Right-Wing German Extremists Tricked By Trojan Shirts

gzipped_tar writes "Fans at a recent right-wing extremist rock festival in Germany thought they were getting free T-shirts that reflected their nationalistic worldview. But after the garment's first wash they discovered otherwise. The original image rinsed away to reveal a hidden message from an activist group. It reads: 'If your T-shirt can do it, so can you. We'll help to free you from right-wing extremism.'"

Comments

Make all the t-shirts you want

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't going to work.

Genius.

[mirix]

Too bad they didn't have cameras to record the nazi-rage reaction face.

Actually, since they're probably children, it would end up being their mom's reaction face when she is doing the laundry. Ah well.

Re:Genius.

[Q-Hack!]

Too bad they didn't have cameras to record the nazi-rage reaction face.

Actually, since they're probably children, it would end up being their mom's reaction face when she is doing the laundry. Ah well.

While this is probably the most probable scenario, It does give the parents an eye on what their kids are doing and will thus cause them to consider intervening in their development. If it causes at least one parent to positively change a kids direction in life, then it was well worth the money spent.

Re:Genius.

[phantomfive]

Becoming a neo-nazi is considered a negative thing by everyone, except neo-nazis and morally impaired monkeys. Really, there are some things in life that are unambiguously, morally good.

Re:Genius.

[martin-boundary]

Let me get this straight: you're arguing that when a mom washes her kid's T-shirts that happen to have extremist slogans on them, she's totally oblivious. But if she washes one T-shirt that has the message "We'll help to free you from right-wing extremism.", then suddenly she's going to wonder what her kid is up to these days?

Have you thought any of this through?

Re:Genius.

[Belial6]

That isn't even close to true. Whether you are talking about slavery in the past, the destruction of entire cultures, refusing groups the right to vote, or letting murders walk free just because they have vaginas, ethical behavior is heavily in the eye of the beholder. In fact, hating people for being different has only been considered bad very recently in history. Just a couple of generations ago, it was just a given, and it was a given to virtually every culture on the planet.

Re:Genius.

[antifoidulus]

Its really hard to pinpoint an exact cause, but it should be noted that neo-nazism is much more prevalent in the former East Germany, with its much higher unemployment, than west, which is considerably richer. Furthermore its quite popular among young men without university educations, who get royally fucked over in Germany(not as bad as in the states, but still). All the strikes work out great for the older people who have jobs, but they make it much more unlikely the companies are going to hire any more people, which sucks hard for the young Germans.....

I also guess it really depends on what you define neo-nazism as, to some Germans doing anything that vaguely takes pride in some sort of German cultural identity is neo-nazisism, and to an extent I think the whole movement is just a response to that.....

But ultimately the extremists in Germany are largely comprised of the same types of people, those who cannot get meaningful jobs/work, as it is anywhere else in the rich world. You arent likely to see a lot of engineers in the hard core Japanese right wing socities, but you do see people who 30 years ago probably would have ended up in a factor with a decent middle class lifestyle. Likewise you arent going to see a lot of scientists in the religious right, but what you will see are people whose best hope in life is to get a job working at Wal-Mart for low pay and no benefits, people who again 30 years ago probably would have had a comfortable middle class lifestyle with a job that actually had at least some, maybe not a lot, but some significance. People need meaning in their lives, if they cannot find it at work, they are going to find some other cause to get behind, and the results are rarely pretty.

Re:Genius.

[Pieroxy]

Have you thought any of this through?

First posts rarely think their post through.

Re:Genius.

[Barsteward]

"morally impaired monkeys. "

don't slander the monkeys as they have more intelligence than a neo-nazi and look a lot cuter

Re:Genius.

[cheekyjohnson]

Becoming a neo-nazi is considered a negative thing by everyone

That doesn't mean that it is negative.

Really, there are some things in life that are unambiguously, morally good.

To know that, you'd probably have to be able to prove the existence of absolute morals.

Re:Genius.

[sg_oneill]

You cant prove the existance of moral laws (they dont exist), but you can derive them via solid logic if you accept a couple of limited precepts. Kant for instance more or less derived an entire moral code from logically mapping the implications of the idea that the law of non-contradiction should apply to morals by arguing that it meant roughly "If you think its good for others then its good for yourself since a good thing cant be an evil thing and an evil thing cant be a good thing". And thats just one code. Benthem derived a compltely different set of moral laws by starting from "your actions ought maximise utility and not decrease it" more or less.

This is where people get confused. There are actually many moral codes, and many can be "proved". But sometimes those moral codes contradict each other and you have to evaluate them on their merits or argumentation to see who's moral claim seems most able to withstand scrutiny. Very few except those of the religionists are just plucked out of the air.

Re:Genius.

[Anonymous Coward]

... that washed out and advertised for gay something, i'd just use the free t-shirt to wipe my ass...

So the moral is that when you get gay propaganda you stick it up your arse?

Re:Genius.

[antifoidulus]

You might want to revisit your history before commenting. I wasnt trying to draw parallels to right after the war, I was trying to draw parallels to peak factory employment. Hell through the 50s and 60s Germany had so few young male workers that they had to import them "temporarily" from abroad. Thats part of how the whole immigration mess got started, at least there. From pretty much the early 50s to about 30 years ago factory jobs were plentiful, pretty much any (male) that wanted one could get one and could enter the middle class. Not to mention they were a hell of a lot more meaningful then walking around in a smock all day listening to people bitch you out.

Now unless you have an education, and sometimes even then, the # of jobs that are open to you that will provide a middle class lifestyle are almost non-existant if you dont already have one. Germanys GINI coefficient is rising, especially among the young.

Re:Genius.

[cheekyjohnson]

I guess I just expect some degree of evidence before I'm willing to accept some things. And what "real world"? I'm fairly confident that moral relativism exists (I really don't understand what you meant by that comment).

Trying to argue otherwise makes you look silly.

To some people, perhaps.

Re:Genius.

[cheekyjohnson]

I'll waste time arguing with Nazis and proving them wrong

I don't think I said anything about trying to prove Nazis wrong.

