3 ms·

What exactly? I'm not sure if you're low-effort trolling, but the Hitler salute (or more accurately: a number of symbols, salutes and chants related to the gove

by pluma 7y ago

What exactly? I'm not sure if you're low-effort trolling, but the Hitler salute (or more accurately: a number of symbols, salutes and chants related to the government party of the 1930s/1940s) is illegal in Germany, yes. The US has a fairly unique view on what constitutes "speech" and what forms of it should be protected and to what extent. In the case of Germany, Nazi propaganda is considered equivalent to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater for obvious historical reasons. I guess having experienced a fascist dictatorship using carefully crafted speech as propaganda to control its population and erode "reservations" about literally murdering millions of people makes you look at "freeze peach" a bit differently from ... largely doing the same for centuries but getting away with it. EDIT: I wonder whether I got rate-limited automatically because I mentioned the war or by a moderator. Either way, the fact that I got rate limited while arguing about the limits of free speech and policing seems kind of ironic.

Tomte 7y ago
The US also banned books and newspapers (you needed a license to be allowed to publish!) in post-war Germany, along with other acts of denazification. It sure feels stupid to hear Americans complain about the free speech angle regarding Nazi speech and imagery in Germany, when they were the ones to force it upon Germany. The Allies would certainly not have accepted a variant of the US Constitution as post-war Germany's constitution. Thinking about it, can you name a single place where America has been "nation building" in the last 70 years that got something resembling the US Constitution? I can't.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > Thinking about it, can you name a single place where America has been "nation building" in the last 70 years that got something resembling the US Constitution? I can't. No, but they do get US-style copyright and patent laws - the US isn't shy about exporting those. See e.g. Iraq order 81, which banned re-planting of licensed seeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Orders
DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
Germany even has an agency (the "Verfassungsschutz") that is explicitly tasked with spying on the political views and activities of political "extremists." Nominally, this is to prevent the rise of another movement like the Nazis. But ironically, one of the first parties to be banned was one of the only two that had vigorously opposed the Nazis during their rise, the KPD. Nowadays, there are suspicions that the Verfassungsschutz is riddled with far-right sympathizers itself, given how it has handled several cases.
- pluma 7y ago
  To clarify: historically Germany has been obsessed with left-wing terrorism because we had a domestic terrorist group called the Red Army Faction (RAF) which gained infamy for abducting and murdering a politician in the 70s and also performing several bombings and assassinations against politicians and government officials/institutions all the way into the 1990s. However the Verfassungsschutz has a terrible track record when it comes to investigating and preventing right-wing attacks e.g. against asylum seekers and immigrants. There have also been several cases of dubious use of informants (at one point it was joked that the far-right party NPD is entirely run by informants) and intentional destruction of records. Also Verfassungsschutz members have publicly spoken out against the dangers of left-wing extremism while being dismissive about right-wing extremism, the most recent case being the person literally in charge of the organisation who insisted that a video showing a group of people attacking immigrants posted on Twitter was likely fraudulent despite several news outlets vouching for its authenticity and providing fairly exhaustive evidence from their fact checking departments. On a side-note: in communal politics, the right-of-center "majority party" CDU just formed a coalition with the far-right AfD, which had previously been a taboo and was officially ruled out by the CDU party leadership. So the risk of far-right extremism being normalised is very present and very real right now.

by pluma 7y ago

Tomte 7y ago

The US also banned books and newspapers (you needed a license to be allowed to publish!) in post-war Germany, along with other acts of denazification. It sure feels stupid to hear Americans complain about the free speech angle regarding Nazi speech and imagery in Germany, when they were the ones to force it upon Germany. The Allies would certainly not have accepted a variant of the US Constitution as post-war Germany's constitution. Thinking about it, can you name a single place where America has been "nation building" in the last 70 years that got something resembling the US Constitution? I can't.

deogeo 7y ago
> Thinking about it, can you name a single place where America has been "nation building" in the last 70 years that got something resembling the US Constitution? I can't. No, but they do get US-style copyright and patent laws - the US isn't shy about exporting those. See e.g. Iraq order 81, which banned re-planting of licensed seeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Orders

DiogenesKynikos 7y ago

Germany even has an agency (the "Verfassungsschutz") that is explicitly tasked with spying on the political views and activities of political "extremists." Nominally, this is to prevent the rise of another movement like the Nazis. But ironically, one of the first parties to be banned was one of the only two that had vigorously opposed the Nazis during their rise, the KPD. Nowadays, there are suspicions that the Verfassungsschutz is riddled with far-right sympathizers itself, given how it has handled several cases.

pluma 7y ago
To clarify: historically Germany has been obsessed with left-wing terrorism because we had a domestic terrorist group called the Red Army Faction (RAF) which gained infamy for abducting and murdering a politician in the 70s and also performing several bombings and assassinations against politicians and government officials/institutions all the way into the 1990s. However the Verfassungsschutz has a terrible track record when it comes to investigating and preventing right-wing attacks e.g. against asylum seekers and immigrants. There have also been several cases of dubious use of informants (at one point it was joked that the far-right party NPD is entirely run by informants) and intentional destruction of records. Also Verfassungsschutz members have publicly spoken out against the dangers of left-wing extremism while being dismissive about right-wing extremism, the most recent case being the person literally in charge of the organisation who insisted that a video showing a group of people attacking immigrants posted on Twitter was likely fraudulent despite several news outlets vouching for its authenticity and providing fairly exhaustive evidence from their fact checking departments. On a side-note: in communal politics, the right-of-center "majority party" CDU just formed a coalition with the far-right AfD, which had previously been a taboo and was officially ruled out by the CDU party leadership. So the risk of far-right extremism being normalised is very present and very real right now.