this one because I thought more interesting points were brought up there, but there's some interesting stuff to discuss here as well, and you did take the time to respond. Still, if you feel like going back to the other thread at some point I wouldn't mind dropping this one.

Originally posted by Jesse

Ok, by what standards are you judging "critical" or "investigative"? This would be quite subjective, I'd think. Having been reading a lot more foreign papers because of this Iraq war, I've gotten the sense that the average European paper is just as likely to be

Gurdur:
Just what European papers are you referring to ?

Mostly English papers. Of the ones you mentioned, I do sometimes read the guardian, and also the BBC's online articles, as well as others that I happen to find links to about stories I'm interested in.

Jesse:
In any case, to me having my own personal freedom of speech enshrined in the law is a lot more important than the quality of the average newspaper, or the average tolerance for atheism in the community, etc.

Gurdur:
Then you are either missing or evading the point.
A written right is useless if it is not in practice.

What do you mean by "in practice"? As long as it is legally enforced it doesn't matter much to me if the majority of the community or media is engaging in self-censorship of one kind or another, because as I said the country is large enough that I can always self-select people and media sources that do not.

Gurdur:
A community which practises certain rights is more worthwhile than a community with rights enshrined on paper, but not in daily life.

That's just an assertion on your part. I agree that if a society universally failed to practice certain rights, that might be as bad as official censorship. But to me, maximizing the diversity of allowable viewpoints or forms of artistic expression is more important than the narrowness of tastes of the "average" member of society.

Consider two hypothetical societies and their views on religion. In society A, the population is 90% fundies who consider all but a very narrow range of religious views to be taboo. However the other 10% is very free-thinking and open to discussing even the most extreme or sacriligious viewpoint, and their right to do so is enshrined in society A's legal system. In society B, the average member of the population is a lot more "liberal" in terms of religious views which are acceptable to discuss, but the most freethinking segment of the population is forbidden by law to publically voice views which are considered "too extreme" by the majority of society, like "belief in Christianity is every bit as stupid as belief in the tooth fairy."

Which of these societies would you prefer, society A or society B? In A the range of views discussed by society as a whole is wider while the range of views discussed by the "average" member of society is narrower, while in society B the reverse is true. For me, society A is definitely the preferable one. I care more about what the tail of the bell curve in terms of open-mindedness and "freethinking" are permitted to discuss, what kinds of art they're permitted to create and view, than I do where the middle of the bell curve happens to be like. Partly this may be because I identify with this tail in terms of myself and the people I socialize with or the people who write the books I read, but also because I think a small segment of the population with the most unusual views, and the most ability to break free of mainstream thought, contributes a lion's share to the intellectual and artistic life of society as a whole. So to me, safeguarding the rights of this small segment of the population is more important than the narrow-mindedness of the average member of society.

Gurdur:
You should go read the Constitution of The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics ---- a beautiful piece of paper, enshrined in law (supposedly), not worth topo much at all in daily life.

Right, because it wasn't legally enforced. Again, it's important to distinguish between societies that don't enforce certain legal rights and societies that do enforce them legally but where there happens to be a lot of social pressure to stay within certain narrow limits.

Jesse:
Rights are more important than community to me--I can always self-select the people I hang out with or the newspapers I read, it doesn't really make a difference what the "national average" is, but laws apply to everyone.

Gurdur:
Again, you are missing or evading the point; at a certain level, you would not be free in a community to "self-select the people you hang out with or the newspapers you read" if that community exerts eough pressure --- not through law but simply socially and economically --- upon you. And written rights can be worth bugger all in such situations.

If my legal right to do so was enforced, you're right that I'm missing the point about how somehow social or economic pressure would prevent me from doing so. For example, if I wanted to read a certain book or look at a certain webpage, and I had a legal right to do so but society frowned on the viewpoints it contained, how would social or economic pressure stop me from doing so? Can you give me a concrete scenario here?

Jesse:
What does "freedom from religion" mean, exactly? Doesn't taxpayer money go to funding the churches in these countries? What about stuff like this?

Gurdur:
Actaully,not all that much, and the taxes that go to the churches are purely voluntary in Sweden and Germany, meaning you do not have to pay the tax if you do not wish to.

OK, I guess I don't have much problem with it if it's completely voluntary. Is it a hassle to get an exemption or do you just have to check a box or something? Also, could I choose to have the tax go any religious institution I wished or is my alternative between paying the tax and having it go to the "official" church or not paying the tax at all? If the latter, it seems that this setup probably would lead to the church getting more money than they would if all donations were made privately without any being built into the tax system.

