Alzoc

I agree that those thing takes time to mature, several generations. Legislations are just here to put an upper limit on what the society find acceptable and of course over time those lines will move and so will the law. Don't worry I don't want to^^ The main reason being the rampant puritanism (which is also sadly slowly contaminating our society as well). But well in the end different society, you guys just live the way you want and so do we. There are things that you find unacceptable in our society and there are thing I (we) find unacceptable in yours. And everybody will think that their solution is better^^

I can do it no problem. I just don't have to be a dick while doing so that's all there is about it. That actually an assault on a person depository of the authority of the State. Obviously we have the right to defend ourselves, we simply don't want for everybody and his mother to carry lethal tools around all the time. Whatever limitations we have on our rights, we agreed to it through our representatives. Therefore said limitations are perfectly legitimates, we as a People agreed that those limitations were necessary to reduce the mess while saying that another is unacceptable. And I don't understand that you can't wrap your head around the fact that Justice being independent it doesn't care whether or not political prejudices are caused while investigating a politician. That their political adversary will benefit from it is true but the law is the law, and if we are unhappy with it we will simply change it through democratical means.

And that's in an ideal world where every single citizen is well educated mature and responsible. Which is obviously not the case in any country. Of course you have to legislate on it or else it's unpractical and you get something chaotic and non-functional. The problem is that not everybody is capable to detect that what the person said is stupid, false or insane. So ofc they will suffer some social backslash, but if they are good orators/manipulator they will have convinced tons of weak minded peoples which incidently also have the right to vote (and that's perfectly normal, they are citizens like anyone else don't get me wrong on this). Not putting any limit to the freedom of speech is basically giving away democracy to who is the best liar or the one that shout higher than anyone else. Results would be devastating. And of course they will talk about it in private, those peoples have their freedom of though regardless of how stupid their ideas are. But in private they will do far less damage saying stupid stuff than in public. Of course we agree that extremism is bad, no matter where it comes from. Generally something will be considered hate speech when you'll point at an entire population and say "Hey every single of them is responsible for this" (basically what Hitler did with the Jews). It's fine to say that we have problem with the most conservative fringe of islam because they refuse to bend to the Republic, but it's not to say that every single muslim do so and is a latent terrorist. Our view on secularism is fundamentally different that in any anglo-saxon country. Basically we refuse any kind of communitarianism, you have to be French first and foremost, religion being a strictly private matter. And as you said there is a lot of ambiguity there as the law of 1905 is aimed at making sure that the State don't interfere with religion and that religion don't interfere with politics while providing freedom of religion. Nothing more, nothing less. But de facto, society consider that you have to exerts some discretion and not publicly show that you belong to one religion or another. You can have a small cross, or a Hamsa around your neck, a kipa on your head when you are going to the temple, no problem. But unless you are priest, a rabin or an imam, people will look at you the wrong way if you go out in the public space wearing an attire saying "Hey I'm from X religion and that define me before being a citizen of the Republic". It will be considered as "aggressive". Some people consider islamic veil as offensive as well, personally I'm fine with it as long as it is a light, coloured cloth which tends to show that it's not a sign of submission to a religion (or social pressure) but rather a choice based on personal convictions. Besides peoples are in general perfectly fine with a kipa, which is also a piece of cloth one put on his head so on what ground would we refuse a similarly light piece of cloth to muslim? Finally you have to remember that France is an extremely irreligious country. Recent polls show that about 50% considered themselves Christian (and for most of them very loosely, like never going to the church unless it's for weddings or funerals, just vaguely believing in god), 40% are atheist, 6% Muslim, less than 1% Jew and then the rest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_France#Demographics Being religious is more and more considered as an outdated thing, and statistic by ages show that. The only religion that is growing is Islam, and it remain marginal. Granted that's a religion with which we have a disproportionate number of problem compared to the number of believers. But in the meantime it's also a very new religion in France, with time I have all confidence that it's political part will be subdued, to leave only the spiritual part.

Because the US society consider showing raw images of crimes as normal. We don't think that one have to make publicity for criminals to show how wrong they are. Actually, in this case, pretty much everybody cared, from the left to the right and even outside the political circle. Quelques semaines après les sanglants attentats de Paris et Saint-Denis le 13 novembre 2015 (130 morts et des centaines de blessés), ces publications avaient immédiatement soulevé un tollé au sein de la gauche, alors au gouvernement, et de la droite, mais aussi au-delà du monde politique. "A few weeks after the bloody terror attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis on 2015 November the 13th (130 dead and hundreds of wounded), those publications had immediately raised an outrage of the left, at this time at the government, and of the right, but also beyond the political world" But that's beside the point. Everybody is supposed to know the law and everybody is accountable for what they say. Justice will then decide independently based on the applicable law and case law. If either the accusation or the defendent are not happy with the judgement they can appeal to the decision. If they are still not happy, they can pass the case to a higher court. I mean rejecting the accusations from the single fact that the person that brought the case (may) have political motives is insane. That's opening the door to some serious shit: Media who put the scandal in public not from the same political color? They had political motive Democrat elector suing a Republican representative? He had political motive Doing so would be a serious breach to the equality before the law, and without it you can't say that you are in democracy anymore. Yes they gained political advantage by doing so. But it's completely decorrelated from the judgement since the Legal power is independent in his investigations and judgement as it should be.

