Actually you should look at the flip side of the coin: We - Germans - just decided that letting Nazis not speak their hurtful lies harms nothing of value.
I think the issue -- as some people see it -- is that it is possible to, in effect, suppress a debate about certain contentious issues. There is a rhetorical device by which statements critical of, say, uncontrolled immigration, are linked to extremists and nazis, from which there's only a small hop to hate speech (so ban).
The FDP, CSU, AfD and indeed large parts of the CDU want to have a debate about immigration. The CSU represents around half of Bayern, some 6 million people. The FDP, CDU, and AfD together represent 56% of the votes in the last election.
Even prominent voices on the left want a debate: Sigmar Gabriel, who until recently was head of the SPD, wants to have a debate. Sahra Wagenknecht of die Linke also wants to have a debate. Heck, there's even a prominent green politician, Boris Palmer, who wants to have debate.
So: what planet are you living on?
> Additionally, there is no debate if you call for violence against minorities.
The planet where 'having a debate about immigration' and calling for 'the trains [to auschwitz]' for immigrants are two different things.
Additionally, the AfD (who are the ones complaining about censorship all the times) don't actually want to have any debate at all, because they kinda have no content. They just play the fear of the masses and want to display themselfes as victims of the majority or whoever.
Actually you should look at the flip side of the coin: We - Germans - just decided that letting Nazis not speak their hurtful lies harms nothing of value.
A majority deciding something doesn't make it just, as you as a fellow German should know best.
Agreed. His implication was that their vote carried some moral relevance. Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner is not moral justification.
Please don't post glib, baity comments about divisive topics. That's close to the troll line if not over it, and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly. From the site guidelines at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Do you mean would I want to see 'violent american black rap lyrics' banned? Depends on what is said I guess? If theres a song about 'kill all the jews' we've had enough of that shit here 70 years ago.
Generally german courts are very narrow about what is Volksverhetzung. If you run afoul of it you are very far away from any sensible discussion. The law is basically "don't (1)incite violence (2)against Minorities in a way that is (3)able to disturb the public peace". These three things are impossible to do without generally being a dangerous ass. We don't want people like that.
> we've had enough of that shit here 70 years ago.
you had a military dictatorship. it couldn't be opposed or contested by anyone, because you and/or your family would just be killed.
german citizens couldn't stop the killing any more than russians could stop millions from being killed.
that was the fundamental problem. dictators do as they please. criminalizing the speech of random bob under a democratic government isn't doing much of anything, and these laws mean nothing to a dictator.
what actually matters is having a democratic government that is beholden to the citizenry. if anything this speech criminalization is a theater of sorts that makes you less safe.
What you are writing here is a dangerous thing because it relativizes the holocaust.
Military Dictatorships don't suddenly appear out of nothing. My grandparents' generation chose to actively look away because they thought it won't get "that bad". They might have told themselfes they didn't know better - you know, afterwards - but you can't remove 6 million people out of a country of maybe 60 million and no one notices shit.
Well, it did get bad, and then some. We know that now, we can now look back and see how it began. It began with social insecurity and propaganda (populism). We can't fight social insecurity but we can fight propaganda and that is why we have § 130 Volksverhetzung.
> What you are writing here is a dangerous thing because it relativizes the holocaust.
i'm honestly not even sure what this means. could you rephrase?
> Military Dictatorships don't suddenly appear out of nothing.
sure. they usually seize power, though not always. and they tend to follow some kind of instability. after ww1 germany was in terrible shape. blockades during the war contributed to hunderds of thousands of people starving to death. the economy was in the gutter, inflation was out of control - before they got it under control 1 us dollar was equal to 4 trillion german marks. there was violence in the streets between political parties. the reichstag fire. concentration camps started with political opponents. the night of long knives was all about murdering political opponents and even allies who were deemed too influential and thus a risk.
being so absurdly reductive to just say 'hate speech' is primarily or even secondarily responsible for the formation of military dictatorships seems almost insulting. it's theater, an appeasement of sensibilities that leaves people more vulnerable to repeating the past than rational assessment of history.
> They might have told themselfes they didn't know better - you know, afterwards - but you can't remove 6 million people out of a country of maybe 60 million and no one notices shit.