Re:Genius.

[JordanL]

Observe:

1. Assume logic exists.
2. Assume logic provides a way to eliminate falsehood.
3. Assume that this elimination is a incremental increase in truth.
4. Logic would then provide for us the most likely conclusion in any situation that we have 100% of the relevant information for.
5. The subjective point of view of other self-aware beings is relevant information to any interaction that you have with them.
6. To understand that half of the information for any exchange, (which is necessary for logic to work better by combining #3 and #4), is their subjective view-point and experience which requires the ability by definition to empathize.
7. Empathy requires emotional understand of another self-aware being.
8. Emotional understanding of a person and emotional destruction of a person are mutually exclusive actions.
9. Thus emotional understanding of a person is necessary for the most objectively truthful, and in many was the most objectively real interaction with any self-aware being.

This is not a proof, but I'm sure someone more learned than I could clean it up.

There are certain morals, such as the moral of doing unto others as you would have done to you, that are inherent to the state of self-aware beings forming societies and structures. The fact that no one has ever tried to prove it to you does not mean they can't. It is in fact much more likely that anyone who can is far too apathetic about the choices being made in society today to try and save it directly, and in that way, many people who could explain it just exemplify it when they can.

I understand that this is not a moral that you disagree with, or that you were disputing directly. You seem to have concluded that it was subjectively true for you, so I am not trying to "correct" you or "teach" you. Instead I am trying to give you a basis for the imperative of the reality surrounding your own consciousness. Trusting that it is true for you, and trusting that it is true, are very different things, and I encourage you to look within yourself in order to find greater subjective and objective truth.

Our own self-awareness is where knowledge leads to self-direction and organization, and it simply makes sense to turn over the organization and direction of our species to that thought process.

Re:Genius.

[Hognoxious]

There are certain morals, such as the moral of doing unto others as you would have done to you, that are inherent to the state of self-aware beings forming societies and structures.

Patently false, as any peasant who struck the king would soon find out.

You need to clarify to yourself whether you're describing the facts as they are or whether you're designing an ideal state.

Re:Genius.

[cheekyjohnson]

6. To understand that half of the information for any exchange, (which is necessary for logic to work better by combining #3 and #4), is their subjective view-point and experience which requires the ability by definition to empathize.

Are you saying that in order to understand someone's point of view, you need to empathize with them? I don't think that's true. You can understand how they came to their conclusion without actually empathizing with them, as far as I know.

The fact that no one has ever tried to prove it to you does not mean they can't.

I didn't say otherwise. But I don't believe that someone can.

and it simply makes sense to turn over the organization and direction of our species to that thought process.

Wouldn't that depend on who you ask?

Re:Genius.

[silentcoder]

>8. Emotional understanding of a person and emotional destruction of a person are mutually exclusive actions.

This is just plain false. The very existence of psychological torture proves that you can understand somebodies emotions and then proceed to destroy them emotionally. If anything well-developed abilities at empathy makes those who would do so more effective.

Scientists largely believe now that empathy was developed as a defense mechanism. We evolved the ability to try and understand another person's thoughts and feelings primarily to allows us to better tell if we can trust that person, and recognize if they are lying. We turned it into a positive thing over time, that could build better social bonds, but it didn't start out that way and there is no reason it cannot be used in a negative way now (the new uses did not remove the originals - or prevent other more destructive new uses from developing).

The best generals are the ones who can predict the enemy's actions. The most destructive battles are fought by the leaders with the most empathy for the opponents.

Even then your entire rational is flawed as it fundamentally violates Aristotle's first law of logic. A thing cannot be other than itself.
Emotion by definition is not rational, logic by definition is rational.
Therefore emotion cannot be logical.

This is not entirely a bad thing. Human's are better off for having both.

If you want to make statements about logic I highly recomend you learn something about the subject first. For starters there are two major branches of logic. Inductive and Deductive logic. Only deductive logic results in necessary truth. And that comes with a caveat: deductive logic if properly followed means that if all the propositions are true, the conclusion MUST be true, if any of the propositions is false the conclusion MUST also be false.

More-over deductive logic cannot and never should be, directly applied to the real world. It doesn't work. It only applies to highly abstract constructs. Mathematics is built on deductive logic. Therefore it provides (within it's own framework) absolute truth. If I have an apple, and add another I will have two apples, and this will never change.
But in the real world - no two apples are the same size. So the weight of "apple mass" has changed by a different number. That's what I meant by (within it's own framework). The degree of truth is dependent on the level of abstraction.
To get the mass of apples, I must in the first case measure each apple's weight individually. That is to - get the truth in a more detailed abstraction my propositions must also be made more detailed.

Science mostly relies on inductive logic, and a fundamental part of the definition of inductive logic is that it NEVER gives you truth. It only gives you high probability.
A scientific experiment is a prime example of inductive logic. If I boil water, and it boils at the same temperature ten of 100 degrees celcius times- I can say with high probability that water at that temperature will boil. If I do it a million times the probability has gone up a lot. But it still isn't "truth". Just one out of a million times where it boils at a different temperature proves the theory false.
That's easy to do, just get higher above sea-level. On top of Mount Everest water boils at about 7 degrees celcius.
So we have to refine our theory - and now all we can say is "at sea-level, all other things being equal, water will boil at 100 degrees celcius".
That's science in a nutshell. Inductive logic, highly reliable (and increasingly moreso) results, but never truth. Because "all other things being equal" is an impossible suggestion. There will always be more to learn.

Don't try to analyze emotions with logic - it's as useless as the auditors in Terry Pratchett breaking down great works of art into component atoms in their fruitless search for "beauty" and being perplexed that the pigments of these beautiful works do not contain some special and previously unknown

Re:Genius.

[ArsenneLupin]

The original T-Shirt had "Hardcore Rebellen, National und Frei" on it. Unless you already know who "Hardcore Rebellen" is, it's hard to figure out that this is a right-wing extremist group.

