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A teacher in school told me about the time they visited East Germany. Armed guards poked though his luggage. It's a slippery slope toward fascism.
by supertrope 1y ago
A teacher in school told me about the time they visited East Germany. Armed guards poked though his luggage. It's a slippery slope toward fascism.
- mywittyname 1y agoWe are at the bottom of that slope and are being buried under all of the shit that's continuing to slide down it.
- propagandist 1y agoFrom slavery to the Chinese exclusion act to Jim Crow to the Japanese internment camps to the patriot act. It's hard to make the case we were anything but. What has changed recently is technology collapsing the world into a single blob of information, and that aspect gets worse every year.
- FredPret 1y agoDespite the headline on this article you still have way more freedom and specifically freedom of speech in the US than the rest of us. The law works differently at the border, especially for non-citizens. Tourists don't have any legal right to get in. You may argue that the guards should be kinder and I would agree. The historical examples you mention involve racism and slavery that were terrible but also the global standard at the time. The Patriot Act is scary, but it doesn't seem much better elsewhere in the Anglosphere or in Europe. Say something impolitic loud enough and you'll get in trouble anywhere. Here's hoping individual freedoms win in the end.
- mywittyname 1y ago> you still have way more freedom and specifically freedom of speech in the US than the rest of us Depends on who "you" are. There some some who are allowed to openly make tangible, if thinly veiled death threats to others without repercussions. Others can have their lives ruined over trivial things. The "you"s who are not granted as much freedom of speech are aware of it and only express themselves among trusted people.
- FredPret 1y agoThere is now an absolute fountain of criticism of the current administration, the USA itself, and the entire West coming from every demographic in the USA. This isn't a new thing or restricted to Trump. I don't see any mass arrests, chilling of media, or official propaganda making the rounds.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- propagandist 1y agoYou are not looking. Law firms are targeted and silenced. Media is subservient. People absolutely do watch what they say for a large number of reasons. The type of speech being policed is different, but it's absolutely happening.
- FredPret 1y agoYou're right and I don't like it one bit, but there was also a long list of true things that we weren't allowed to say aloud under the previous lot.
- propagandist 1y agoGreat, glad we agree. I didn't like the precious lot one bit either. Glad they're gone.
- guappa 1y ago[dead]
- beambot 1y agoEast Germany was under communist control after the fascist regime lost the war... It's accurate to describe as "authoritarian", but not "fascist."
- HideousKojima 1y ago[flagged]
- nocoiner 1y agoIn fact, East Germany was so anti-fascist they erected the “Anti-Fascist Barrier” around East Berlin.
- BurningFrog 1y agoFor many, everything bad is "fascism", regardless of any similarity to the Mussolini rule of Italy 1922-1943.
- pmontra 1y agoOf course it lacked the mark on the anticommunism checkbox, but control of society and control of economy were checked. That's 50% of the fascist playbook. There was probably some nationalism too. Stalin buried internatonalism quickly. They would inevitably bow to the Russian overlords. No shame about it. We were bowing to the USA in the West and we still are. Anyway, was communism only a facade by the 70s and the 80s? In that case it was a fully fascist country. All of the East. I'd like to hear from somebody who lived in those countries at that time.
- csense 1y agoArmed guards in 1980's East Germany open your luggage and poke through it by hand. TSA employees in 2000's USA scan your luggage and poke through it with technology. For any reason or no reason, they can open it up and poke through it by hand, or ask for assistance from nearby policemen with guns. Is there any moral difference? If so, what is it? (Also, nitpick: The East Germans were Communists, not fascists.)
- arlort 1y agoYes, the moral difference is in the motivation and consequences. We take into account motivation pretty often to evaluate morality not sure why you can't apply it here TSA's purpose is prevent harm to other passengers (effectiveness is debatable but not the point), the east German border guards were there to keep control on what information the population could access and share They are not the same thing even if the means look the same
- anal_reactor 1y agoSo basically, "when we do it it's good, when they do it it's bad"? I didn't think I'd see someone seriously practice such morality on this website.
- Veen 1y agoMost morally mature people practice that sort of reasoning. They take into account intentions, likely consequences, the state of knowledge of those involved, and other complicating factors before coming to a conclusion.
- anal_reactor 1y agoI think we have exactly opposite definitions of "moral maturity".
- Veen 1y agoYou may be right, anal_reactor.