And that's to society to decide what is acceptable or not, and we do it democratically through our representatives at the parliament and the senate. Just the exact same way that the American society refuse to put limitations on the 2nd amendment. The more I learn about the US laws, the more I have the impression that you guys lives in generalized irresponsibility. You want to have unlimited rights without the inherent and proportional responsibility that goes with it. On a side note, we don't tend to go to court over every single little thing like in the US. If something is considered obscene it had to be pretty fucked up regarding the level of tolerance of the society.

Don't you happen to have more or less the exact same limits to freedom of speech? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions Of course freedom of speech is a limited right. Nowhere in the world will you find a total freedom of speech.

But it is^^ If you are guilty, you are regardless if you are a politician. If you happen to be running an election it's your problem, don't commit crimes in the first place. Society is not responsible for it you are. Or are you telling me that citizens are not equals before the law in the US? That if you happen to be well known, or a politician you get a free pass to do whatever you want? AFAIK that's not the case.

The fact that a political opponent brought it to the justice is completely irrelevant. Anyone else would have done it, the result would have been the same. A citizen brought the thing to justice and the judge, based on the evidence decided that it was enough to open an investigation which led to a trial where she was found guilty. The judge could have well said that they was no case because there wasn't enough evidences, or that atfer investigation it appeared that said images were not braking the law. All citizens are equals in front of the law. Period^^ It's just like François Fillon (republican right wing candidate for the presidential election) who also stole public money and it was reported by an investigation newspaper. He then tried to portrait himself as a victim of a cabal orchestrated by the left wing and the media but the thing is we don't care. Justice did her job, investigated and he was found guilty. The fact that he was running for the presidential election at the time was completely irrelevant. All citizens are equal in front of the law. Had he won the election he would had have immunity for 5 years (only to be prosecuted at the end of his mandate), but he lost and was found guilty.

I think I'm having a hard time explaining myself. She wasn't sentenced for what she said, rather for the way she did. Freedom of speech is a basic right, but you can't use as an excuse to profess insanity so there are indeed limits (and said limits are built within the law which have been voted by the representatives of the Nation) Limits are: Do not attempt to the private life or the right to image of an individual Do not say anything that is strictly forbidden by the law (Incitations to racial/ethnic/religious hate, apology of war crimes or terrorism, discrimination based on sexual orientation or handicap, incitations to use drugs, denial of holocaust and others) No defamation (unless you bring proof of your allegations, exception with private life see above) Do not insult peoples for the sake of it (i.e without bringing any facts) Professional secret, Military secrets, business secrets Devoir de réserve: Basically if you are a State employee or part of the military you're not supposed to try to influence political opinions, you're here to serve the Nation regardless of who runs it (in private they can do whatever they want ofc, but not when at the job) If you think somebody broke the rules, you can sue them. Justice, as an independent power, will decide whether the law have been broken or not.

Well the minister of the interior (who is politically opposed to here party) did brought the images to the judge. But then the judge alone decided whether or not diffusing said images was illegal or not, in complete autonomy. Any citizen could have sued her for that. And the only reason it took so long for here to be found guilty (the facts date all the way back to 2015) is because she had immunity since she was elected at the parliament. So for justice to press forward the parliament had first to vote to lift her immunity.

Well that's what she was trying to do, and honestly the journalist had no business comparing FN to ISIS (they're both shitty but definitively not on the same level) she could have just sued the guy in defamation, and she most likely would have won. But not she had to use degrading violent images just for the sake or creating a bad buzz, and then try to put herself in the position of the victim.

Basically they steal public money at every level possible. Like creating shelf company to sell overpriced campaign material to their candidates during elections, they then pass it as a campaign expense to get reimbursed by the State. Then they just terminate the shelf company and get double the money. Or declaring assistant at the European parliament but said assistant never show up to work and their salary get reinjected in the party instead. The whole Le Pen family (Jean-Marie, Marine, Marion-Maréchal) is basically a bunch of thief who maid stealing public money a profession (on top of broking the law on discriminations, holocaust denial, etc).

We do, simply don't have to be vulgar doing so just for the sake of it.

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?idArticle=LEGIARTI000023711920&cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719 Basically she had every right to respond to the journalist that made a parallel between her party and ISIS, which even if the FN is trash level far right xenophobic party with history of holocaust denial (which is also punishable by the law and her father have been found guilty countless time for it) they're not ISIS level. The problem is that she put gore image of ISIS degrading human beings (Syrian soldier run over by a tank, a Jordanian pilot burned alive, an American journalist with his severed head put on display over his own body) on public display and basically this law is here to protect minors from seeing it. She could just had said that ISIS do that kind of thing and that indeed her party cannot be compared to them and that would had been fine. We know ISIS are barbarians, no need to put their work on display.