Well, maybe the word "National" may tip somebody off, but so many other things which have nothing to do with right-wing extremism have "national" in their name too, so you really have to already be looking for tell-tale signs to spot this. And the "tough" logo with skull and flags would look like generic rocker/biker wear to the uninitiated.

However, after the wash, the "We'll help to free you from right-wing extremism." is pretty obvious...

Re:how big is the movement?

[Opportunist]

As long as there's one, there's at least one too many.

I guess it depends on what you'd count towards "Neo Nazis". Just those that actually believe the bull, or generally everyone who enjoys freezing their brains and beating up people who look different?

That is awesome

[KingSkippus]

That is one of the most awesome ideas I've read about. I especially liked the part where they acknowledged that it probably won't do any good now, but it plants the name in their heads for when they're ready to get out of their extremist organization.

Say, anyone want to chip in for some t-shirts to give away at the next Tea Party convention?

Re:That is awesome

[rolfwind]

'government spending destroys jobs'

It can. The money has to come from somewhere. It all depends on how much. And it also depends what it is spent on. This all harkens back to the broken window fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

But it's not a hard and fast rule. But 3-second soundbites rule the day. But not all jobs are good either. Toll booths collectors are jobs. But they add nothing to anybody's standard of living (decrease it actually, except their own, and those above in the bureacratic structure they support) nor make anything of benefit to anybody.

Re:That is awesome

[artor3]

What a load of crap. A conservative, writing for a conservative paper, looks at some polls. He labels the answers he disagrees with as "unenlightened" and then feigns surprise when the people he disagrees with are most likely to choose the "unenlightened" answers. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with him is "dumber than a fifth grader". Ironically, a fifth grader could probably see the flaw in his logic.

And it's not like these questions have hard and fast answers. Let's look at some examples:

"Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree)"

Excuse me, but whose standard of living is he talking about? For the bottom sixty percent of Americans (also known as "the majority"), their inflation adjusted income has declined over the past thirty years. And meanwhile the safety nets meant to keep them out of the gutter have been systematically shredded. Welfare is gone, the current batch of Republicans already voted to end Medicare and will do so if they ever get a majority, and Social Security is undoubtedly next on the hit list. Of course, if you're talking about the looters in the top 1%, they're doing great.

"Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree)"

Are you fucking kidding me? I, personally, have see my overseas coworkers get exploited. The statement wasn't that every third world worker gets exploited. This guy's an absolute hack. But what else could one expect from a Murdoch-owned rag like the Wall Street Journal?

Re:That is awesome

[glodime]

That survey is bias and very uninformative. I would bet that your answer would be scored as incorrect even though you recognize that there is a conditional answer. You would be forced choose between 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure, you might be tempted to choose 3. I would argue that the correct answer to many of the survey questions is 5 due to lack of information or ambiguity in the questions.

For example:

5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree).

So I'm supposed to agree that there are no such workers being exploited; there is no undocumented slavery connected to any American company? I'm supposed to agree on the surveyor's definition of exploitation?

This is not to say that self identified liberals aren't less knowledgeable of economic theory or data. I'm simply saying that the survey is poorly designed.

Re:That is awesome

[glodime]

You should read what Nate Silver had to say about that survey:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/are-you-smarter-than-george-mason.html

Re:That is awesome

[artor3]

You arrogant twit. I get my data directly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, same as your graph. But unlike you, I restricted the query to wage earners, instead of letting executives and wall street looters pull up the average.

Stop repeating the drivel you heard from Lord Murdoch and get your own facts.

Re:That is awesome

[artor3]

The difference is that the wacko left-winger Democrats are kept out in the fringe, whereas the wacko Tea Party types have essentially taken over the Republican party. This situation is made worse by the fact that those same nitwits who control the GOP are receiving their marching orders from Fox News, as you said. So nearly half the government of the United States is now directly controlled by a single corporation. If that doesn't terrify you, it should.

Re:That is awesome

[lavagolemking]

but check out this graph for one counterpoint.

Would have been nice to cite the full-size image, or the article in which it appears, rather than a badly resized Google image result, but whatever. The graph you cited compares hourly wages to productivity, and I'm not sure how that relates to standard of living rather than employee productivity. Within its context the graph pretty poorly done; the axis aren't labeled ($140 per hour in 2005?), the description is vague, nothing is said about what was actually measured (or how) and I'd be willing to bet any mention of standard of living doesn't even account for inflation over the 55 years it covers.

Any serious analysis (read: not partisan) of standard of living will show that for most people in the US in the last 30 years, it's gotten better.

Now go and enlighten yourself.

Forgive me for being blunt here, but based on your original post (with a questionable source), and your relatively hostile response to criticism of said post, it looks like the only person stuck on partisan analysis here is you.

Re:That is awesome

[Chris Mattern]

Toll booths collectors are jobs. But they add nothing to anybody's standard of living

Not true. They make it possible to fund roads, which add to people's standard of living (if they didn't, people wouldn't be willing to pay to drive on them).

Re:That is awesome

[mcvos]

The spending Obama did was in the present, and it most certainly created jobs, and the money to do so came from China and from the Federal Reserve. At some time in the future it might hurt, but right now it certainly did not.

How can that be said when days ago we just had a downgrade in credit and the market is bleeding?

The stimulus is only a drop in the bucket compared to the scale of the US's financial problems. The two big ones are the Bush tax cuts and the increased military spending (Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly). These didn't benefit anyone except the millionaires and the military-industrial complex. I'm not claiming that the stimulus was money well-spent, but there are far, far bigger issues that need to be addressed, and the US government is refusing to do so. That is why the credit rating was downgraded.

Re:That is awesome

[The Master Control P]

In what universe is openly being giddy at the prospect of forcing the US into default (because if we don't get absolutely everything we demand we'll burn it all down instead) fiscally responsible? In what universe is wanting the government to dictate what consenting adult I can marry and place religious monuments in courts and government buildings a reflection of limited government?

Words Mean Things, and claiming to be whatever Fox News says Republicans are does not, in fact, make it so.

