I think free speech is much stronger in the EU. No central military means no central system of classifying things and no Espionage act. Similarly, gun rights are states rights in the EU. I shot an AK47 in Poland, seems pretty liberal to me...
You can find examples where certain US states or EU states have more freedom in a certain area, but the USA has a much more absolutist view towards human rights than the EU does in general.
In the EU, rights are subservient to "the greater good" (as defined by those in power). Some examples:
Germany will arrest you for using "symbols of unconstitutional organization". This includes the Communist Hammer + Sickle[1]
France has forced many mosques closed because the government found them to be too extreme[2]
All employers in the EU have the right to ban the Hijab and any religious dress[3].
And of course, you can be arrested all over the EU for speech that is deemed hateful.
In the EU, you only have your rights within reason. Once the exercising of your rights makes other people upset, they are curtailed.
Again, the US and EU have different definitions of "human right". So depending on what you think your rights are, you make feel you have more rights in the EU than in the US. But for those things that the US decides to protect as rights, they are on average protected much stronger than in the EU.
The same exact limits apply in the USA. Freedom of speech is no more absolute there than in the EU exactly because no one wants people "shouting fire in a crowded theatre".
Similarly, in the USA you can be fired for wearing a hijab just as rapidly.
The USA has some (not all) rights well protected against government action, but your employer has vastly more right to restrict your activities. Recent rulings even allow employers to compel religion or ban lgbt etc so long as the employer is "tightly held". This is the weakness of the US system: it protects a small number of limited rights very strongly, but only a small number and only against govetent interference. The EU has a much broader approach to rights in both these dimensions.
> Freedom of speech is no more absolute there than in the EU exactly because no one wants people "shouting fire in a crowded theatre".
In the US, only direct incitements to violence and mayhem are not protected (like your example). In the EU they take this much further to outright ban all speech deemed hateful. That's not the same restriction.
> Similarly, in the USA you can be fired for wearing a hijab just as rapidly.
Absolutely false. That kind of discrimination is against the law here[1]. I'm sure it still happens, but the wronged party has the ability to fight discrimination in court. In Europe, the opposite is true. The employer has a legal right to ban Hijabs and religious dress.
> Recent rulings even allow employers to compel religion or ban lgbt etc
Can you explain this more? Any info I find says the opposite[2].
> This is the weakness of the US system: it protects a small number of limited rights very strongly, but only a small number and only against govetent interference. The EU has a much broader approach to rights in both these dimensions.
This comes back to a fundamental disagreement about what rights are. For the Bill-of-Rights type rights, Americans do have much more robust protections than Europeans, and not just from governmental interference. There is better religious / racial employee protections, you have a greater ability to defend yourself against people violating your property rights, etc.
For fluffier rights, like "the right to respect" or "the right to free $governmentService", you are better off in Europe. But they do not protect these rights to the same degree as American Bill-of-Right rights. For example, in every German citizen has the right to healthcare, but they have a compulsory insurance scheme to pay for it. They call that a 'right', but its something different than in the American definition.
