5 ms·

I hope nobody listens to the German government on speech rules and nobody should. There should be a rule that you have to make it through 1 century without crea

I hope nobody listens to the German government on speech rules and nobody should. There should be a rule that you have to make it through 1 century without creating 2 dictatorships before you can even say anything about allowed or forbidden speech. And no, none of these dictatorships had anything close to free expression like some people hilariously and tragically suggested.

mmmmmbop 5y ago
Which are the two dictatorships you are thinking about? Your proposed rule might be unpractical, since it would disallow the U.S. government from from saying anything about free speech for at least 30 more years (see [1] and [2]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  They presumably meant the Nazi period (1933-1945) and the period of SED rule in East Germany (1949-1990).
  - robonerd 5y ago
    It's a sliver over a hundred years ago now, but Germany was also under a military dictatorship lead by Hindenburg and Ludendorff from 1916 through 1918.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Free speech was all but dead between 1914 and 1918 everywhere. Not saying Luddendorff wasn't defacto military dictator, he was, just pointing out that this had no additional negative impact on free speech during this time.
- esyir 5y ago
  As far as I can tell, those didn't look like the USA applying martial law to large swathes of its populace.
  - mmmmmbop 5y ago
    That's true, but also not the criteria the original poster proposed.
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  I was talking about the Nazi and the GDR regime. I am aware that US foreign policy is controversial, but never did the US murder people on a comparable scale.
hef19898 5y ago
You should go through at least one to be properly able to judgr free speech and its limitations and risks.
kmeisthax 5y ago
The current set of German speech rules were specifically designed to keep one of those two dictatorships from reasserting control once the Americans and Soviets stopped looking. They didn't write the rules themselves; the Allies did.
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  Before Hitler came to power laws against "hate speech" were already in place from the century before. He used the fact to depict himself as an outcast until he came to power and curbed freedom of speech to a far more significant degree. Suffice to say that censorship was pretty prevalent through the history of Germany and it did not provide the advantages some had hoped. And the allies did censor speech that is true. > The representative of the Allied forces admitted that the order in principle was no different from the Nazi book burnings, although unlike the burnings, the measure was seen as a temporary part of the denazification program. In that case the measure can be understood as the country was full of Nazi propaganda and alternative media was more or less dead. But it was indeed temporary and the Allies also wrote Germany's constitution, which explicitly forbid censorship.
mr_toad 5y ago
> There should be a rule that you have to make it through 1 century without creating 2 dictatorships before you can even say anything about allowed or forbidden speech. Lies and incitements to violence were a significant factor in Hitler being able to assume emergency powers, so you could argue that Germany learned a valuable lesson from one of its dictators.
- raxxorraxor 5y ago
  On the contrary, he did get banned from participation multiple times and used that fact to picture himself a martyr.

mmmmmbop 5y ago

Which are the two dictatorships you are thinking about? Your proposed rule might be unpractical, since it would disallow the U.S. government from from saying anything about free speech for at least 30 more years (see [1] and [2]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...

School-Cotton 5y ago
They presumably meant the Nazi period (1933-1945) and the period of SED rule in East Germany (1949-1990).
- robonerd 5y ago
  It's a sliver over a hundred years ago now, but Germany was also under a military dictatorship lead by Hindenburg and Ludendorff from 1916 through 1918.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Free speech was all but dead between 1914 and 1918 everywhere. Not saying Luddendorff wasn't defacto military dictator, he was, just pointing out that this had no additional negative impact on free speech during this time.
esyir 5y ago
As far as I can tell, those didn't look like the USA applying martial law to large swathes of its populace.
- mmmmmbop 5y ago
  That's true, but also not the criteria the original poster proposed.
raxxorraxor 5y ago
I was talking about the Nazi and the GDR regime. I am aware that US foreign policy is controversial, but never did the US murder people on a comparable scale.

hef19898 5y ago

You should go through at least one to be properly able to judgr free speech and its limitations and risks.

kmeisthax 5y ago

The current set of German speech rules were specifically designed to keep one of those two dictatorships from reasserting control once the Americans and Soviets stopped looking. They didn't write the rules themselves; the Allies did.

raxxorraxor 5y ago
Before Hitler came to power laws against "hate speech" were already in place from the century before. He used the fact to depict himself as an outcast until he came to power and curbed freedom of speech to a far more significant degree. Suffice to say that censorship was pretty prevalent through the history of Germany and it did not provide the advantages some had hoped. And the allies did censor speech that is true. > The representative of the Allied forces admitted that the order in principle was no different from the Nazi book burnings, although unlike the burnings, the measure was seen as a temporary part of the denazification program. In that case the measure can be understood as the country was full of Nazi propaganda and alternative media was more or less dead. But it was indeed temporary and the Allies also wrote Germany's constitution, which explicitly forbid censorship.

mr_toad 5y ago

> There should be a rule that you have to make it through 1 century without creating 2 dictatorships before you can even say anything about allowed or forbidden speech. Lies and incitements to violence were a significant factor in Hitler being able to assume emergency powers, so you could argue that Germany learned a valuable lesson from one of its dictators.

raxxorraxor 5y ago
On the contrary, he did get banned from participation multiple times and used that fact to picture himself a martyr.