Re:That is awesome

[Billly Gates]

Name one fringe left wing democrat? I mean one? Kucinich is the only one I know of. I laugh at those who say Obama is a radical socialist. He is far from it

Re:That is awesome

[asylumx]

I laugh at those who say Obama is a radical socialist. He is far from it

No, but if they keep saying it, more people start believing it. Even moderate Republicans have been saying things like this.

Re:That is awesome

[mekkab]

What the questions show is BIAS. Restrictive questions were given, and humans seem to implicitly fill in with details from their life. In my example, with the "restrictions on housing development" question I immediately thought to a town in my county where houses couldn't be above a certain height. So I thought, "What's the harm?" My experience and bias came shining through. And in the example of #5, of course the plight of Foxconn workers comes to mind, but that's not in the question. Really, the correct answer is "5: Not Sure" because I need more details and more framing for all questions.

Re:That is awesome

[sorak]

How can that be said when days ago we just had a downgrade in credit and the market is bleeding?

As for the downgrade, you should read or skim over the S&P report (warning: pdf). Here are a couple of excerpts:

We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the
prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related
fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the
growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an
agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and
will remain a contentious and fitful process. We also believe that the fiscal
consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration agreed to this week
falls short of the amount that we believe is necessary to stabilize the
general government debt burden by the middle of the decade.

and

The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as
America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective,
and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt
ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in
the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our
view, the differences between political parties have proven to be
extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting
agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program
that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently. Republicans and
Democrats have only been able to agree to relatively modest savings on
discretionary spending while delegating to the Select Committee decisions on
more comprehensive measures. It appears that for now, new revenues have
dropped down on the menu of policy options. In addition, the plan envisions
only minor policy changes on Medicare and little change in other entitlements,
the containment of which we and most other independent observers regard as key
to long-term fiscal sustainability.

So, I'm sure I'm leaving things out, but they seem more worried about our inability to address medicare, the deficit in general, and the fact that we just finished a national argument about whether or not to default. Thanks, Tea party, your unwillingness to compromise is one of the reasons for the downgrade.

Re:That is awesome

[Politburo]

When that insistence (which is also immediate) would result in the collapse of the worldwide financial system, yes, it is extremist.

Re:That is awesome

[DigiShaman]

I'm going to repost a few quotes from Alan Greenspan back in 1966. Basically, all our current societal problems are ancillary to our current fiat monetary system. The US Dollar has been the world reserve currency of choice. But any economist worth his/her salt knew the system was unstable and would eventually implode. And it did. We (the US) was a giant star that just imploded into a black hole. All other nations are getting drawn to the event horizon as a result. Really, the global depression is the fault of US fiscal policy and the vast debt we've accumulated.

It was only a matter of time before nations such as China, India, and Africa started producing and exporting products cheaper once their governments reformed. Now that they have, the US and the rest of the west is hemorrhaging wealth. We cannot fix our problem with trickle-up or trickle-down policies. That's because we are (and have been) facing a *trickle-out* of wealth. Both conservatives and liberals do not yet understand this. They're fighting over government concepts and policies that are now moot to the real issue at hand. It's also because of the fiat system in place that we have huge gaps in wealth between the rich and poor. The very policies used to answer class-warfare in fact are the very enablers of that behavior.

While I don't agree that we should be exclusively on the Gold Standard again, we do need to tie our system back to stuff more tangible. Until that happens, this perfect storm we are all in will only continue to leave a path of misery in its wake.

Gold and Economic Freedom 1966
“Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes. A substantial part of the confiscation is effected by taxation. But the welfare statists were quick to recognize that if they wished to retain political power, the amount of taxation had to be limited and they had to resort to programs of massive deficit spending, i.e., they had to borrow money, by issuing government bonds, to finance welfare expenditures on a large scale.” -Alan Greenspan

“Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. -Alan Geenspan

"under the gold standard, a free banking system stands as the protector of an economy's stability and balanced growth... The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit... In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation" -Alan Greenspan

Good thing...

[abednegoyulo]

it was not one of those gathering that simulates rain. Imagine their reaction if the artificial rain washes away the external print exposing the message hidden beneath. That would not be a party, would it..

Re:why attack them?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, right-wing extremists are known worldwide for their tolerance and inclusive rhetoric.

Re:why attack them?

[AvitarX]

I prefer harmless attacks on political views over those that would use politics to interfere with my life.

Re:how big is the movement?

[mosb1000]

you'd likely have an easier time finding neo-nazis in Idaho than you would in Germany

Woah, you set the bar pretty high there.

Kind of a stretch to say they were "tricked"

[Dachannien]

I give you free stuff and it turns out to be unsuitable for its apparent purpose. Wow, I really tricked you there.

Still, it's kind of amusing.

Re:This would only work on imposters anyway

[Lisias]

everyone knows that if you're hardcore enough your clothes never get laundered.

I fixed that for you.

Re:why attack them?

[sjames]

Attack?

A trick tee-shirt that reveals it's message in a quiet moment at home is an attack now?

An attack would be if it used a small explosive charge to tattoo rainbow brite on their chests.

more nazi's in america

[maverickjesterx]

I am an American that has lived in Germany for some time. Most of these people are not "children" and the definition of a "child" is quite different here than back home. Also to wear, own or display anything from the Nazi era will land you in jail unlike back home in America where you are free to where Nazi uniforms, fly their flags (I can think of one instance lately where a guy in Michigan flew a Nazi flag to celebrate his grandmothers birthday as he put it). Don't get me wrong there are still extremist here that want all Auslanders OUT. For Germans this is in the news for the humor of it, not like OMG the Nazi's are rallying.

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[artor3]

Stop listening to Fox "News". There is no relationship between Nazis and socialism. The Nazis hated socialists. They simply co-opted the word for their name as a little trick to steal supporters. The Nazis were right-wing by all standards. I know it makes you sad that there have been bad people on your "team". Life is so much easier when you can see in black and white. The professional liars know this, and so they carefully craft their lies to let you think that way. They take every bad person in history, mix them all together, and then mix in their current victims (i.e. Obama) and you drink it all down.

