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The First Amendment is so fundamental to my American understanding of liberty, that I'm dumfounded to learn that a developed country like France has a law that says it is illegal to write a paper summarizing someone's publicly expressed political views.

How different is their concept of liberty that they would even consider a law against compiling public facts?

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Perhaps they too should create blacklists of suspected communists to be reported to the government for extrajudicial consequences. Then France can enjoy freedom like America.

FWIW, everybody pretty much agrees that McCarthyism was bad. And, more importantly, it's a thing of the past. To be honest, litigating present issues by citing the past positions of people who are now mostly dead is kind of odd and nonsensical.

Whataboutism is unwise.

Also, a "blacklist" is little more than a name for a list of boycott targets. Boycotts, and the expression of who to boycott, are fundamental to liberty. That liberty results in people using liberty for good and for bad is not a sensible reason to dismiss liberty.

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