Quote:
Originally Posted by Snestorm
(Post 1435668)
Obama, and the KKK, is an ocean away.
USA doesn't have the Free Speech problem. Germany does.
Three years in prison for violating speech regulation???!
Is this a free country we are discussing, or has sharia law kicked in already?
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3 years is the maximum penalty. It can be less - and most often it is a suspedned penalty=no penlaty anyway. This is no speech regulation law. This is banning Nazi speech that is rated as "Volksverhetzung". Politicians try to manipulate and inflöuence the emdia over here the same way liek they do in the US. However, if you think you must compare the current poltical system with that of the Third Reich and german governments with Hitler, than obviosuly yopur knowledge of German history is seriously flawed, or you knowledge of current politics is serioulsy flawed, or most likely both is seriously flawed.
The world'S biggest white supremacist and Nazi network that organises and financially funds Nazi activity internationally, since long time is no longer in Germany or Europe, but the US. A racist organisation like the KKK would jhardly escape legal ban in Germany, while in the US it is tolerated in the name of free speech. at the same time, europe is blind on one eye for racist speech by Islamic hate preachers and tolerate them in the name of free speech, and radicals use free speech for wanting to ban free speech if it is critical of religion and islam - which then they would call racist.
Before telling a new post-war Germany - that has learned at least some of the lessons of history - about free speech, clean up your own house and realise how your total freedom of speech idea is fostering extremism, racism and limitation of free speech in other places outside the US, and sometimes even inside the US. ;)
As long as somebody lives not alone on a planet, he lives in a community to greater or lesser degree and varying levels of interaction, and thus his freedoms necessarily touches upon the freedoms of others, and theirs effect him in return. There cannot be "inlimited" freedom in such a setting that is different from the law of the strongest, an idea I strongly reject. It is critical to find a balance where a possible maximum of freedoms for both sides can be acchieved (and protected), a balance that is set so that the limitations for both is as minimal as possible, and a consense is reached on defining the legitimate inetrests of the community itself - an individual should not have a right to act in a way that maximises his own profit at the cost of chnaces and life quality of coming generations, for example. That is both a fragile and difficult setting to find at times, and much economic lobbying aims at just preventing right this and maximise profit making in the preent while destroying future chnaces for the next egneration. The abuse of "tolerance!" to limit free speech for the purpose to ban critical thinking of religion, is an illustration of how difficult it is and what hidden implications wait to trap the unaware. I am aware of where you come from, and in parts have symoathy. But your dogmatic ultra-maximum stand simply puts it to
extremes I am not willing to support.
Nevertheless, simply demanding utopi maximums for one thing, and ignoring the deficits that cause for others, is not helpful. we have had hitler and Nazi tyranny ove rhere, and it costed us and your people as well and much of the world dearly. It is fully understamdable that the kind of thinling that led to this madness does not enjoy the same levels of tolerance and legal protection like other thoughts and opiunions do. More, I would say it is our duty to learn the lessons from 6 million Jews gassed and 56 million people killed in WWII, and making the thinking that led to these catastrophes a taboo. we must not tolerate any genocidal concept and we must not act politely on denial of historic mass murder. and certainly we must not tolerate people wanting to revive these disatrous historic events by reviving nazism again. I run a zero tolerance policy not only against religious nutheads, scientology and islam, but also against Nazism.
And our society anyway has both the right and - with regard to the next generation - even the duty to protect itself from what could or wants to destroy it. Not only Volksverhetzung and Nazi propaganda is banned in Germany, but also material, speech and deeds that aim at destzroying and overhwelming the constitutional order.
You have that in America, too. you call it "in the interest of national security".