It's poison, and you will never be able to think for yourself as long as you keep exposing yourself to it.

Re:Give in to your hate.

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll win in the end anyway. You lost this war the moment you lost the war on miscegeny. You can't win. It's better if you just kill yourself. Come on, Nazi scum. Do it. It's the one way you can finally escape the horrors of multiculturalism. Go out like a man and eat one of the dozens of barrels that adorn the walls of your squalid little shack.

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[cbope]

Please do some research before you imply Hitler and Mussolini are not right-wing. Contrary to popular believe in the US, they were NOT leading socialist movements in any shape or form although they tried to disguise some of their activities under that false banner. They were nationalist right-wing extremists and fascists. They were absolutely not left-wing or socialist in any tangible way.

In the US it's more accurate to label politics as far right (republicans) or center right (democrats). There is no true left in popular US politics, even democrats are more right of center than in many other progressive countries (including many EU and all Nordic countries).

Re:how big is the movement?

[rbrausse]

according to a pre-release of the 2010 statement of the Verfassungsschutz (German domestic intelligence service) we have a headcount of 5600 neo nazis.

Take this with a grain of salt, like most government agencies the Verfassungsschutz has a political agenda - every publication is announced by the far-(left||right) wing* with "the data is biased"

*) and everyone else...

Parent summary is biased

[lavagolemking]

Ok, I'll bite. Those questions are heavily weighted to someone's political beliefs, in an apparent attempt to confirm right-wing ideologies, and paint liberals as ignorant about the economy with conservatives being the guys with an educashun. Not surprising, given that it's published by a company owned by Rupert Murdoch (who also owns Fox News). Basically, if you disagree with their viewpoints, you're "unenlightened". Let's take a look at the questions:

• 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). Liberals generally support licensing of professional services, while conservatives support deregulation. Aside from direct economic consequences, the question doesn't account for consequences of unqualified professional services, such as medical complications from an unlicensed doctor operating on you.
• 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). This is a matter of perspective; conservatives are often of a higher socio-economic class, while liberals (who unsurprisingly support welfare/entitlement programs) are more commonly of a lower class. Additionally, since conservatives are also commonly older, many liberals were not around 30 years ago, and have only seen the economic decline.
• 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). Another loaded deregulation argument. Although true, lack of rent control leads to high rent prices, and a higher rate of homelessness among those who cannot afford high rent. A lot of conservatives believe in leaving free-market economics to treat basic essential needs such as food, water, and shelter as a commodity, while liberals are more likely to believe in guaranteeing such "commodities" to underprivileged citizens. It is not a farfetched mistake to confuse increased homelessness with housing shortages, and this type of question almost seems to imply a housing "shortage" is somehow worse than those houses being empty with people living on the streets.
• 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). Although by no means the definition of a monopoly, anybody here can agree that companies in a given sector with the largest market share (Microsoft, etc.) probably has the largest market share because of their monopoly. Correlation vs. Causation: a lot of people without a background in statistics miss that. Conservatives or libertarians who believe monopolies don't exist will probably say false for that reason.
• 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). This one is just outright wrong. Free-market economics lead to large multinationals (Apple, Nike, etc.) outsourcing labor and production to the country with the cheapest rates. This, in turn, leads to companies who pay the lowest sweatshop-level wages with no benefits, ludicrous requirements on things like bathroom breaks, and anti-unionizing intimidation, getting all the bids. Basically, third world countries cutting costs at the expense of workers, where minimum wage laws and other worker-protection laws don't apply. I guess if you disagree on principles of exploitation and human rights, or on the definition of third world workers, as many conservatives I've spoken with seem to, then you could consider this false, but that's definitely not how a liberal will see it. I've met a lot of conservatives who think that there is nothing morally wrong with sweatshops, which are a boon to their workers.
• 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). Looks a lot more like a conservative talking point than a scientific economic question to me. Interesting that it appears close to the end of the survey, after all those loaded questions. In some cases, yes it does; look at what is happ

Re:Parent summary is biased

[Anonymous Coward]

"1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). Liberals generally support licensing of professional services, while conservatives support deregulation. Aside from direct economic consequences, the question doesn't account for consequences of unqualified professional services, such as medical complications from an unlicensed doctor operating on you."

Are you utterly mad?

Whether the question "accounts for the consequences of unqualified professional services" is a separate question as to whether or not it raises the cost of providing those services. That's like the following sequence of questions:

Q: Do you agree or disagree that people who have received government funded training find jobs either somewhat or a lot more easily than those who haven't?
A: I strongly disagree.
Q: How come?
A: The question fails to account for the cost of providing that training.

If the liberals questioned aren't able to decompose a situation into component parts and answer questions about each of them separately, but have to shout a "YAY" or "BOO" on the basis of their feelings about the situation, totally ignoring whatever is asked about, then something is wrong.

Re:Parent summary is biased

[snowgirl]

As my sibling post points out, many of the questions were unattached from the unfortunate negative consequences of the actual terms. However, I will point out that this was done with direct intent to make liberals/progressives answer wrong. Watch, let me do it to conservatives: "Deregulation of medicine and healthcare will result in more deaths." If you answered "disagree" then congratulations, you're empirically wrong.

What happened though was I intentionally gave a question whose consequences the individual's political beliefs would object to, and therefore basically handing them the wrong answer with a big "DO IT!!!! Come on, YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!"

So, the problem with all of the questions is that they're all trick questions. Even if a libertarian/progressive can see through all the sham, the best answers they can give are "yeah, but..." or "no, but..." But that's not how people answer surveys. They don't answer the question they're presented, they answer the questions they think they've been asked, and when you have trick questions intended to obfuscate the details to elicit an ideological response, you're going to get ideological responses. This also effects the conservatives as well though! There's no provision for questioning why the person answered the way that they did, so even if someone gives an "enlightened" answer, there's no guaranteed that they arrived at that answer through "enlightened" thought. A statement that is true can still be a lie, if the person speaking it thinks that they are lying. "Yes, Jenny went to the movies." (She actually did, but I thought she went to a party, and I was trying to cover up that she went to a party, so I'm lying even though my statement is true.)