- wang_li 1y agoI went to Canada 10 years ago. When they asked why, I told them I was mailing a birthday gift to a Canadian friend and I wanted to be the one who had to pay any duties or taxes. They had me pull over and go inside. Where they asked the password for my phone and then took it. A couple hours later they came back and gave me my phone, charged me ~$100 and let me go through. When I got to my car I found that they had opened the package I was mailing and a number of things had been moved around, from which I concluded they had also searched my car. i drove to Surrey to a UPS Store, resealed and shipped the package and returned to the border. The US Immigration officer asked why I was only in Canada for 30 minutes, I explained, he laughed and sent me on my way. Moral of the story is that every country can and will search your stuff and detain you and often turn you back for no meaningful reason.
- gruez 1y ago>Armed guards poked though his luggage. It's a slippery slope toward fascism. Is it? Lack of rights at the border isn't "fascism", it's the norm. I don't think any country gives you 4th amendment (or similar) rights at the border, even liberal democracies.
- Alupis 1y agoAnd nearly all "rights" are rights of citizens, not visitors...
- Freedom2 1y agoIs the implication here that lawfully granted visas and green card holders don't have rights in the US?
- School-Cotton 1y agoThis is false in every country I know of with even a rudimentary adherence to the rule of law, including the US.
- thrance 1y agoSo foreigners have no rights in the US?? You clearly do not understand the law, at all.
- Alupis 1y agoYou clearly do not understand how to read, at all.
- School-Cotton 1y agoEast Germany was not a fascist state, it was an explicitly anti-fascist state. Horribly authoritarian, with wanton disregard for human rights, yes, but not "fascist".
- Alupis 1y agoIt's yet more evidence almost 0% of the population actually understands what "fascism" really is...
- School-Cotton 1y agoRight. Fascism and Soviet Bloc-style communism are both "bad" in the sense that they have tended to produce authoritarian dictatorships that massively increase human misery. But other than that, they are not at all the same ideology.
- Alupis 1y agoThe problem is with people labeling anything they dislike as "fascist". Surely we can admit it dilutes the actual meaning of the word by using it to refer to things that are, in-fact, not fascist?
- tartoran 1y agoYeah, they were a democracy:) German Democratic Republic (GDR). Same with NK: Democratic People's Republic of Korea
- School-Cotton 1y agoThey were not a democracy despite what they had in the name. They were also not fascist, which has nothing to do with what was in their name. They were actually not fascist, in the sense that they didn't follow the ideology called "fascism". Fascism is a specific ideology invented in Italy in the early 20th century; it does not just mean any authoritarian dictatorship.
- barbazoo 1y ago> It's a slippery slope toward fascism. Not sure I would ever consider the GDR to have been "fascist". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germany
- jimbokun 1y agoAuthoritarianism is the more appropriate term I think.
- kube-system 1y agoInterestingly, as an American, literally the only time I've had my luggage poked through by an armed guard was in a social democracy in Europe.
- freeone3000 1y agoThe only time that you’ve known of! Fly with locked luggage and see how often that lock stays intact.
- kube-system 1y agoTSA removes locks with bolt cutters, they don't shoot them off.
- freeone3000 1y ago… well, yes, but they are armed guards and they are searching your luggage. I feel that’s more relevant than the exact method of lock removal.
- kube-system 1y agoNo, the TSA security officers who are inspecting passengers and their luggage do not have arrest powers and are not armed. If you are doing something illegal, they call the police, and the police arrest you.
- freeone3000 1y agoDoes your need to be technically correct outweigh your need to understand an argument?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Freedom2 1y ago
- keybored 1y agoI think East Germany was the opposite of fascism. At least compared to West Germany.
- platevoltage 1y agoThis is what we get when the American right wing conflates the two terms on TV for years and years. Don't like the definition of a word? just change it.
- smsm42 1y agoIf border officers being armed or inspecting luggage is a definition of fascism to you, you'd struggle hard to find a lot of non-fascist countries. I have my luggage inspected each time I travel, and a lot of security personnel in airports are armed - are all airports already fascist?
- tranchebald 1y agoThe Stasi were communist. Maybe you want to say “authoritarian”?
- foobarian 1y agoIt was a lot more invasive than that in those days. The border agents would rifle through our groceries and occasionally things like dried meats or booze would magically go missing. Other times they would be officially confiscated, or customs levied.