App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music

Daniel_Stuckey writes "German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the country's interior ministers will meet this week to discuss use of an app developed by local police in Saxony that has attracted the unofficial name of 'Nazi Shazam.' Just like Shazam works out what song you're hearing from just a few bars, the system picks up audio fingerprints of neo-Nazi rock so police can intervene when it's being played. The whole situation sounds pretty insane to an outsider, but apparently far-right music is a big problem in Germany, where it's considered a 'gateway drug' into the neo-Nazi scene. The Guardian reported that in 2004, far-right groups even tried to recruit young members by handing out CD compilations in schools. That sort of action is illegal in Germany, where neo-Nazi groups are outlawed and the Federal Review Board for Media Harmful to Minors is tasked with examining and indexing media — including films, games, music, and websites — that may be harmful to young people."

Comments

Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

It is despicable that anyone would be attracted to this sort of movement. However, it is extremely important that people be given the freedom to make the wrong choice of ideology. Only harmful actions should be punished.

Re:Freedom of thought

[g0bshiTe]

I agree, hate groups aren't right, but barring freedom for one to choose for themselves to be involved with a hate group is worse.

Re:Freedom of thought

[davek]

I agree, hate groups aren't right, but barring freedom for one to choose for themselves to be involved with a hate group is worse.

I know I'll get marked as a troll for this from the euro-centric crowd, but this is exactly why you embrace freedom-loving society and not authoritarian socialism like they have in Europe. As John Green has said, you cannot declare war on an idea or noun because nouns are so amazingly resilient.

Re:Freedom of thought

[quax]

Since this is only with regards to minors, how does this differ from the US censoring (there it's all about sex).

I strongly suspect that American police would arrest people handing out pornographic material to kids at school?

Re:Freedom of thought

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I know I'll get marked as a troll for this

"Mod me up! Mod me up!"

from the euro-centric crowd, but this is exactly why you embrace freedom-loving society and not authoritarian socialism like they have in Europe. As John Green has said, you cannot declare war on an idea or noun because nouns are so amazingly resilient.

Your argument would be a lot more convincing if you'd left off the second sentence there. The freedom-loving US has declared "War on $NON_MATERIAL_THING" more often than any other country I can think of.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jellomizer]

Freedom of speech isn't safe. In fact it is very dangerous. That is why the United States has that first in its bill of rights, because it is so dangerous, you need a powerful law to keep it intact.

But it is really fair for the Government to say protect Far Left ideas while trying to hinder far right ones?

Now I do not support this ideology, and I agree it could lead to dangerous behavior. But trying to suppress it, could be worse. That means you could have a large population afraid to speak their minds. And if there was a government shift to the Far Right, there could be far more supporters then you would think. With little education to help moderate many of them.

Freedom of Speech and Democracy are hand and hand. Now Democracy isn't about getting the best leader, it is about balancing safety with freedom of speech.
If you have Far Right ideas and you are vocal about them, and you still loose each election, it means you probably will not be able to take over the government, any attempt including military fill fail as bulk of the citizens will be against you. However if you hinder the freedom of speech, you could have the majority to join on your side in case of some revolution happens.

Re:Freedom of thought

[sideslash]

Making immoral actions legal is not an ability a majority in America has.

That obviously depends on whom you ask. Many people consider the right to life debate the most important civil rights issue today -- in some places it's legal to kill late term babies.

Even if you disagree on the abortion issue, I suspect that you can see that "constitutional" doesn't equate with "moral" if you look at where we've been in America with slavery and so forth.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jalopezp]

Nazi ideology is not banned by the German constitution. Some Nazi statements are banned, though they must either call for violence or racial hatred, deny the holocaust, or glorify the Nazi government of Hitler. Racist statements that do not call for hate or violence are allowed. Similar laws exist in the United States (see here for the court's opinion) where the main difference is that the US only bans such fighting speech when it incites to immediate violence or hate. Invitations to deferred violence or hate, such as are found in far right music in Germany, or even if they are in writing or transmitted by radio, are banned by the German penile code.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Sarten-X]

This is why you just don't want to mix your moral and economic philosophies. Is authoritarian socialism any worse than theocratic capitalism? or monarchic feudalism?