[b]Jesse:
Also, "hate speech" laws could easily be applied to harsh condemnations of a particular religion. I have seen a few religious groups take exactly this tact...[/b

Gurdur:
They can be, but tend not to be.
It's called the evolution of common law, as well as statute law, and represents the outcome of practical living compromises between all segments of the populations, as well as ever-developing ethics.

What does "tend not to be" mean though? Is it conceivable that some of more scathing comments people make about various religions on Internet Infidels could get them accused of "hate speech" if they published it in one of these countries?

Again, my preference is for clear legal rights rather than trusting that community standards will never "develop" in a direction that leads to censorship of views I consider legitimate topics for debate.

Jesse:
In this case I agree, although for me this issue is not as fundamentally important as freedom of speech--I think governments should have a right to keep some information secret for a certain amount of time, although there should probably be legal limits to this.

Gurdur:
Strawman. Sweden keeps some info private, but makes far more public than the UK or the USA.
I prefer Sweden; I like to know what's going on.

What's a strawman? I wasn't claiming that the US was superior in this regard, I think it could stand to be a lot more transparent, and I wouldn't be surprised if other countries are better at this. But as I said, for me this is a lower priority than the freedom of speech issue. Just my opinion.

Jesse:
...I would guess that most of the infidels who complain about being atheists in a sea of fundies are from 'red states', as I have encountered very few fundies in my entire life).

Gurdur:
I refer you to the constant fears of theocracy and social pressure complained about by Americans constantly on this board.
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"

OK, but I thought we were talking about what the US is like now, not people's speculations about what it might become.

Jesse:
Calling someone by an ethnic slur may not be so important a freedom (though keeping certain words forbidden strikes me as quite Orwellian), but I do think it is fundamentally important that one should be able to advocate any ideology or belief system, no matter how "hateful." That is neither licentiousness nor anarchy.

Gurdur:
You've merely repeated a canard, a strawman, and your own (American) prejudice.

How can it be a "canard" or a "strawman" just to state what I think about what's important? And I'd prefer if you dropped the mind-reading business, you have no way of knowing to what extent this view is a product of my "American prejudice" and to what extent it's a product of intellectual arguments, like beliefs about the importance of Popper's "open society" and the need for a Darwinian free-for-all in the world of ideas, beliefs about human nature and society (see my earlier comments about small fractions of the population contributing most to the intellectual life of society, for example), etc. I don�t even know myself�it�s hard to know the exact origins of one�s own beliefs. But I bet you would protest strongly if I dismissed some of your beliefs by saying they were not really well-thought out and were just a product of "European prejudice".

Gurdur:
Think opf it this way:

1. we are talking about public speech.

2. In public speech, there are legal remedies against libel and slander. even in the USA

3. And therefore in public speech, it can be seen as merely an extension of that to outlaw the libellling or slandering of entire ethnic groups --- especially when history has provided so many good illustrations of just why such hate agitprop has no place in public life.

But what about "slander" of groups defined by a common set of beliefs, like Christians, or, say, republicans? How about comments that certain cultures are superior to others in some respects? Where do you draw the line between criticism of ideas and practices vs. "slander" of individuals?

In most cases of ethnically-based "hate speech" you find a mix of hating a group for their genotype and hating them for their culture. I think criticism of cultures, no matter how ignorant or unfounded, should be protected, because there is no way to draw a clear line between legitimate criticisms of culture (like, �female circumcision is wrong�) to ignorant criticisms of culture.

I�m also not sure that history favors the "some speech is so inflammatory it must be censored" view over the "the best way to fight bad ideas is by pitting them against good ideas" view. You can�t really use any totalitarian regimes as examples that show the first view has been proven right and the second proven wrong, because such regimes invariable censored the good ideas that could have opposed their own bad ideas.

Jesse:
....I just think that the right to advocate even the most abhorrent of belief systems is absolutely essential. .... the danger of a "slippery slope" is quite real.

Gurdur:
Your problem, not mine.
The slippery slope fallacy is just that.

I don�t think it�s always a fallacy when applied to human societies, since do sometrimes take things to extremes. How about the fear that the current U.S. administration�s policies might represent a slide towards fascism or theocracy�what is that if not a slippery slope argument? But I have seen you express sympathy for this view in other PD threads.

Gurdur:
Please point out any real instances of your supposed dangers in Germany, Sweden or the UK.

On the other thread I pointed to an example of what to me was pretty clearly censorship taken too far, namely the banning of "A Clockwork Orange" in England from 1971 to 2000.