She broke the law (as usual one might say). And most likely she did it knowingly (or for her partisan I hope since, she didn't shown much intelligence during the presidential debate) so she can tell she is the victim of some sort of vendetta (orchestrated by the media ofc) against her. You have know idea how corrupt is her party^^

And they haven't even seen what we have in France (we take it to an extreme level)^^ LFI : Guy wanted to establish a "press ethic comity" (read as press control comity), establish a constituent assembly to create the VIth Republic (and we all know what happen when extremist party want to rewrite the constitution), love for Chavez and Putin, Eurosceptic, anti capitalist, anti globalization, anti NATO etc NPA: The same without authoritarian tendency PCF: A genuine communist party, still existing (Yes^^) Those are real far left^^ Corbyn would still be mild compared to some of them.

That a correlation doesn't necessarily imply a cause-effect relation. That in any election in the world you'll find a strong correlation telling you that rural area tends to vote more conservative and urban area more progressive (whatever you put behind those terms in the relevant country) That there is a correlation between the percentage of the population that own guns in a state and the number of death or injury by firearm (who would have though that when you increase a population you increase the frequency of associated events?) Tons of correlations. As you said earlier gun violence is a complex problem and demographic is a an important part of it and I doubt that people voted Trump or Clinton for the exact same reasons depending on the demographic or the peculiarity (that I'm not familiar with) of a particular region.

Population density, you will notice the correlation

I raise with Flag Admiral Stabby (completely unrelated I know, but I love this humans are space orks thing^^)

That's assuming that we manage to get past our national various national prides. We already have a hard time doing so amongst ourselves^^ In itself your solution is a way to achieve stability, and it may very well happen (can't predict the future) but depending on the way it is done, the context, I fear it would fuel anti-Americanism to a level never reached before effectively turning the entire world against the US, and that would be a bad ending for everybody. I'm no sociologist but the pattern I see is that we tend to regroup in larger organization when the current ones lack the critical size to address the threat. And maybe there will be a common threat (natural, another political bloc, aliens whatever) that will lead us to unify against that threat. But I fear that we are only capable to form groups in opposition to something. That's basically the whole reason why we kept a completely independent nuclear deterrence (unlike the UK) and intend to keep modernizing it^^ Edit: Not that it is aimed particularly at the US but rather at any State that would prove to be an existential threat to us or our interests, whoever it may be^^ We know we're weak and that we can't stand on the same level than superpowers on a conventional fight. That's the whole point of nuclear deterrence and the reason why the former president Hollande stated that we would use our nuclear weapons in case of the aggression of another European Nation.

Don't get me wrong I have nothing against the US or the US government. And I reckon that we share common value. Simply that I'm not sure that our interest will remain aligned forever.

Oh yes I do^^ And I'm perfectly aware that the sole reason we are at peace right now is thanks to the US protection (French army being by far the most capable army of the EU speak volume on how weak we are compared to our overall wealth) And that's one of the major reason I'm a convinced European and that I would like to see more federalism and an unified defence. Especially because I don't trust the US or China to remain stable and well inclined toward us in the long run, even more so with an energy and climate crisis coming toward us^^ To keep the world stable we need to play at the same level than both China and the US. Economically and militarily. And we won't manage to do that by doing our stuff as scattered small nations.

Well, personally I make a strong difference between a government and republican institutions. If a government start proposing laws outside of the spirit of the constitution, said laws will be shut down by the constitutional council If things goes really wrong, protecting the Republic would be the role of the army even against our own government, like de Gaulle did (in the sense that he assumed temporary power, and rejected the Vichy government ,but left it to restore democracy). And I believe that French citizens trust their soldier to stand true to our values (2016 poll show that 87% of our Citizen have a "good image" of our army), the so called "Army-Nation" link is strong. I understand that it can be seen as a risky bet considering the history of military coup around the world. But that's the way it is. And you could add the restoration of monarchy and the two empires. I know that there are contradictions, we just seem happy with it (or simply pretend to not see them depending on your point of view).

Well nowadays I would say that it's rather our choice to entrust violence to the State because we have faith in the Republic and it's institutions. But that's my view on it, I think it is shared by most of us but I have no data I can think of at hand. And it's not like we can't have a firearm at all, in fact 32% of the population apparently own one, but it's mostly hunting weapons with smoothbore barrel and a very low shot capacity (2-3 at most) Hunting is actually a popular sport and hunters actually are officially entrusted with pest control and controlling the population of various species. But I'll come back on it later

Also I think I'll try to put together a summary of our gun laws for references. It's definitively not a topic I'm familiar with since I've never owned a gun and don't intend to but hopefully governments websites will be helpful^^