If you have a socialist system, the needs of society are held in higher regard than the needs of individuals. If you have an authoritarian system, the government decides what those needs are. There is an inherent conflict of interest there, where the people in government can simply declare that society needs whatever they want.

In a feudal society, where the needs of the lord are held highest, authoritarianism is good. The lord says what the lord wants. Similarly, in a democratic socialist society, the people define what the people want.

The key for a freedom-loving people like the majority of the Western world is to limit authoritarianism without undermining authority. We don't seem to have that figured out yet.

Re:Freedom of thought

[liamevo]

Did you decide to fly in the face of most political scholars and historians to try and score some political points by describing Nazism as left wing?

Re:Freedom of thought

[NemosomeN]

I would argue that although hate groups are worse than barring people from hate groups, the government can stop the latter immediately, so it should be stopped. Work toward making the choice unattractive, not just illegal.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Entropius]

As someone who's been involved with universities for a while: you cannot get arrested by campus police for trespassing on most campuses. Public universities are public property, and most places in most buildings are open to the public. (Of course, if you wander into a professor's lab without his permission, you're likely to get in trouble.) At the University of Arizona where I got my doctorate, homeless people would regularly come to the library to use the computers for internet access.

Many private universities incorporate substantial tracts of public land (they consist of buildings on public streets), or are on private land but are open campuses. Only a few campuses are truly closed campuses where visitors are not welcome; those are no different than any other private land. So I don't know quite what you mean.

Re:Freedom of thought

[terevos]

This might have been true in the 1930s and prior (when they actually had to pass a constitutional amendment in order to outlaw alcohol). But now people do not hold the constitution so highly. It's much easier to ignore now.

Re:Freedom of thought

[dosius]

And socialist, at that... Naziism was hardly socialist, name notwithstanding.

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

Even if a Left wing Socialist group like the Nazi party was voted in they could never get a foothold on an action that would harm other races.

You realize that the Nazis are about as RIGHT wing as you can get, I hope. Yes, yes, I know they abused the word, but they were Socialist in much the same way that North Korea is Democratic.

We have the constitution.

Do you?

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and everyone here who supports free expression wants to burn Jews and everyone who listens to gangsta rap wants to kill cops and rape "hoes".

At some point, the younger generations of Germany will get tired of constantly being told how rotten they are because they are German and they will tire of paying taxes to support Israel. Nobody likes to hear their culture being constantly demonized and nobody views paying restitution for something they had nothing to do with as just. Promoting self-loathing and guilt amongst German youth isn't something that will work forever, esp. as the WWII generation dies off. Perhaps Germany has already reached that point.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

As with many things there is a tricky balance between what freedom a society allows vs restricting freedoms that have negative consequences to others. In Germany's case they have a pretty clear example of this particular freedom having pretty horrific consequences, so I can not blame them for being touchy about allowing such things to grow again. For Germany, Nazism is not just some abstract philosophical threat, but a particular culture that had a very concrete negative impact.

Re:Freedom of thought

[hubie]

What sort of campuses are you talking about? On all the campuses, large and small, that I have been on, this is not the case. It would put a big damper on attracting people to lectures, cultural events, plays, etc. that the colleges and universities actively promote outside the campus. Are you over-generalizing from some isolated event ("Don't taze me bro")? Now maybe if you are talking about hanging out in the bushes outside the women's dorm, then yeah, that will probably happen to you.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

The National Socialism party was left wing. But like everything, it is in a spectre of nuance. For example, extreme capitalism could enable a single corporate monopoly that would essentially become the state and extreme communism can enable the state to become the single monopoly that would essentially be like a corporation. Left and right are only relevant to the peasants still chained to their delusion of control, right and wrong, good and evil. There is only here and now, fuck off.

