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> The US has, by longstanding tradition, had a more expansive attitude towards free speech than Europe...Consider laws against Holocaust denial or displaying Na
by phaemon 13y ago
> The US has, by longstanding tradition, had a more expansive attitude towards free speech than Europe...Consider laws against Holocaust denial or displaying Nazi symbols in continental Europe that would be unconstitutional in the US. In Germany you can be arrested for displaying a swastika.
These laws were included in the German constitution following the "denazification" of Germany by the USA, where Nazi symbols were banned and literature burned.
The laws against Holocaust denial and Nazi symbols were pretty much forced by the USA. It's extremely ironic how often they're mentioned as an illustration of the USA's devotion to free speech.
- mpyne 13y ago> The laws against Holocaust denial and Nazi symbols were pretty much forced by the USA. So why doesn't German remove the laws now that they've served their wartime reconstruction purpose? And that is why they were put in, the same reason that even in the U.S. free speech was curtailed in many areas during the American Civil War.
- phaemon 13y agoAre you asking why a German politician doesn't start a campaign seeking to alter the German constitution in favour of allowing Nazism? I think you know the answer to that one ;-)