>>>>But Peter, you still haven't told us where these rules come from. If you make them up, then they will make sense to you and not to somebody else. If someone else makes them up, then you may hate them. You keep talking about 'sensible' and 'good' rules. Your 'sensible' and 'good' may be somebody else's 'nonsens' and 'bad'.
>>>>
>>>>The greatest problem with this sort of argument is that when one talks of sensible, good rules, one is always talking about rules of which he/she would approve, and excluding rules of which he/she would not approve.
>>>>
>>>>So, I still come back to where these rules come from. Who gets to make them up? If it's me, then ok, I'll go along with the concept. Otherwise, I'm probably going to be opposed.
>>>
>>>
>>>Neither my rules nor yours. How about the laws and acts that are already there? Or are they not okay? Don't you trust the laws of your own country? (The U.S. laws and acts are not wellknown to me.)
>>
>>Our laws allow a whole heck of a lot of latitude to say things others will find offensive, and I'm happy with that. Unfortunately, with the new anti-terrorism stuff coming down the pipe, that may change, and we'll all have to be careful about what we say in a public (or in some cases, even private) forum.
>
>From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech#United_States
>[...] it is true that in terms of purely political or religious speech, and freedom of the (printed) press, the U.S. experiences significantly less censorship than some other countries. For instance, a U.S. newspaper may freely express opinions which in other places might be criminalized as "hate speech," and organizations dedicated to such speech may freely march and speak in public (after having complied with all relevant content-neutral regulations). For these reasons, the Web services of most neo-nazis organizations, and most Holocaust deniers, etc. are hosted in the United States. This is a point of contention with some other countries and some groups, which point out that these organizations advocate policies that historically resulted in the deprivation of free speech and democratic rights, as well as the mass extermination of millions.
>
>A text that worries me has been made bold by me.

Peter, don't get me wrong. I too detest these ideas and ideologies. How would it make sense to say those groups may not exercise freedom of expression because they were responsible for denying freedom of expression. Shall we make ourselves in their image and deny freedom of expression?

There are laws about spreading outright lies about an identifiable group, and for the most part, those laws in Canada are enforced. That is why holocaust deniers are not tolerated well in Canada. We also have laws about liable and slander, but we have to make sure we do not cross the line of deeming ideas and opinions as 'lies' just so we can suppress them.