Re:Freedom of thought

[wonkey_monkey]

correct, if people want to burn jews, they should be free to want to do so.

That's not what GP said and you know it.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

There are certain right-wing talk radio hosts in America who [erroneously] refer to the Nazis as *left*-wing, for obvious reasons. If you don't know history and you just parrot what you hear, it's easy to be confused, like the GP obviously is.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

'left' and 'right' wing in general are pretty useless for trying to draw parallels. What they mean in any particular culture changes so much even over a decade or two, they are pretty meaningless when one attempts to apply them across cultures and nearly a century.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

Eh, historically the constitution was pretty routinely ignored too. Even before the final draft lawmakers were making it clear that they did not intend to follow its literal interpretation and instead had all sorts of 'well of course we didn't mean XYZ, use common sense!'. Much of the bill of rights only really started gaining legal traction over the last few decades as civil rights pushed literal meanings more. For instance, cases involving religion, until very recently, assumed that freedom of religion only applied to 'real' religions such as Protestants. Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, even though they were 'close' were not considered 'real' religions and thus the establishment clause (and freedom of speech) did not apply, and religions not from the same tree were even less protected.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Entropius]

Banning calls for "racial hatred" is a slippery slope. Where along the line do you start arresting people?

Also, I think you mean "penal code"; "penile" is an entirely different word.

Re:Freedom of thought

[no_go]

Western Europe did have authoritarian governments, right leaning ones, on both Portugal and Spain up to the mid 1970s.

The Portuguese dictatorship, although not as violent and repressive as the Spanish or the East European comunisms (at least on the european portion, the colonies where a whole different thing) was still pretty awfull. Political Police, Imprisonments, internal and external exile, the odd assassination, complete absence of any freedoms of speech, and also a very regimented economic regime. To all this add the behaviour on the colonies (pretty much all of what you have heard from apartheid South Africa).

I certainly do not want a return to those times.
"Free speech" is already regulated (of note: slander).
Restricting access to the public and civic arenas to those who which to restrict ALL of free speech (and willing to cause serious physical harm to those who opose them) is a necessary evil.
Doesn't mean we don't have to be vigilant on how that impacts political and civic life.

Comparing this directly with "constitutional rights" in the US, which has a very different sociological make-up and a VERY different recent history (to both Germany and Portugal) is a non-starter.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

On the other hand, pushing something underground, while it makes it more concentrated, tends to de-normalize it. An open, normalized movement can be a pretty powerful political shift. If you look at all the major changes in US politics, it was only after groups became open and normalized (more or less) that they actually got traction and got policy put in place. When they were underground they had strong core groups but their general connection to the population was minimal.

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

The National Socialism party was left wing.

No. It wasn't. It really wasn't. Don't take my word for it:

Nazism, or National Socialism in full (German: Nationalsozialismus), is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and state as well as other related far-right groups. Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates biological racism and antisemitism, Nazism originally developed from the influences of pan-Germanism, the Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary culture in post-First World War Germany, which many Germans felt had been left humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles. Prior to the emergence of the Nazi Party, other right-wing figures had argued for a nationalist recasting of “socialism”, as a reactionary alternative to both internationalist Marxist socialism and free market capitalism.

source, emphasis mine.

You're welcome to disagree, of course -- if you're a complete idiot.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

This is in Germany. They have a different history than we do in the US. You will find laws like that in France and other nations that where under Nazi rule. They are a democratic nation and it is up to them to change their laws if they see fit. Canada also has laws about hate speech that would not fly in the US. The US never had Nazis in control of our nation so we feel the best protection is freedom of speech. In many places in the EU they do not feel secure in that. The US has stricter restrictions on porn because of our culture. Although the restrictions are really very minimal outside of broadcast TV and radio.
I hate when a bunch of people from Europe start spouting off options about the US's rules. Germany is a free nation so let it's citizens decide what works best for them.