Removal from the general population was an overt policy (and overtly not all that different than what the Western allies did with suspect populations identified by ethnicity.) The actual conditions to which Jews and others were removed, even prior to the implementation of extermination, was not overt.
No one was trying to conceal the removal of disfavored segments from the general population.
Songs about killing people are generally not banned because of Volksverhetzung. That law is specific about the 3 things I listed in me comment above. (3) is a very strong requirement because it means the song must be theoretically able to disturb the peace in germany, eg. incite riots or something equally drastic. Theres not much that can do that.
Songs about killing minorities might be banned, but then it's still about context. Artists generally have a lot of room and when they write stuff like that theres usually satire in play. Which would propably be okay. I don't know about any artists that got hit with Volksverhetzung.
On the other hand, I'd expect Songs about killing to get hit by youth protection laws which means they can't be played on the radio, can't be advertised and can't be sold to minors.
> is a very strong requirement because it means the song must be theoretically able to disturb the peace in germany, eg. incite riots or something equally drastic.
Many american rap songs do just exactly this, and it's not satirical. Sometimes rap songs do mentioning killing jews specifically although it is relatively rare. Most of the time it talks about killing other black people, which falls under the second part of the law you describe. Do Germans make a big deal about this? I'm not german, I'm just trying to understand the viewpoint.
Also, do germans find american thugs in low regard? One can argue they can be just as dangerous.
> which falls under the second part of the law you describe
To be hit with Volksverhetzung you need to meet all three criteria. If you have musicians that do, they better not play a gig in germany or they might stay here for a while longer. When not talking about Nazism (they have proven 3, so the bar is a little lower) to hit (3) you need to build some movement. Maybe found a local KKK? Generally there needs to be a bit more than just talk.
> Also, do germans find american thugs in low regard? One can argue they can be just as dangerous.
The average german propably doesn't care much about them. Some teenagers propably liked their idealized lifestyle. But they've propably grown out of that by now. I don't know what modern day teenagers like anymore =)
We don't really have gangs and they are propably seen more as a social problem than one for law enforcement. A symptom of the huge inequality / divide in american society.
No idea about those violent American rap songs, but violent German songs? Sure. And not just right-winged Nazi shit, extreme leftist content is hit as well and banned (I don't listen to music from either faction but could readily find examples/quotes about music from both ends of the spectrum being banned).
It depends on whom they talk to. Adult informed people will easily ignore their nonsense, while youngsters will very often be attracted by the Nazi/Fascist false sense of strength because in their still young minds aggressiveness equals strength.
Fascism is coming back in some parts of Europe and we won't get rid of it by simply asking politely to go away.
Ideas like fascism rarely spread because they’re better. They’re simpler which makes them more appealing. Better ideas also tend to be less appealing on the face of things because they’re more complex.
But that doesn't explain its popularity; other ideas are simpler than fascism and don't spread.
Fascist leaders gain an audience because they address concerns which their opponents (liberal globalists) won't bring up, for fear of alienating their own support base. Fascism may not be the right solution, but dismissing its supporters as too simple-minded to understand complex ideas doesn't help advance a better alternative.
Unfortunately its not just "youngsters" who lack the critical thinking skills and/or intelligence to be influenced by "nonsense". What these laws are really about are trying to ensure that easily-influenced people are only influenced by government nonsense, rather than nonsense that the government frowns upon. The bottom line is, that to have and maintain a decent society, you need a population that is (to a large degree) informed, aware, and possessing of critical thinking skills. This is true whether you are talking about criminalizing frowned-upon speech or the "fake news" phenomenon that has been popularized here in the United States as of late. The core problem is that those at the pinnacle of our society (the permanent overclass of the ultrawealthy, oligarchs and intelligentsia that control governments and other levers of power) want to have it both ways. They want a largely ignorant, easily-influenced populace that they can control and influence while at the same time having a populace that is immune to ideas that are frowned-upon (by them). Since this isn't possible, their only alternative is to try to silence the "nonsense" that is frowned upon. We see this in Germany via this hate speech laws (which are largely aimed at stifling dissent over their massive influx of North African/Middle East immigrants and the resulting problems), and in the United States via Russiagate (which is an attempt to paint those who oppose the CIA/DC/NATO narrative as traitors or Russian agents [see the treatment of Jill Stein, Ron Paul, or the WaPo's Propornot article as examples]).
