> Surely I won't be jailed for calling anybody -- even our president -- a goat fucker.
If you called a judge a "goat fucker" in their court room, I suspect you would be in some hot water.
One could argue there's not a huge leap between rules/laws requiring respectful behavior towards judges in a court room and a law requiring respectful behavior towards world leaders...
Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted -- I'm not defending the German law, just pointing out that it's not that different from contempt-of-court punishments in the US.
I agree. People in the United States have gone to jail for insulting someone if that someone happens to be a judge, but for some reason everyone is up in arms over a world leader doing the same thing. I think it's ridiculous that I have to sit or stand or call someone "your honor" just because it's a guy wearing a robe that's involved. Any US citizen that thinks what Merkel is doing is wrong should take a second look at their own free speech limitations.
Here's a girl in the United States who had a judge raise her bail just because she said "adios" instead of "bye", and then put her in jail for a month for saying "fuck you": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rrRGhvpEjo
In line with Hustler magazine v Falwell, a reasonable person would not think Barack Obama actually does that.
Now, in an unfortunate turn of events should Cruz become POTUS I don't know if such a statement would be seen differently because I'd believe that he does do that.
If you called a judge a "goat fucker" in their court room, I suspect you would be in some hot water.
One could argue there's not a huge leap between rules/laws requiring respectful behavior towards judges in a court room and a law requiring respectful behavior towards world leaders...
Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted -- I'm not defending the German law, just pointing out that it's not that different from contempt-of-court punishments in the US.