Free Speech is gone in Germany
 

German court fines man $2,300 for SMS message

http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...5255DW20090306

Nice.

-S

Whilst i don't like the content of the sms, and i doubt the truthfulness of the "I sent it by mistake" story, I fail to see how it incites anything at all. If it had said, for example, "if you open this message, you must kill a turk", that would be a different matter, but it didnt, and the wording of it incites absolutely nothing at all.

I presume this would be overturned on appeal.

We shall see. I have my doubts, and they are not unfounded.

-S

"I'm not racist, some of my friends are black..." Yeah, heard that one before.

That was a pretty clear example of hate speech, if you ask me. And also, fantastic racism. Don't know how I feel about the fine, tho.

His stupidity alone should be enough to fine him. :D

And it has nothing to do with free speech. You have the same modus operandi here in the US. Someone does not like what you say, and he sues you. If it is something racially loaded, you are screwed.. if you meant it or not.

You rights end where another's begin.

I agree the text message can be construed as racist, but the fact remains, he was found guilty of inciting racial hatred. It doesnt.

If you take the apparent second part of the message it might be seen as such..

Is it a crime to be a Racist? Xenophobic? I will file this under the category of thought crime. I believe that man should be judged for his actions not his thoughts.
And this over reaction will only serve to make people more rebelious to the Governments thought police.

And I have sincere doubts that Germany ever had any free speech in the first place let alone free thought. The books still get burned, Just differant books.

Or one can look at it this way, Post war Germany had no real choice of who or how it was to be governed. Your choices were Communists and anybody else deemed to be anti German by the Hitler regiem and Its constitution was written under millitary occupation. Not a receipe for success in this Americans book. Germany was betrayed, First by the Nazi's and now by the opposite of Nazi's. You cant win.

Thank goodness for my consitutional freedoms!

The problem here is that someone, somehow felt offended enough to press charges. Most likely the recipient of the accidental message. Nothing to do with thought police.

You should take a look what falls under hate crimes in the US and how many are construed as such. ;)

If you read the story a bit deeper, you will find that the message was found because one of the recipients had there phone seized by police during a search entirely UN related to the text. The thought police then found the message and charges were filed.

http://www.iuscomp.org/gla/statutes/GG.htm

Namely 1-21.

Yes, indeed., Subman1, your doubts are not unfounded.

From the link to Reuters:
"However, the court in the southern town of Lindau dropped the charge -- which could have led to a prison sentence -- in exchange for the fine due to uncertainty about the accusation and the man's motive, he (the lawyer) told Reuters."

You see, the judge made the offer to drop the charge, if the accused makes a monetary payment for a good cause: „Fine“ is the wrong technical term here, not „punative“.

The accused agreed on the deal. Just like Michael Jackson did.
If he does not accept the deal, the court proceedings must be continued.

It is a bit lame to agree to such a deal and you then afterwards you start to whine about the injustice that was done to you, don't you think?

He could have tried to reach a verdict of not guilty because of lack of evidence, but he made a different choice.

The accused was not alone in this. He had a criminal defense lawyer at his side who was holding his hands so that the accused does not have to feel so lonely. It was his lawyers' job to try to convince the accused to accept nothing else but a senctence of aquittal when he thinks that there is lack of evidence. That is what he is paid for. I really wonder what the lawyer was trying to tell the press, that he is unhappy with the result that his client has accepted?

What the accused could do now, apart from replacing his lawyer, if he seriously regrets his „premature“ acceptance to the deal, is that he simply does not make the payment. Then the charge would live up again, appeal included.

Be it as it is, Subman does have a point, though in a different way then he imagines. The trend for thought control and political correctness is getting out of hand, even in Germany by now. Beeing something like a liberal, even I have to say "ordering" ppl what to think and what not, or at least hide their thoughts, is more dangerous them letting folks blabber. At least you know whom you taking to when folks are allowed to talk as they wish, without public pressure to obey rules set up mostly by very hyprocritical folks. Cursing in general is a good example of good intentions going extremly over the top. It's like in former times churches telling ppl sex is dirty, which naturally is complete nonsense. Making laws against human nature is opression, no matter how good the intentions are. And yes, that includes us having to grow up to a degree that we can live with ppl not sharing our own norms to the very last detail, incuding morbid and political incorrect jokes.

Good post, illustrating one of the main reasons why I am so bitterly hostile to any religious ideologies and institutions.

I just disagree on the general statement of "making laws against human nature is opression". Killing also is part of human nature, man can do it, man has done it, and it is part of his nature in that it is part of his life and reality. But there is nothing wrong in having laws trying to sanction it in order to minimise it.

The problem in Germany and europe is that too much ideologic thought control sneaks in under misleading labels of deceiving content, that they evade existing constitutional and legal laws and guarantees eventually, and afterwards even start to deform these constitutional and legal rules and guarantees retrospectively, trying to get into place without the existing laws' blessing, but once installed changing them to legalise their own new content and bringing them in line with themselves. In that context we also see in parts a massive attempt to rewrite and reinterpret parts of history and changing it to bring it into conformity with political correctness.

So, by what is stated in the German constitution in the first 22 articles, I can live with that. And still things go wrong - partly in known or unknown ignoration of and partly in active violation and abuse of the constitution. But you see similiar trends in England and America as well, it seems.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

Benjamin Franklin