Having lived and worked in Yurop and the UK it infuriates me that many of my fellow Americans have no understanding, appreciation or gratitude for this. Lefty protestors bleating about their 'rights' being violated make me want to fedpost.
It's why I always personally encourage protesters in the US to take their brave words and antics to other countries they're upset with. I never say it in a mocking "I dare you -- you don't have the balls" fashion either; I genuinely encourage it. Please, feminists, go to your beloved Iran to protest their mistreatment of women. By all means, rainbow brigade dangerhairs, go to [any Muslim-majority country] to protest their mistreatment of homosexuals/queers/alphabet members. Fascism fighters, go have it out with those dirty right-wingers trying to infest, oh, I dunno, Italy, or Spain, or China, or even India. Give 'em what for! It's the only way they'll learn.
I'll sit back reading the news of your arrests (or more likely, disappearances) in the air conditioned comfort of my American home.
It doesn't exist in any meaningful fashion if only a precious few have it (in a fashion that can be "withdrawn" retroactively, as you so helpfully point out:
The link you provide says it only protects them within Parliament, but it also extends beyond it. Again, it's a privilege enjoyed only by MPs and the like, even party leaders. It's why they couldn't officially "charge"
Oswald Mosley in the 1940s, though they did "intern" him.
That's not "free speech." That's legal shielding from political enemies within their elite playground. It's nothing to do with the common man.
but mostly to punctuate why I resent the idea the UK "never had freedom of speech" or anything that amounts to it. The reason being is it belittles the fact we did have it, and until fairly recently too. It makes the notion of regaining it far more possible because of how easily it was stolen in the first place. It's not some mythological right that we could only gleam from across the Atlantic in envy, it was taken by a government
If it was "taken," it was not yours to begin with. That's the fundamental difference. We (the US)
did invent our interpretation of "freedom of speech," and it remains unique in this world because literally everyone else treats it like a trinket to be awarded to the proles at the State's discretion. It is not. The UK never had it like we do. It was taken, for example. It cannot be taken by the US government. It is not a "take-able" thing. Trying to "take" it is a criminal act in the US, codified in US law and punishable accordingly. Infringement of civil rights is, in fact, one of the few things that can penetrate "qualified immunity" for government officials, in fact. Yes, attempts are routinely made to weasel around it (i.e. government agencies leaning on social media to censor certain topics or ban problematic people), but that can be fought and punished when proven.
Our Constitution and its Amendments don't give us rights. It
recognizes existing rights that we're born with and possess innately as human beings, then forbids the government from infringing them. The language is absurdly clear throughout the document (which makes every absurd, tortured twisting of it by the Supreme Court over the years the most disgusting display of judicial malpractice in human history):
"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."
Nothing there says "oh yeah you have the right to free speech, we hereby give it to you." It says "you already
have freedom of speech, which we expressly forbid anyone from ever fucking with, and explicitly -- by law -- forbid ourselves from ever infringing with law, word or deed within the government."
That is special, and fundamentally unique in the world. No other government does this (with the kind of force of word ours does -- again, imitators like the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, don't even come close). No other nation in the world starts defining its relationship with its citizens (well, "subjects" elsewhere on Earth; very few nations strike me as having "citizens" instead of "subjects") by explicitly recognizing
what the people automatically start with and forbidding itself from ever fucking with those rights.
I don't casually say "nobody has free speech except us" as a pithy insult or a "yay USA!" chant. I don't say it to hurt or insult you or anyone else. I say it because it's the truth, and it's really fucking important for people to understand that. What we have is unique, special, and worth protecting and defending (with violence if necessary, as the Second Amendment protects and the Civil War proved), warts and all. You literally cannot say or do things anywhere else in the world that you can in the US without risking actual, literal death or, at least, endless legal trouble from whatever state whose laws you're subject to.
Whether that method of recognizing rights and protecting them makes for a livable, functional society is still an ongoing endurance test. The United States has lasted a lot longer than anyone expected, and even though agents of evil and hatred routinely abuse our rights and freedoms to destabilize this nation, it has still withstood the test of time like almost no other country on earth ever has. The United Kingdom is older than the United States (obviously), but it is not a nation that serves, protects or cares about its subjects. It views them as property, chattel ... "subjects" with responsibilities to exploit, not citizens with rights and freedoms to protect. It is hostile to its people, and is a dying nation. The muzzies and jeets will be fighting over a corpse soon, not a functioning first-world country.
