Korean Job Discussion Forums

[therooster]

[congee]

Amusing things Americans say regarding America:

[unknown9398]

[Newbie]

[Geckoman]

Is Canada a free country? HELL NO!

Canada is most definitely not a free country for those who live in Quebec!

For generations the people of Quebec have been denied their right to
self-determination!

Quebec is a repressed colony of "English Canada"!

If Canada was as free as English Canadians would have you believe, why do the people of Quebec want to become free and independent?!

If Canada was as free as English Canadians would have you believe, why have the people of Quebec been denied their civil rights and rights of self-determination?!

And these crimes against humanity have been going on for generations!

FREE QUEBEC!

CANADA IS A IMPERIALISTIC REPRESSIVE NATION!

FREE QUEBEC!

[dogshed]

[dogshed]

[HighTreason]

[The Bobster]

[JZer]

[flakfizer]

Some one mentioned Americans saying things like, "You'd all be speaking German if it weren't for us." That reminded of, "A Fish Called Wanda:"

[yawarakaijin]

[Geckoman]

[Geckoman]

FACT: Canada has a lesser degree of freedom of speech than the US.

I was in Seattle, Washington, USA, or Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a few years ago. I can't remember which city it was. And I was reading in the local newspaper about the investigation of Robert William Pickton, who is a Canadian who lives in British Columbia and who was arrested for being a serial killer. He lived on a farm and had apparently tortured and killed lots of woman on his farm. The case was very very disturbing. A Canadian judge or some legal judicial authority had ruled for the press to not release certain details about the crime to the public, saying that it might make the public bias against the accused, and hence effect his trial. But the American journalists where like: "It's freedom of speech. We can release these things in our country, and we will." So the article was about concern by Canadian authorities that American journalists would print and release information that the Canadian judge, or some legal judicial authority, had ruled illegal to release, and that that information would come up to Canada, and then Canadians would know about it, thereby defeating the intended purpose of the decision to restrict certain information from being released to the public.

Sure in the US there is such a thing as a "gag order" which "is intended to limit freedom of the press, as by instituting censorship or restricting access to information."

BUT in the US:

"In the United States, a court can only order parties to a case not to comment on it; a court has no authority to stop unrelated reporters from reporting on a case. Most statutes which restrict what may be reported have generally been found unconstitutional and void."

Hence, the US has a larger degree of freedom of speech than in Canada.

Source of my quotes above from Wikipedia.com: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order

Article about the Robert William Pickton case from Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070121/ap_on_re_ca/canada_serial_killer

The US also has a greater degree of freedom of speech than in Germany where it is illegal to publish or say that the Holocost did not happen. An academic who published a Holocaust denial book was recently sent to prison in Germany.

The US also has a greater degree of freedom of speech than in South Korea where it is illegal to publish or say that the US intervention in the Korean War was due to American imperialism. A academic who published a book that claimed such a belief was recently prosecuted and found guilty. I do not remember if he received jail time or not but I am quite confident that he did.

While I disagree with Holocaust deniers and the America--intervened-in-the-Korea-War-because-of-American-imperialism opinion, or any other type of rewriting of history, I believe in the freedom of speech and so disagree with the result of those two cases. All human beings have the right to say and publish whatever they want. Americans understand that.

[Dysupes]

Sure, except for when the issues are present in American society and are at a boiling point (read embedded journalists in the American military during the war in Iraq). It's fine to say "We are free to say whatever we want" except that that isn't true in some cases and you know it as well as the rest of us do.