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Just like the banning of Russian TV channels, this is another step towards the same totalitarianism that the West prides itself on being in opposition to. Scary

Just like the banning of Russian TV channels, this is another step towards the same totalitarianism that the West prides itself on being in opposition to. Scary how it happened so fast, and without any public debate.

PaulHoule 5y ago
I dunno. I've wondered if I can paint a "Z" on somebody's car and then people will trash it. Maybe it happens only in Ukraine. There's a lot of precedent for this in Germany. A Berliner went to jail circa 2000 for training his dog to make the Hitler salute. Rumor has it that the Nazis persecuted people for the same thing but the opposite reason.
- AustinDev 5y ago
  What if his dog was just trying to shake? This is so bizarre.
  - PaulHoule 5y ago
    That Berliner was known for his Nazi sympathy and he got arrested after he demonstrated the dog's saluting to a cop.
    - AustinDev 5y ago
      Oh, I didn't know that context. That's awful.
- weberer 5y ago
  It happened in Scotland too with Count Dankula. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan
- soco 5y ago
  I think there would be very easy ways to find out if there were vandals or his own writing and his own convictions. Do we know of any errors or mistrials regarding missatributed nazi symbols which are - by the way - banned since decades in Germany? I don't. So you can draw a Z in the dirt of the neighbor's car if you want to test the idea (and happen to live in Germany, which I don't believe), otherwise your relativization is just what it is: a fallacy only serving one side.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nh23423fefe 5y ago
Just asserting similarity isn't convincing at all.
manuelabeledo 5y ago
People tend to forget that we are waging a war - an information war. And the first thing you do when you are at war is denying your opponent of any advantages. But regardless of current events, this could fit in the paradox of tolerance. Should we tolerate the intolerant, i.e. Russian apologists? History hasn't been very kind with the proponents of absolute freedom of discourse.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > Should we tolerate the intolerant Yes. Tolerance is absolute, it must be capable of withstanding anything without compromising. Otherwise it is not tolerance, it is selective intolerance. A truly tolerant free speech society should be able to tolerate even literal nazi discourse without crumbling. What happens in practice is people get tired of debating, decide they're right and start excluding others.
  - lm28469 5y ago
    Well that's your definition. I'd recommend reading about the history of Europe and its philosophers, you'd discover many version of freedom, freedom of speech, tolerance, &c. Contrary to what Americans believe these things aren't written in stone by a Divine hand and are products of a long process
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      I'm not american. My country has even more restrictive freedom of speech laws than germany and they were inspired by the european ideas you mentioned. When in doubt, judges in my country will literally cite european law to support their decisions.
  - manuelabeledo 5y ago
    > A truly tolerant free speech society should be able to tolerate even literal nazi discourse without crumbling. What happens in practice is people get tired of debating, decide they're right and start excluding others. It’s funny how it looks like you are almost sympathizing with nazis. By definition, nazis seek to exclude and maybe exterminate, everyone they don’t agree with, so tolerating them means giving them the right to preach their methods. That’s pretty much the core of Popper’s paradox of tolerance: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”
brianwawok 5y ago
Do you find the current Ukraine a morale grey area? What's the argument? Maybe Ukraine had it coming? They didn't deserve their freedom anyway?
- contravariant 5y ago
  You can disagree with an opinion while still supporting someone's right to speak it.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    In my short life, I've supported the right of many people to say shit I disagree with. Even pretty awful, disgusting shit at that. How come I'm able to draw the line at "supporting an unjustified genocidal war, the invasion and killing of my neighbours, and the destruction of their homes"? How come I'm able to see the difference between "freedom of having and speaking opinions that are contrary to the mainstream's", and "freedom to want to murder innocents"?
- john_moscow 5y ago