Gurdur:
Like I said, I far prefer the freedoms of the rest of the Western world to the USA's hyper-religious, hyper-nationalist maunderings on 'freedom' of speech at an inconsequential level of pseudo-principalled pap masquerading as substance.


Jesse:
So my belief in freedom of speech is simply due to my hyper-religiosity and hyper-nationalism, eh? I suppose this profile would fit the average ACLU member as well?

Gurdur:
*yawn*
Did I say you were hyper-religious ?
hmmm ?

No, but you tarred the entirety of US opinion with the same broad brush, and in your latest response you claimed that my opinion was a product of "American prejudice." I suspect that you do think this "prejudice" you diagnose in me is a direct product of a hyper-religious and hyper-nationalistic culture, even if I am not guilty of these things myself (never mind that the writers of the constitution who thought freedom of speech was so important were a product of the enlightenment, and that historically the left has been a much stronger defender of free speech than the right!)

In any case, my comment above was meant to be sarcastic, not a literal paraphrase of your beliefs. Compare to the comment you made earlier:

The suggestion that those who oppose hate speech laws do so because they sympathize with "the poor little neo-Nazi boys" would be a lot more offensive, as misreprentations go, than the claim that you think I�m hyper-religious. But I guess we were both just indulging in a little sarcasm.

Mike Rosoft

On the other thread I pointed to an example of what to me was pretty clearly censorship taken too far, namely the banning of "A Clockwork Orange" in England from 1971 to 2000.

In fact, the Clockwork Orange was NEVER banned in the UK. It was passed X without cuts in 1971, withdrawn by the film's director in 1973, and once again passed 18 uncut in 1999. Try looking here or here for the official documents of BBFC.


Mike Rosoft

meritocrat

It depends on how one defines freedom. Were Jews free in the Third Reich? Do North Koreans have much economic freedom? Do the Chinese have many personal freedoms?

Misso

Freedom of speech is always very tricky. Most countries have freedom of speech in their constitution (even China) but it all comes down to how it's excecuted.

In the 2002 annual survey on press freedom (The Freedomhouse), the US (16 points on a 0-100 scale with the higher, the worse) comes out worse than most Western countries. The Scandinavian countries all score 8-10, Belgium scores 9, Switserland 8. Even Germany (15) scores better than the US, despite it's constant and ongoing censorship of everything Nazi-related. Freedom of press is a very substantial part of freedom of speech.


That's ultra-hypothetical, and I don't think worth considering. No society with 90% fundies will make laws that go against what they believe in, not if it's a democracy.
And even if total freedom of speech was provided in the law, what would the deal be the excecution of it? If 90% is fundie, it's most likely that 85-95% of the channels through which to spread opinions are in the hands of fundies, that 85-95% of the policeforce and justice-system is fundie, etc. There would be no stimulus to abide by these laws from the side of the fundies.
This can even be seen in the US, where fundamental Christians murder abortiondoctors, whether these doctors operate within the law or not. And this is in a society with far less than 90% fundies.


As for seperation of church and state, I think there are quite a lot of (western) countries where this is executed more properly than in the US.


Belgian constitution , article 19.
German constitution , article 5.
Dutch constitution , article 7.1 and 7.3.
Danish constitution, section 77
etc. etc. (some more can be found at http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/index)

Jesse

Misso:
Freedom of speech is always very tricky. Most countries have freedom of speech in their constitution (even China) but it all comes down to how it's excecuted.

Agreed, although I do think it matters how the right to free speech is actually spelled out in the constitution (see the bottom of this post).

Misso:
In the 2002 annual survey on press freedom (The Freedomhouse), the US (16 points on a 0-100 scale with the higher, the worse) comes out worse than most Western countries. The Scandinavian countries all score 8-10, Belgium scores 9, Switserland 8. Even Germany (15) scores better than the US, despite it's constant and ongoing censorship of everything Nazi-related. Freedom of press is a very substantial part of freedom of speech.

Well, the report did say they took into account non-governmental factors like the degree to which the major media outlets are owned by a small number of large corporations--as I've said, to me things like this are not that important as long as those who are motivated to look for alternative news sources can self-select the ones they choose to read. On the other hand, the report also said that the U.S.'s rating had gone down significantly since 2001 because of the "war on terrorism" and actual wars like the ones in Afghanistan and Iraq, which involved situations where the government actually stepped in and said there were certain things the media couldn't report on. I have mixed feelings about this because on the one hand I recognize the government's desire to keep the media from reporting things like troop positions, but on the other hand my feeling is that the government is going too far in this direction and restricting the media's ability to report stories that would not seriously compromise any lives if they were made public. So, in this respect, I agree that US freedom of the press currently falls short of my ideal.