1) "Mandatory licensing raises prices." Yes, but why would we ever consider endangering people's lives and/or livelihoods over removing mandatory licenses? If I make potato soup, then buying potato soup raises my prices. It's a trick question because few people will actually logically break down the question properly, and will just answer with a gut answer that is ideologically based.
2) "Standard of living is better now than 30 years ago." The median standard of living has factually gone down relative to the mean standard of living, even though both have risen as absolute values. The two ideologies are answering different questions about the vague term "standard of living".
3) "Rent control leads to housing shortages." Making french fries leads to a shortage of potatoes. People renting more than one property leads to housing shortages... I mean, the statement is technically true, but the original premise behind asking it is so absurd, that no one would expect it. So they answer a different question based on their perceived premise behind the question.
4) "Largest market share is a monopoly" Yes, because everyone will give the most unique answer possible here. Oh wait, I just abused the word "unique" like the entire population does. "Monopoly" doesn't mean "single supplier" to most people anymore, it means "the person with the largest market share." because true monopolies are rare, but one doesn't need a true monopoly to begin leveraging the benefits of being a monopoly. It's a trick question because most people don't use "monopoly" exclusively for true monopolies anymore.
5) "Third World workers working for Americans are being exploited." Well, some liberals/progressives think that American employees are being exploited. What does "exploited" really mean? Are Third World employers using the relatively massive pay that they can offer the third world workers to make those workers concede reasonable accommodations in their employment? Tell you what: I have a job, it pays a million dollars a year, but you have to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, with zero vacation time, and no benefits, or other perks. Would you take this job? Many people would, because hey, it's freaking a million dollars a year! Would you count it as exploitation? Some people think there are maximums

Re:Parent summary is biased

[snowgirl]

If the liberals questioned aren't able to decompose a situation into component parts and answer questions about each of them separately, but have to shout a "YAY" or "BOO" on the basis of their feelings about the situation, totally ignoring whatever is asked about, then something is wrong.

But there was no accounting for the possibility that the conservatives questioned weren't doing the exact same thing, because the whole survey suffers from a confirmation bias. They're only looking for confirmation of their preconceived theory (that liberals are gullible to trick questions), rather than looking for disproving theory (that conservatives are just as gullible to trick questions). If a conservative were to answer entirely without reason or logic according to his "YAY" or "BOO" on the basis of his feelings about the situation, then he would answer every single answer as "enlightened", but not because he can actually decompose a situation into component parts and answer it properly and logically.

Re:Parent summary is biased

[silentcoder]

>Whether the question "accounts for the consequences of unqualified professional services" is a separate question as to whether or not it raises the cost of providing those services.

No. It isn't. Because the cost of those consequences must be considered part of the cost of the service. If an unlicensed doctor messes up an operation and now you need four more operations and years of drugs to recover, then the cost of the condition for which you sought treatment has been massively increased.
It could be shown that licensed services lead to a price that's higher for the same service, than it would be unlicensed when the quality of the service is the same. However the reality is that the quality of the service is the reason for licensing and quality is a fundamental aspect of how we measure value.
Licensing of services increases both the price AND the value of the service. However you can only say that it increases the COST of the service if the increase in value is LESS than the increase in the price.

Liberals would argue that in nearly all cases the value increase significantly exceeds the cost increase so much so as to create an over-all massive cost decrease (my example shows one case where this happens). And this analogy only shows the DIRECT cost of that value reduction, the indirect costs are orders of magnitude more. Bad doctors mean much longer times off-sick from work. Meaning much higher risk of being unemployed at the end of it. That's months or years of income lost which is ALSO a cost of not licensing the service, it's lost productivity to your employer either way, it's a massive cost to the economy.

More-over most licensing of services happen in situations where the cost of unlicensed services is far more than mere monetary cost. It involves very real risk of costs of human health and even lives. What should we consider the value of a human life to be ? The funeral costs are hardly the whole financial loss there after-all. At the very least you have to add in the entire plausible earnings of that person for the rest of their life-expectancy had the services been licensed as well as adding their entire likely expenditure over that period as a loss to the entire economy - and all their productivity is lost to the economy as well.
Right there you have millions of dollars worth of losses.
And that's not even close to the real loss. Most people, like me, believe the true value of a human life to be infinite - that no amount of money is ever too much to spend to save a loved one, therefore no amount of cost saving is big enough to let them die for.
The potential cost in human lives exceed any potential saving of unlicensed services (as if I hadn't already proven that there wouldn't be any) by an order of infinity.

And because COST is defined as price per VALUE not just price, there is nothing economically unenlightened about arguing that the COST of a service goes UP in the absence of professional licensing, by massive amounts.

The sad irony of the world is that we've left the decisions about these matters up to people who think that there is a saving which is big enough to let people die for. A lot of them work for medical insurance companies - who will do everything in their power to avoid paying for a procedure if they can possibly fight it out until you die without it to save them the money (after taking your premiums for ever).
And to people like that, there is no saving too SMALL to let your loved ones die for.

In a world without licensed professionals, those would be your doctors, your electricians, your bridge-designers...

Even if the licensing really DID add a true cost increase, the result would be a world where hardly anybody would WANT to live.

So when I pay my electrician, I am GLAD there is a licensing authority that ensured a minimal level of competence before letting him sell his services - because even if that means I'm paying him 500% more than he could otherwise charge, it is still orders of magnitude less than the costs I'd risk otherwise - not least would be the death of my family and loss of all my possessions when his bad wiring burned my house down.

Re:Parent summary is biased

[MmmmAqua]

*snip* because if it were cheaper, then you wouldn't *need* regulations.

That makes no sense whatsoever. The need for regulation is not predicated on the price of a service, but on the potential for damage, to the consumer and the economy as a whole, from incompetent practitioners.