Re:Freedom of thought

[iserlohn]

You lose all credibility and also lose the debate when you refers to the Nazi party as left wing. There is a reason why fascism and communism never got along.

/If I had mod points I would mod your post up.
//But I don't so replying instead

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you identify with the left and don't like the nazis doesn't mean they weren't left wing. They were socialist. Their entire political platform and justification was to take away money from the evil jews and give it to the poor hard working Germans. Now, whether that's what they did or not, that was the platform and justification, and how they came into power. You can choose to ignore that because it's uncomfortable for you to accept, but thems the facts.

It's all pedantic anyway though, as when push comes to shove, you go far enough left and you end up right, and you go far enough right and you end up left. People call libertarians anarchists even though anarchy is a clearly a well established left wing political institution (extreme left mind you, not any normal version of left). There is nothing more progressive then eliminating all government after all. A conservative would never approve of such a drastic change as eliminating government, that's not the status quo after all.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "left" or "right", those terms mean nothing.

There is a spectrum of individual liberties - from total freedom to complete oppression.

In theory it wouldn't matter what form of government we had, if people were nice. You can imagine anything from a peaceful groovy hippie commune all the way to some fairy tail kingdom with an all powerful monarch that wisely allocates resources to create great public works for the good of all. In practice, both ends of the spectrum suck.

Re:Freedom of thought

[noldrin]

Actually the order of the bill of rights has no meaning on importance, and it's a false inference people constantly make. What we now know as the first amendment was actually the third listed amendment in the bill of rights, it's just that the first two amendments were not approved by the states at the time, so only 10 out of the 12 amendments in the Bill of Rights passed.

Re:Freedom of thought

[gnasher719]

The US never had Nazis in control of our nation so we feel the best protection is freedom of speech. In many places in the EU they do not feel secure in that.

Has nothing to do with feeling secure. We just want the f***ers to go away and die. There's nobody in Germany saying "Oh, I'm so afraid of these neo nazis, please protect me". They are saying "get rid of the bastards, kick their arses, and I don't want to hear their insane rubbish". Then of course there is the surreal point that these guys would have been the first to be put into a concentration camp 80 years ago. I mean there are _gay_ neo nazis. Don't they know anything about history?

Re:Freedom of thought

[hairyfeet]

I wonder if they bust OTHER hate groups, like the mosques that preach hate, or the other "* Power" groups? Wanna bet the answer is no?

You see THIS is the problem I have with so called "hate crimes" (like someone is gonna bash your head in because they like you) is because you ALWAYS seem to end up with "protected classes" and "acceptable racism", for examples see black power versus white power (Protip: Both are run by racists that incite violence) or how the Muslims in this country can burn bibles and American flags all day but that preacher said he was gonna burn a koran and got thrown in jail.

Either the law is the law, equal for all, or its just so much politically correct farce and sadly more and more in the west the law has become the latter,with certain groups being ignored when they are racists while others are punished. If racism is wrong then its wrong across the board, all this politically correct bullshit does is make old hatreds fester and give the racists plenty of recruitment fodder.

Re:Freedom of thought

[mjwalshe]

Well it was sort of at the start there is an amazing section on kershaws 2 vol bio of Hitler which has Goebbels excited running into a party meeting and announcing that "Hitler has abandoned socialism"

Re:Freedom of thought

[Hatta]

But it is really fair for the Government to say protect Far Left ideas while trying to hinder far right ones?

When has that actually happened?

Re:Freedom of thought

[mjwalshe]

In post ww1 Germany it was the socialists and the communists that really didn't get along (as a result of the crushing of the Bayerische Räterepublik) it was that split in the left that helped Hitler gain power.