  Ukraine is a victim of an aging dictator that lost his marbles. A dictator that accomplished his goals within Russia without any opposition, got bored, and decided to play a rather bloody chess game geopolitically. That said, it started with Putin gradually eliminating opposition, controlling mainstream media and blocking non-mainstream ones, beating down all organizations that had organized people working together and expressing alternative opinion (religious organizations, trucker unions, heritage funds). The West is currently about 1-1.5 decades behind. We are silencing fringe voices instead of reasoning with them. We are canceling dissidents instead of tolerating them. We let a handful of people with their own interests decide what is "information" and what is "misinformation". If we let this process continue, it will inevitably follow the Russian curve. The mechanics here is very simple: once you create a position of power that decides what is right and what is wrong, the person occupying this position will seek more rights and wrongs simply to justify their existence. And others will join that cause for the sake of promotion/influence. Such structures only fall in a larger turmoil (bankruptcy of a company, fall of the government, etc) that inevitably brings a lot of destruction.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
Nazi symbols have been effectively banned in Germany for decades[1] without the oft referenced slippery slope coming into play. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a
- polski-g 5y ago
  The slippery slope is literally the title of this post: now Z's are banned.
  - indemnity 5y ago
    Given the fascist war loving nature of Russia today, I don’t see the slippery slope. Do you know the definition of slippery slope?
mindslight 5y ago
Germany has banned the swastika, a symbol of a past war, for a long time. Why wouldn't this also include banning the zwastika, a symbol of a presently occurring genocide? Even as a libertarian, it's really hard to take overly simplistic freedom-invoking arguments in good faith when they appear to lack any context.
shmerl 5y ago
Yeah, modern Goebbelses wouldn't approve.
wklauss 5y ago
Russian TV channels have not been banned. Two propaganda channels have. Might look like semantics, but it's not. The fact that Russia 1 or NTV have not been banned is important. In Germany they have very strict laws against the use of extremist symbolism, for pretty obvious reasons. Not only the swastika. The black standard of the islamic state or the hammer and sickle are also covered, for example. There are contexts in which they are allowed, obviously (art, education, research...) but this seems to fall in line with the usual cases.
HotHotLava 5y ago
There isn't really a slope here, this completely in line with earlier applications of the same law. For example the IS flag and various Nazi symbols are also banned. This is part of the tradition of "wehrhafte Demokratie" (defensive democracy) that was established after the bad experiences from the Weimar republic with anti-democratic forces abusing the democratic structures. Keep in mind that Germany is not the US, and human dignity is actually placed above freedom of speech in the German constitution.
scrollaway 5y ago
And for some extra context, this is the sort of material you see every day on Russian TV nowadays: https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1506283895771348994 https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1506283895771348994 > State Russian TV show in prime time discusses possible nuclear strike on Europe, Russian invasion of Poland and Lithuania and corridor to Kaliningrad, threatens Germany and Baltic states. Yeah, tell you what, I'm very ok with banning Russian propaganda. There will be plenty of time to worry about slippery slopes if we're actually alive by the end of this.
- johnyzee 5y ago
  I follow RT daily (gasp!) and that is not true at all. Try it, you might be surprised.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    What isn't true? The video I linked you, that was aired on Russian TV prime time, and confirmed by multiple sources? Am I missing something? And what would I be surprised at exactly? I'm getting a 403 when I load RT because RT banned my country from reading it. I used to read it once in a while FYI, just to get a sense of the types of articles they'd publish.
    - johnyzee 5y ago
      > State Russian TV show in prime time discusses possible nuclear strike on Europe They might 'discuss' it, as does every news channel. They certainly don't endorse it. It's this kind of spin that passes for reporting. Do you really not have a problem with your ISP deciding for you that you cannot read rt.com? How is it not 'autocratic'?
      - scrollaway 5y ago
        > How is it not 'autocratic'? For one thing, if it's my ISP deciding, then it has nothing to do with autocracy because it's a private company doing so? Second, they haven't. Third, you're lost - this thread is about two Russian TV channels being banned. The RT thread is elsewhere.
lm28469 5y ago
Yeah we should be careful, next thing you know they'll ask you to get a license to drive a car and they'll inject you vaccines at birth, imagine that ah, what kind of totalitarian hellscape that would be. They banned Putin's personal propaganda channels and a hate symbol used by people supporting an actual totalitarian regime who's currently invading a country and slaughtering civilians, don't get confused on who's wrong here. And don't forget that the US freedom of speech is an anomaly, not the norm, both in term of application and in term of ideals

PaulHoule 5y ago

I dunno. I've wondered if I can paint a "Z" on somebody's car and then people will trash it. Maybe it happens only in Ukraine. There's a lot of precedent for this in Germany. A Berliner went to jail circa 2000 for training his dog to make the Hitler salute. Rumor has it that the Nazis persecuted people for the same thing but the opposite reason.