Again, all of that is made up. It also assumes that the alternatives available are "fully licensed" and "totally unregulated with horrible quality." What about stuff like Underwriters Labratories, an "Independent, not-for-profit product safety testing and certification organization." In a dark and scary world where light bulbs were not tightly regulated by the government, couldn't you vote with your wallet and be like "Well I'm not buying light bulbs unless they're tested by this third party that has a good reputation."

The "vote with your wallet" argument is, in this context, disingenuous at best. Sure, the cost of waiting for the market to weed out shitty lightbulb manufacturers is relatively small, and the market will eventually produce a generally decent grade of lightbulb-makers. But we are not talking about lightbulbs. We are talking about professional services, many of which involve direct risk to human and economic health. It may cost the economy a few million dollars to weed out Shitty Lights, Inc., but the cost of weeding out shitty or marginally-competent doctors, engineers, and lawyers is astronomically higher. None of those people are going to be drummed out of business by one dissatisfied (or dead) client, or even a hundred, in a deregulated market.Consumers are generally poorly informed and unwilling to do much research when seeking professional services, and that is simply not going to change.

I would imagine for something important like surgery it would happen almost immediately. Now I have a choice. If I need a heart transplant, I'll go to an expensive doctor just like now. If I have a broken finger and I need some pain medication and a splint, well guess what it's not going to cost $1800 for a trip to the ER. I'll go to the hedge witch down the street for $50, no insurance required.

Yes, in that hypothetical. But you're pulling that out of thin air. You can't use it as an argument.

Unregulated services are not going to be uniformly horrible, but without a guarantee of minimum competence the services you get below a certain price point are going to tend to suck. Even if your $50 hedge witch gets things right 70% of the time, she is still screwing up 30% of peoples' broken fingers. Those mistakes have a much higher overall cost to the individual and the economy than the price difference between a licensed doctor and an unlicensed quack.

You are also ignoring the fact that you have a choice, now, too. The $1800 ER trip could just as easily be a $400 urgent care clinic trip, no insurance required. $400 is more than $50, but it's also much more reasonable to most people than $1800, and you also get the guarantee that the MD or RNFP seeing you knows what they're doing.

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[artor3]

You can pretend to ignore the liars all you like. But the whole "Obama = Nazi Socialist!" tripe is a right-wing talking point that no intelligent, free-thinking person would believe. You've already revealed yourself to be poisoned. Maybe it was by Beck or Limbaugh or Free Republic, instead of Fox. But you're poisoned all the same. Try to cure yourself, instead of striking out at me.

Re:how big is the movement?

[Canazza]

I think you mean Illinois, not Idaho.

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[pecosdave]

You're one of those people who's allowed Obama to trip the religious centers in your brain much like Apple users (are you one of those too?).

How can bribing (the Louisiana Purchase), threatening (the Pelosi guard dog), and generally holding the Congress hostage to push a social health care bill exempt him from being a socialist? Love it or hate it your boy Obama is a socialist, hung out with socialist in college, and read socialist propaganda in college.

You started out by striking me out.

My hero's are Andrew Jackson, Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, Mark Twain (for other reasons), and George Carlin for putting modern politics into perspective. Liberals like to claim Carlin, they also like to claim Douglas Adams which I very much enjoyed for the same reasons I enjoyed George Carlin.

You need to lower your dosage of Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore.

Re:how big is the movement?

[TheRaven64]

There's other crazy censorship in German games too. The German release of Red Alert, for example, had android infantry instead of human, and they died in pools of oil instead of blood.

Re:how big is the movement?

[stjobe]

If I understand correctly, nazi symbols (like the swastika) aren't illegal per se in Germany, as long as they're used in the proper context. Used in entertainment or as a way to promote the nazi ideology is forbidden, but in a historical documentary about what happened in WW2, I don't believe the symbol necessarily need to be blurred out or removed from footage from that era for example.

I'm not German though so I'm not entirely sure about the rulings surrounding such symbols.

"Proper context", according to Strafgesetzbuch section 86a (paragraph 86a of the German Criminal Code) is:

(3) Subsection (1) shall not be applicable if the means of propaganda or the act serves to further civil enlightenment, to avert unconstitutional aims, to promote art or science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes.

Re:why attack them?

[mcvos]

The Dutch are getting increasingly intolerant of other cultures, unfortunately. A growing group is even intolerant of much of Dutch culture.

Re:how big is the movement?

[Arancaytar]

This is inaccurate; however, people who consider endorsing civil rights for minorities equivalent to endorsing muslim terrorism definitely meet the criteria.

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[mcvos]

You realize they came into power by allying with conservatives, don't you? If not, read some history. Hitler hated socialists. He was all about traditionalism and a hierarchically structured society.

Your kidding, right?

[Shivetya]

Sorry, but quite a few wacko Democrats are in Congress, the difference is that the PRESS chooses to ignore them whereas they relish in finding the wacko conservatives. The Tea Party is anything but a bunch of wackos. Oh I am quite sure there are some daffy duck types in there, all groups get them, but their core belief around smaller government is anything but wacko. It would probably only take a few minutes to get a list using google of the lefts wackos who are in Congress, or consistently on TV.

The real wackos are the ones who want to spend us into a ditch and attempt to tax their way out of it. There simply is not sufficient money to be taxed to pay for all the promises made.

Awesome, you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. As in: Awesomely dumb. (Hear me out. I'm speaking anonymously because I always do out of principle. Not because I'm interested in acting like a dick.)

Why do people always think, they could change the minds of those who think differently (even when dumbly), by treating them like they are worse people? (Even when they actually act like that.)
That's not how that works. In fact that's quite the opposite of how that works. And to make things even worse, it's exactly the thing the Nazis do to other "races". So it's quite stunningly stupid, to tell someone to lay off the pipe by blowing smoke in his face.
Humans, and I'm speaking from the standpoint of someone who knows his psychology, always have to keep their self-respect. No exceptions.
So the way to go about actually changing their views, requires you to keep that. Period.
Which means you do not say "You bad! Become normal! I know way." ("normal" is a very egocentric word anyway), but you do say "You normal. You know way to become better! You just didn't know you knew." Then you make them imagine how much better life is that way. There is hardly a soul on the planet who, when in a shitty situation and being offered something with huge benefits they can personally relate to, chooses not to take it.
And if you can't... then sorry mate, but GTFO, since you're not helping, other than proving they have good reason not to choose something that even you can't make look better. (Ok, I know I always could make non-racism look better. Because it is better.)