Re:Freedom of thought

[mjwalshe]

They clamped down on the RAF and Baader Meinhof hard

Re:Freedom of thought

[killkillkill]

I suppose it depends on your definition of "right wing". Pretending that there is some sort of progressive spectrum from say the GOP to Libertarian to this is ridiculous. Most in the US tend to Define Right and Left as how much Freedom is protected or Regulation is imposed. Neo-Nazism is about hateful oppression of minorities. That data point has no place on this spectrum. Now this article is, of course, about Germany. I really don't have direct experience with politics there or what the general idea about what is right and left there, but being strongly US leaning website, you can understand the reaction to TFS using "far-right". Calling it left-wing is equally as ridiculous.

Playing the game of trying discredit and put a label on a world view you don't agree with on a movement few can stomach is just childish. Stop legitimizing their hate buy saying its just a few degrees away from a position a very large amount of people hold.

Re:Freedom of thought

[gl4ss]

in finland lectures are technically public(free to listen to).

there's a certain logic to it. for example, anyone can check on the lecture to see that they're not trying to turn people into nazis ;).

a trivia question: which technically nazi ally nation technically(and pretty much practically) remained unoccupied in the end days of world war 2 and afterwards?

music should be free game though... I don't want them banning punk music just because the lyrics talk about taking a chainsaw to the ministers pussy... or because of something else.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Triklyn]

i'd say it differs slightly in that the hearing of the things is not deemed expressly harmful, whereas the seeing of pornographic material is. Our police would probably arrest people handing out material of any kind at school for trespassing. I don't think they'd make the distinction. Incidentally, indecency laws are made at the state level apparently.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

Yea so you do not just feel secure in ignoring them. Actually wanting to destroy someone that you do not fear just because you disagree with them is frankly evil. That is what Nazis do. Really think about it for a minute. If they are no threat why not just ignore them? Simple answer is you worry about them becoming a threat.
AKA there is no shame in not feeling secure in Germany about Neo-Nazis. In fact if you where just okay with it I would worry. It has happened before and that knowledge should keep you on your guard.
BTW my Uncle was reported killed in action twice in Europe during WWII and had a terrible scar on his arm from where his watch branded him his tank caught fire and helped liberate one of the camps. He was from Brooklyn his however his grandparents on both sides where from Germany. He died in the 1980s but I think he would for the most part be happy with how Germany is today.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Triklyn]

the nazis were pretty adamant about not being socialist, the way you'd define it at any rate.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Idarubicin]

Freedom of speech isn't safe. In fact it is very dangerous. That is why the United States has that first in its bill of rights, because it is so dangerous, you need a powerful law to keep it intact.

The United States gets to lecture other countries on this point after it develops a consistent and enlightened position on "obscenity" and public exposure of women's breasts.

The U.S. position, generally speaking, is that it's okay to sell a kid a Neo-Nazi tract, but not a copy of Playboy. It's okay to hold a public rally demanding the execution of all the Jews in America, but in most places it remains an illegal public nuisance for a women to attend that rally topless. (Unless, of course, the toplessness is part of the 'message' of the rally, in which case it's protected speech...maybe.)

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

For what it's worth, I think it's fair to say that in much of the rest of the world, Left and Right are about wealth distribution, and about who should be in control of means of production (investers or workers). Not saying this is better, or worse, just noting the difference. That said, it is probably also fair to say that most international observers, assuming they use this classical economic notion of left/right, would consider the US to be pretty far off to the right. Again, just saying.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, people of German and Italian descent were also interned during WW2. It wasn't only those of Japanese descent.

Re:Freedom of thought

[pla]

And socialist, at that... Naziism was hardly socialist, name notwithstanding.

You, uh... You might want to read up on the term National Socialism.

As for right-vs-left, I'll just leave this here. I don't agree with everything in that (fairly short) essay, but overall it makes a solid case for Nazis as left-wing extremists.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Idarubicin]

Banning calls for "racial hatred" is a slippery slope. Where along the line do you start arresting people?