AustinDev 5y ago
What if his dog was just trying to shake? This is so bizarre.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  That Berliner was known for his Nazi sympathy and he got arrested after he demonstrated the dog's saluting to a cop.
  - AustinDev 5y ago
    Oh, I didn't know that context. That's awful.
weberer 5y ago
It happened in Scotland too with Count Dankula. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Meechan
soco 5y ago
I think there would be very easy ways to find out if there were vandals or his own writing and his own convictions. Do we know of any errors or mistrials regarding missatributed nazi symbols which are - by the way - banned since decades in Germany? I don't. So you can draw a Z in the dirt of the neighbor's car if you want to test the idea (and happen to live in Germany, which I don't believe), otherwise your relativization is just what it is: a fallacy only serving one side.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

nh23423fefe 5y ago

Just asserting similarity isn't convincing at all.

manuelabeledo 5y ago

People tend to forget that we are waging a war - an information war. And the first thing you do when you are at war is denying your opponent of any advantages. But regardless of current events, this could fit in the paradox of tolerance. Should we tolerate the intolerant, i.e. Russian apologists? History hasn't been very kind with the proponents of absolute freedom of discourse.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> Should we tolerate the intolerant Yes. Tolerance is absolute, it must be capable of withstanding anything without compromising. Otherwise it is not tolerance, it is selective intolerance. A truly tolerant free speech society should be able to tolerate even literal nazi discourse without crumbling. What happens in practice is people get tired of debating, decide they're right and start excluding others.
- lm28469 5y ago
  Well that's your definition. I'd recommend reading about the history of Europe and its philosophers, you'd discover many version of freedom, freedom of speech, tolerance, &c. Contrary to what Americans believe these things aren't written in stone by a Divine hand and are products of a long process
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    I'm not american. My country has even more restrictive freedom of speech laws than germany and they were inspired by the european ideas you mentioned. When in doubt, judges in my country will literally cite european law to support their decisions.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  > A truly tolerant free speech society should be able to tolerate even literal nazi discourse without crumbling. What happens in practice is people get tired of debating, decide they're right and start excluding others. It’s funny how it looks like you are almost sympathizing with nazis. By definition, nazis seek to exclude and maybe exterminate, everyone they don’t agree with, so tolerating them means giving them the right to preach their methods. That’s pretty much the core of Popper’s paradox of tolerance: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”

brianwawok 5y ago

Do you find the current Ukraine a morale grey area? What's the argument? Maybe Ukraine had it coming? They didn't deserve their freedom anyway?

contravariant 5y ago
You can disagree with an opinion while still supporting someone's right to speak it.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  In my short life, I've supported the right of many people to say shit I disagree with. Even pretty awful, disgusting shit at that. How come I'm able to draw the line at "supporting an unjustified genocidal war, the invasion and killing of my neighbours, and the destruction of their homes"? How come I'm able to see the difference between "freedom of having and speaking opinions that are contrary to the mainstream's", and "freedom to want to murder innocents"?
john_moscow 5y ago
Ukraine is a victim of an aging dictator that lost his marbles. A dictator that accomplished his goals within Russia without any opposition, got bored, and decided to play a rather bloody chess game geopolitically. That said, it started with Putin gradually eliminating opposition, controlling mainstream media and blocking non-mainstream ones, beating down all organizations that had organized people working together and expressing alternative opinion (religious organizations, trucker unions, heritage funds). The West is currently about 1-1.5 decades behind. We are silencing fringe voices instead of reasoning with them. We are canceling dissidents instead of tolerating them. We let a handful of people with their own interests decide what is "information" and what is "misinformation". If we let this process continue, it will inevitably follow the Russian curve. The mechanics here is very simple: once you create a position of power that decides what is right and what is wrong, the person occupying this position will seek more rights and wrongs simply to justify their existence. And others will join that cause for the sake of promotion/influence. Such structures only fall in a larger turmoil (bankruptcy of a company, fall of the government, etc) that inevitably brings a lot of destruction.