Besides: I had contact to may Nazis from today (as a brown-ish actual Aryan who has lived in Germany's more backwards countrysides), and they just became racist because of the shitty situation/life they were in and the Nazi mindset/people offering them some hope / "way out". Just like many people become religious when they have to live through a war. They drink a lot. And if they are off alcohol and their life becomes better, they nearly all just become normal people who love their family and are often better citizens than many of us. I think if some people would actually try to understand the reasons Nazis become Nazis, instead of being just as ignorant dicks as the Nazis themselves, this whole problem would be long gone by now.

(That's why I found the "Nazis need love too" campaign much better.)

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[royallthefourth]

When Hitler got his real power in government, the brownshirts demanded that he actually follow through and implement the social portion of his national socialist program. Of course he had no plans on doing this, resulting in the "Night of the Long Knives".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives

Not to mention that nationalism is antithetical to socialism because it creates divisions among the proletariat by national lines, thus weakening it by division and mixing it with the class enemy of capitalists. This absurdity, when the whole point is to unite the proletariat and make those divisions purely on class lines.
So, no, the viewpoint was not socialist. They may have had some social programs in there, but there's not a shred of Marx to be found.

Re:how big is the movement?

[lxs]

I watched Inglorious Basterds in a Berlin cinema, and in one shot where a swastika flag filled the screen, there was an audible gasp from the audience. So I can tell from first hand experience that Nazi symbols are allowed in the right context (i.e. not glorifying Nazism), and that Germans are still very uncomfortable around them.

Re:how big is the movement?

[tehcyder]

I think the implied distinction is that it's "illegal" foreigners that are doing the job stealing. At least, that's been my experience. I honestly haven't heard a "foreigners" rant in it's own right since my grandfather passed away 15 years ago. Pretty much everyone accepts the people that come here properly and follow the law (although you do have rants about people not learning English and such, but I'd bet that happens in any country that has a universal language if not a national one).

With most neo-Nazis the distinction is that it's the people with brown skin who are stealing the jobs from the people with white skin, nothing more subtle than that.

Re:how big is the movement?

[readin]

I hear that a lot but then I don't meet very many people willing to do the work they are doing.

Well, at least not at the wages the corporate owners want to pay them. Illegal immigration basically pits rich corporate owners against the poor. The owners win by bringing in scabs thereby keeping wages low.

Re:how big is the movement?

[AngryDeuce]

That's because we're not willing to work for slave wages with no protections or benefits of any kind like they are.

I mean, c'mon, there are plenty of people that are willing to do these jobs, there always has been, but if you expect people to go out and pick strawberries in the heat for $20 a day then you expect too much. Any business running a margin that razor-thin that they can't afford to hire legal citizens for a reasonable wage should probably not be in business, whether it be a farm, or any other type of business.

Re:What is Right Vs. Left in the German context?

[royallthefourth]

How can...holding the Congress hostage to push a social health care bill exempt him from being a socialist?

The same way it did for Otto von Bismarck: he created social welfare programs to improve the condition of the working class without destabilizing the bourgeoisie. The whole point was to draw them away from the socialists and give them less incentive to radicalize, thus buttressing the empire from internal collapse. Perhaps a left-wing concession, but completely on behalf of a conservative realpolitik.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Paternalistic_welfare_state

Re:how big is the movement?

[AngryDeuce]

Well, I guess that's the difference between me and them: I can't take advantage of a person's desperation and by low-balling them for hard labor and still sleep at night. Nor could I willingly sell out my country by hiring an illegal and paying them under the table.

Re:Nazi views right-wing?

[moco]

Since... ever?

From Wikipedia's entry on fascism:

Italian Fascists described fascism as a right-wing ideology in the political program The Doctrine of Fascism, stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century.".[41][42] The majority of scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right.[43][38][39][40]

Re:how big is the movement?

[Opportunist]

I won't. Why? Because in this economy it is not possible to run a successful strawberry farm without breaking the law. That's why.

Also I wonder where the usual right-wings cries for "less legislation and let the market sort it out" are. I can see why there are none, though. Why? Because it would not only go against another demand of them, it would also make prices go UP, not down, as they usually promise when you take away regulations.

That's what I don't like about the new right, it's inconsistent. We don't want government influence, well, unless it does what we want to do. We don't want government influence. But we want government to keep illegal immigrants out. Taking away government influence means that there are simply no illegal immigrants anymore. People would move wherever they want, according to the market demands. And then these people would tell the strawberry farmers to go suck on a cucumber, they get 50 bucks a day in the factory around the corner, with a roof above their head, and they can now work there because they don't have to take every shady deal anymore, they can legally work. And prices for strawberries would go up, since wages have to go up to get pickers.

Now, dear new-rights, where is the demand for less government action and more market driven economy now? As soon as market forces would require you to pay higher wages and doesn't allow you to abuse people in a pickle anymore, suddenly I hear cries that government has to step in and do something about it.

Re:how big is the movement?

[bluemonq]

If the government spent money on prosecuting companies that hired illegals instead of trying to keep illegals out, I suspect you'd get better results.

Oh, wait. I forgot that no party would want to do anything to harm the profits of the agricultural industry.

Re:how big is the movement?

[Opportunist]

If they'd be gung-ho about the drug war, they should start hanging the ones that launder the drug money. You'd see a lot clean up in very little time.

And it's quite logic why the right is vocal about illegal immigration, to appease its voters, but not really interested in getting rid of them. They're essentially slaves, near free workforce that need not be subject to labour laws because they have no representation and no legal protection at all.

This is, btw, what we'd get if we really let the market "sort it out". Take a look at the illegal immigrant and realize you'd be looking at yourself in a totally free, unrestricted capitalist society. Unless of course you own that strawberry farm.