It happened 70 years ago. Obama has a good line, something similar to:
If you were in a restaurant in 1930s Vienna surrounded by great art, music and intellectuals you may have been forgiven for thinking that wonderful setting would continue on forever. Unfortunately, a short time later millions we're dying on a continent engulfed in war.
When the stock market is up we think it'll keep going up. When we have peace we can't imagine war. History is not a straight line and destructive ideas can still take hold in the wrong conditions.
This is more than a bit of revisionism, or possibly he just didn't know much about the German/Austrian interwar period.
It's well documented, and covered in most of the histories regarding the rise of Nazism, that a not insignificant part of why the party was able to gain traction was that there was already an environment of political violence and suppression. The SPD, KPD, and Freikorps were fighting in the streets well before the Nazis were relevant (the 20s. The fighting dates back to the end of WW1 and through the Weimar period).
There was similar violence in Austria at the time including a small civil war in the mid 30s, probably not what one would call a great and peacful environment for appreciating art and music.
It would be naive to ascribe Nazi propaganda alone the role of the fire starter in WWII. The problem is that the Nazi propaganda fell on ears that eagerly wanted to believe it, so the Nazi leader was democratically elected before he seized the absolute power.
If Nazi propaganda might have any noticeable success in today's Germany (or US, or wherever), it's not because of some crackpots from stormfront; they are a consequence, not the cause. The cause should be addressed instead, first by assuming its existence. (No, I'm not going to discuss any probable causes here; I'm trying to show the logic, not to make a political case.)
> The problem is that the Nazi propaganda fell on ears that eagerly wanted to believe it, so the Nazi leader was democratically elected before he seized the absolute power.
That's not really accurate; the Nazis got power not by outright winning a democratic election, but because the various other parties were more concerned about each other than the Nazis, and thus more willing to tolerate a Nazi-coalition government than to form a coalition against the Nazis; the Nazis never were elected to power on their own before seizing power; they actually lost a large number of seats in the election preceding their coalition government from the preceding election (after which no government was formed), and even in that preceding election they had only around 1/3 of the seats.
Nazis didn't come to power because a receptive populace gave them a mandate, they came to power becausea large enough minority of the more numerous elected not-Nazis were more afraid of each other than the Nazis.
That wasn't exactly irrational, the Nazis were not the first or only party in Germany to be engaging in widespread violence. The Communists, for example, were a real and actual threat. Mass street violence and assassinations were common in Weimar Germany even when the Nazis were nobodies.
Nor did I say that it was (at least, based on information available at the time; it may have been strictly irrational in rational choice terms, where rationality implies optimality based on the actual future consequences and not merely anticipated ones.)
Hitler wasn't elected, he was appointed. Which doesn't take away from your point, but it's really astonishing how such easy to correct falsehoods about such a deeply important subject just linger on and get repeated.
The Nazis lied and cheated and murdered their way to power, make no mistake about it. And that was kind of like an onion, too, in that every layer of the Nazi apparatus deceived lower layers.
Apart from the intrinsic importance of things like poverty and unemployment simply because they hurt people no matter how people to react to it, what turned some people into sociopaths (and why it didn't others) is useful to know to prevent more coming into existence, and to leave the ones who aren't beyond the point of return a way out -- but it's also a destructive red herring when dealing with those who are beyond the point of return. They are eating chalk and holding up people who delivered themselves as hostages unto them, so you can have empathy they can only feign and use; and the question is, at what point does the tragedy of their hostages outweigh the tragedy of who they and their hostages will trample on, forever, if given half a chance.
I know it's cold and kind of heartless, but for many people who turns abuser after having been abused, you will also find those who have been abused even more, but did not turn to abusing others. It's not either person's fault or credit, but I can't cater to the first while ignoring the second. Insofar it's a zero-sum choice (and that's not generally the case, mind you, but it's also not never the case), I made my choice. Sometimes, the wheel that squeaks the loudest shouldn't get the grease, but simply should get replaced by a better or even no wheel.
Hitler lost the direct presidential election, but Hindenburg (his competitor in that election) didn't appoint him as chancellor for no reason; Hitler's NSDAP was the largest party in the Reichstag, and was therefore a natural choice for forming a government. That's roughly the same level of democratic legitimacy as that of any other German chancellor since.