x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago

Nazi symbols have been effectively banned in Germany for decades[1] without the oft referenced slippery slope coming into play. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

polski-g 5y ago
The slippery slope is literally the title of this post: now Z's are banned.
- indemnity 5y ago
  Given the fascist war loving nature of Russia today, I don’t see the slippery slope. Do you know the definition of slippery slope?

mindslight 5y ago

Germany has banned the swastika, a symbol of a past war, for a long time. Why wouldn't this also include banning the zwastika, a symbol of a presently occurring genocide? Even as a libertarian, it's really hard to take overly simplistic freedom-invoking arguments in good faith when they appear to lack any context.

shmerl 5y ago

Yeah, modern Goebbelses wouldn't approve.

wklauss 5y ago

Russian TV channels have not been banned. Two propaganda channels have. Might look like semantics, but it's not. The fact that Russia 1 or NTV have not been banned is important. In Germany they have very strict laws against the use of extremist symbolism, for pretty obvious reasons. Not only the swastika. The black standard of the islamic state or the hammer and sickle are also covered, for example. There are contexts in which they are allowed, obviously (art, education, research...) but this seems to fall in line with the usual cases.

HotHotLava 5y ago

There isn't really a slope here, this completely in line with earlier applications of the same law. For example the IS flag and various Nazi symbols are also banned. This is part of the tradition of "wehrhafte Demokratie" (defensive democracy) that was established after the bad experiences from the Weimar republic with anti-democratic forces abusing the democratic structures. Keep in mind that Germany is not the US, and human dignity is actually placed above freedom of speech in the German constitution.

scrollaway 5y ago

And for some extra context, this is the sort of material you see every day on Russian TV nowadays: https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1506283895771348994 https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1506283895771348994 > State Russian TV show in prime time discusses possible nuclear strike on Europe, Russian invasion of Poland and Lithuania and corridor to Kaliningrad, threatens Germany and Baltic states. Yeah, tell you what, I'm very ok with banning Russian propaganda. There will be plenty of time to worry about slippery slopes if we're actually alive by the end of this.

johnyzee 5y ago
I follow RT daily (gasp!) and that is not true at all. Try it, you might be surprised.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  What isn't true? The video I linked you, that was aired on Russian TV prime time, and confirmed by multiple sources? Am I missing something? And what would I be surprised at exactly? I'm getting a 403 when I load RT because RT banned my country from reading it. I used to read it once in a while FYI, just to get a sense of the types of articles they'd publish.
  - johnyzee 5y ago
    > State Russian TV show in prime time discusses possible nuclear strike on Europe They might 'discuss' it, as does every news channel. They certainly don't endorse it. It's this kind of spin that passes for reporting. Do you really not have a problem with your ISP deciding for you that you cannot read rt.com? How is it not 'autocratic'?
    - scrollaway 5y ago
      > How is it not 'autocratic'? For one thing, if it's my ISP deciding, then it has nothing to do with autocracy because it's a private company doing so? Second, they haven't. Third, you're lost - this thread is about two Russian TV channels being banned. The RT thread is elsewhere.

lm28469 5y ago

Yeah we should be careful, next thing you know they'll ask you to get a license to drive a car and they'll inject you vaccines at birth, imagine that ah, what kind of totalitarian hellscape that would be. They banned Putin's personal propaganda channels and a hate symbol used by people supporting an actual totalitarian regime who's currently invading a country and slaughtering civilians, don't get confused on who's wrong here. And don't forget that the US freedom of speech is an anomaly, not the norm, both in term of application and in term of ideals