Jesse:
Consider two hypothetical societies and their views on religion. In society A, the population is 90% fundies who consider all but a very narrow range of religious views to be taboo. However the other 10% is very free-thinking and open to discussing even the most extreme or sacriligious viewpoint, and their right to do so is enshrined in society A's legal system. In society B, the average member of the population is a lot more "liberal" in terms of religious views which are acceptable to discuss, but the most freethinking segment of the population is forbidden by law to publically voice views which are considered "too extreme" by the majority of society, like "belief in Christianity is every bit as stupid as belief in the tooth fairy."

Misso:
That's ultra-hypothetical, and I don't think worth considering. No society with 90% fundies will make laws that go against what they believe in, not if it's a democracy.

The scenario itself was meant to be "ultra-hypothetical", an exaggerated imaginary situation that I was using to bring out the issue I was pointing to as clearly as possible, a bit like the outlandish thought-experiments philosophers are always coming up with. But in more general terms, the issue I'm talking about is the total range of ideas and art that all members of society (including those that depart most from the mainstream, the ones at the 'tail of the bell curve' as I put it earlier earlier) are allowed to make public vs. the open-mindedness of the "average" member of society. My hypothetical scenario may not have been realistic, but I think it is realistic to say that one society can be more open in the first sense but less open in the second sense, and my view is that openness in the first sense is the more important of the two. As I said earlier, I think it's the most "freethinking" people that contribute the most to the intellectual and artistic life of a society, and assuring their freedom is more important than making sure that the "average joe" is not too closeminded.

Misso:
And even if total freedom of speech was provided in the law, what would the deal be the excecution of it? If 90% is fundie, it's most likely that 85-95% of the channels through which to spread opinions are in the hands of fundies, that 85-95% of the policeforce and justice-system is fundie, etc. There would be no stimulus to abide by these laws from the side of the fundies.
This can even be seen in the US, where fundamental Christians murder abortiondoctors, whether these doctors operate within the law or not. And this is in a society with far less than 90% fundies.

Yes, I take your point that the two issues I describe above are not totally independent--in a democratic society, if too large a fraction of society is very closeminded and censorious, then any freedoms that the fringes have will probably not last very long. On the other hand, laws are more than just a reflection of the whims of the public--although it's likely that a 90% majority could change the laws in any way it pleased, a smaller majority would not have such unlimited power, and so there are cases where laws can protect a minority's rights from a majority that would prefer to take them away (I'm sure one could find plenty of cases where the supreme court made a decision that the majority of the public would disagree with if it was their choice).

Misso:
As for seperation of church and state, I think there are quite a lot of (western) countries where this is executed more properly than in the US.

You may be right, I haven't looked at how separation of church & state works in every western country, but I do think it's true that a number of major european countries have inadequate church/state separation (pretty much every country with an official state church, for example).

Jesse:
Many (most? all?) European countries have laws against various forms of "hate speech" (...) and I don't think any have anything resembling a constitutional guarantee of the right to free speech.

Misso:
Belgian constitution , article 19.
German constitution , article 5.
Dutch constitution , article 7.1 and 7.3.
Danish constitution, section 77
etc. etc. (some more can be found at http://www.oefre.unibe.ch/law/icl/index)

Of these, both Germany and Belgium add some qualifications to free speech which seem a bit ambiguous to me. Here�s Germany�s article on free speech:

But then it immediately goes on to say:

I assume "personal honor" refers to things like libel laws, but I don�t know whether "provisions for the protection of youth" would justify censoring things from the population as a whole on the chance that youths might see it (violent video games or movies, for example), and the qualification about "provisions of general statutes" sounds like it could be used to justify just about any form of censorship (but I haven�t studied Germal constitutional law so I may be interpreting it wrong).

Here�s Belgium�s freedom-of-expression article:

What would qualify as an "offense committed when using this freedom"? Could "hate speech" count, for example? The Dutch and Danish constitutions seemed to offer more unqualified free speech guarantees, but I�d like to find out how these guarantees are applied in practice. As you said at the beginning of your post, it does all come down to how it�s executed, since constitutional guarantees tend to be short on details. The first amendment of the US constitution would seem to protect all forms of speech, for example, but historically the US has always had libel laws (although this article indicates there is some legal controversy about this, since �Former Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote passionately that no law meant no law and that, as such, all libel laws violate the First Amendment.�) Still, I think lawmakers will at least tend to take their cue from the constitution, so the more unambiguous the phrasing of a right to free speech is, the more likely they are to err on the side of being more permissive.