The Nazis also lied and cheated and murdered, but it wasn't necessary for their rise to power; until they went about abolishing democratic institutions altogether, they could have worked entirely with above-the-board means.
the cycle continues as follow: politicians ignore the masses pleads, populist start selling untenable dreams, the politician still refuse to aknowledge the existence of the problem of that partcular generation, a reaction shifts the power to populist, populist cannot really realize whatever they sold because the masses have a fractured interpretation of their message, populistvsearch for internal or external enemies to redirect blame and direct the mounting hate, the society fractures, strife follows until the society can reunite under a single ideal or gets repressed, at which point it's either a new longer or shorter cycle
of course we somehow manage to always blame the masses or the populists, but they rarely are the ones initiating the cycle
If you think people could be so easily corrupted by someone's speech on Twitter, then how can you have faith in democracy? I understand keeping young, impressionable minds from bad influence, but what about voting age people?
Nazism and other German nationalist movements were repressed early on by (generally communist) mob violence and later on by the state. That led directly to the rise of brownshirts (to counter the mob) and the radicalization of the Nazis - when people see that their belief system as being oppressed by the law, some of them conclude that when legitimate paths to power are denied, violence is justified.
The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans covers the rise of the Nazis in great detail, and it didn't happen because Nazis were going around with hate speech.
This has been one of the many justifications for free speech for a long time. In general, I think the "but Nazis!" argument against free speech should be viewed with immense suspicion - it basically boils down to a pretty serious antidemocratic sentiment; you can't let people talk, because then they might convince the plebs to vote for Nazis.
These people aren't "nazis" or "fascists". They have beliefs that would have been considered completely normal and moderate in 1940's US. The people that defeated the Nazis would be considered Nazis today. It's obscene how far left the overton window has moved. Opposing immigration is a pretty long way from Nazism.
Seriously though, how do you oppose immigration without criticizing the people who are immigrating? The comment may have been hyperbolic, sure. But it's completely reasonable to be concerned about immigrants raising the crime rate. Or having objectionable cultural beliefs and changing your country's culture.
Look at it from an outside view. Tibet was taken over by China and they are intentionally flooding it with Chinese immigrants. The goal is to destroy Tibetan culture and eventually assimilate or replace the Tibetan people. Liberals seem pretty upset by this and even consider it literal genocide. If a Tibetan is angry at Chinese immigrants and says something insulting to them, is that hate speech?
Comparing a weak country that has been overrun by a much stronger one with economically dominant western countries that have suffered some integration problems is a false equivalence. Germans do not find themselves in the same predicament as Tibetans, by any stretch of the imagination.
What does this matter at all? How does the GDP of Germany change anything? If Germany was poor it would be different?
If it were poor and were being coercively restructured by some outside hegemonic power (as many argue Tibet is) then yes of course that would make a difference.
The native population is being completely replaced with immigrants.
Germany's immigrant population is 10-12%, and last time I looked everyone in the German government was German. It's impossible to take your hyperbole seriously.
>If it were poor and were being coercively restructured by some outside hegemonic power
I don't think the outside power is relevant to the argument. The effect is the same whoever does it. To some conservative rural German, the government may very well seem like an outside hegemonic power.
As far as economic success being relevant. Tibet's economy is growing rapidly. Eventually they will be as rich as Germany today. Yet their population will be almost completely replaced and their culture gone. Economic success doesn't make up for it.
>Germany's immigrant population is 10-12%
40% of German under 5's are immigrants (http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/21/germany-40-percen...). They have a 2-3 times higher fertility rate than the native population. And the rate of immigration keeps increasing and is already unsustainably high. Germans will be a tiny minority of Germany in just 2 generations.
To some conservative rural German, the government may very well seem like an outside hegemonic power.
I can't help counterfactual perceptions.
40% of German under 5's are immigrants (http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/21/germany-40-percen...). They have a 2-3 times higher fertility rate than the native population. And the rate of immigration keeps increasing and is already unsustainably high. Germans will be a tiny minority of Germany in just 2 generations.
Breitbart is one of the poorest sources you could possibly cite and you do your credibility no favors. Some immigrants have higher fertility, but it's a distribution, not a monolith. Also, immigrant fertility tends to revert to the local mean within a couple of generations as fertility is inversely correlated with economic stability, which is why it's lower in the recipient population to start with.
Your idea that Germans will be a tiny minority of Germany's population within 2 generations is laughable. socioeconomic behaviors do not generally follow the exponential trends you imagine, but are often better mapped by a sigmoid function. I strongly suggest you try reading a textbook on demographics instead of getting your analysis from Breitbart.
The source may be biased but does that make them wrong? They are just reporting data from German statistics. Which I would have referenced directly but unfortunately it's in German. I wasn't able to find any data or claims that contradict this though.
>Some immigrants have higher fertility, but it's a distribution, not a monolith.
The distribution is irrelevant. On average they have 3 to 4 kids per coupe and natives have less than 2.
>immigrant fertility tends to revert to the local mean within a couple of generations
By then it will be far too late.
>immigrant fertility tends to revert to the local mean within a couple of generations as fertility is inversely correlated with economic stability
Religious minorities tend to have much higher fertility rates even within first world countries. Look at Mormons or Orthodox jews. Poverty is not sufficient to explain the high Muslim birth rate. And it's high even among the second generation.
> In a tweet on Sunday, the lawmaker, Beatrix von Storch, questioned the decision by the police in the western city of Cologne to put out a message in Arabic, as part of a multilingual campaign to promote the theme of this year’s New Year’s Eve festivities: “Celebrate — with respect.” The message was also posted in English, French and Persian. The festivities in Cologne, in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, draw thousands every year.
> “What the hell is wrong with this country? Why is the official page of police in NRW tweeting in Arabic,” Ms. von Storch wrote on Dec. 31. “Are they seeking to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men?”
> Her comments were particularly provocative because Cologne was the site of a rampage on New Year’s Eve 2015, in which hundreds of men groped, assaulted, harassed or robbed women. Many of the men were asylum-seekers or other immigrants, and the attacks on women fueled criticism by the Alternative for Germany, which argued that Ms. Merkel should not have opened Germany’s doors to so many foreigners.
> Facebook later removed that post, Ms. von Storch told her followers. She vowed not to be silenced by the new law, but to continue to “call out problems by name.” She went on to insist that the young men who had sexually harassed German women were “not Protestant Swedes, not Catholic Poles, not Orthodox Russians, not Jewish Israelis and not Buddhist Thais. The overwhelming majority of them are young Muslim men for whom women and followers of other faiths are second-class citizens.”
It seems to me that, in context, this is an inflammatory statement, and somewhat a silly one (why does that mean they shouldn't put it out in Arabic?), but given that she was commenting on a situation that did literally involve rapist hordes of men who happened to be Muslim, I have trouble accepting that a country could justifiably declare that speech illegal. It's even more disturbing to me given that she's apparently a prominent politician and the government is looking into charging her for this statement.
the government is looking into charging her for this statement.
Where did you see this? From what I can tell, the government (public prosecutors) only said they received a bunch of complaints. Nowhere did I see they were looking into charging her - nor would that be possible without lifting her immunity.
> Ulf Willuhn, a spokesman for state prosecutors, said on Tuesday that his office had been alerted to Ms. von Storch’s statement by the Cologne police and was also looking into a statement of support for her, made by a leader of the party, Alice Weidel. As news of the investigation spread, private citizens filed dozens more complaints.
> Prosecutors must now decide whether there is sufficient evidence of criminal action to open a formal investigation that could lead to charges, Mr. Willuhn said. But before that step can be taken, Germany’s Parliament would have to lift immunity.
As that excerpt says, they are merely analyzing the statements, which they obviously must do after receiving the complaints. Nowhere does it say they are planning on doing anything beyond that analysis.
Well, then maybe the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party shouldn't have passed it. Or maybe it's not really the case:
"German atheist runs afoul of country's rarely enforced blasphemy laws after he was fined €500 for driving around with anti-Christian slogans on his car"
>When the stock market is up we think it'll keep going up. When we have peace we can't imagine war. History is not a straight line and destructive ideas can still take hold in the wrong conditions.
Why on Earth is my comment hidden with +9 points? And the others flagged with +4 and +5? Was anything I said untrue or off topic? This is disgusting HN.