In a slightly different place on the same slope as the United States. You would do well to read the link the grandparent post provides, to Wikipedia's article on Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire. In the unanimous decision of the court, Justice Murphy wrote:

"There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

The U.S. holds that certain classes of speech are of sufficiently limited social value that they may be regulated by the state without violating the strictures of the First Amendment. Effectively, the difference is that Germany applies a slightly different definition of what constitutes obscenity warranting regulation.

Honestly, I can see where they're coming from, and it's interesting to compare where the U.S. stands on the regulation of Hitler versus Hustler.

Re:Freedom of thought

[dryeo]

The American Revolution where it was normal practice to tar and feather the right wingers, steal their property through letters of attainment and do everything possible to drive them out of the country.

Re:Freedom of thought

[pla]

You should probably find somewhere more intellectually honest, well-informed and less racist, like Stormfront on Hitler's birthday.

If you have a factual objection to a mere 1.5 page essay, feel free to post it. Perhaps I missed something critical that you spotted right away.

Re:Freedom of thought

[pla]

You do know where the term left and right wing actually originated? The German parliment, where the communists sat on the far left, and the nazi party on the far right.

The terms "left" and "right" appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president's right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville explained, "We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp." However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms "left" and "right" to refer to the opposing sides.

Re:Freedom of thought

[IWannaBeAnAC]

Drone attacks?

Re:Freedom of thought

[davydagger]

no not really, and especially not in context. There was a left branch of nazism called strasserism, but that was put down durring the night of long knives.

National Socialism belongs to the "third position", and was prevelant in an area where marxists, and anarchists where on the streets. Third position is anti-capitalist and anti-socialist.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

embarrassing funny coloured people at an airport

Right. Happens a lot, doesn't it? Wrong! The TSA goes out of its way to bother people who don't fit the profile of an Arab or Muslim terrorist. My decrepit 85 yr. old white father has been selected for special scrutiny on several occasions. Political Correctness governs the TSA. Even if the TSA profiled Arabs and Muslims and gave them extra scrutiny, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that. It is the job of govt to keep people safe and given the practical limits on resources, it is reasonable to single out the ethnic groups which constitute the threat. A little "embarrassment" for the targeted groups is not that big a deal if you believe that the TSA actually enhances security which I do not. Airport security is mostly just theater.

nationals who descended from a small island in the pacific and putting them in forced camps?

Japan is hardly a small island and FDR's cronies saw an opportunity to use fear to steal a little property. FDR was nothing if not opportunistic. It's terrible that Japanese immigrants were rounded up and put in camps, but the camps housing the Japanese were hardly the same as the death camps of the Nazis.

Or setting up secret, legally questionable prisons to house those funny colored people you mentioned.

*sigh* There is nothing particularly secret, questionable, harsh or abusive about Guantanamo, no matter what your America-hating teacher may have told you. And the people detained there weren't detained because of their color.

Yeah, last 100 years have been pretty enlighted for us here in 'Merica.

Stalin murdered 15-40 million or so people, Mao 30-70 million or so, Hitler 16 million or so, Pol Pot ...

Yeah, I'd say 'Merica rounding up a few immigrants for a while is pretty enlightened by comparison.

Re:Freedom of thought

[medv4380]

There are parts of the bible that are highly pornographic, and if the Police arrested anyone over handing it out there would be an immediate backlash from it. Written speech is what has the most protection. Music is censored for profanity, and not for content otherwise "Caress me Down" would be banned for a highly graphic description of sex. It's played fairly regularly on one music station in Conservative Idaho so sex isn't as big of a deal when dealing with Music. None of the art galleries have been burned for having full nudes, or depictions of Roman debauchery. Last I checked minors were allowed in, and there has been no issue with the Police. However, things like Hustler and Playboy would cause an issue. The intent and market for Porn is sexual gratification, and where we draw the line with that has more to do with the culturally accepted age of consent. If you think that the US position on Porn is strange just go take a Hustler down to the Red Light districts in Japan. Most US porn is illegal in countries like Japan that somehow are able to accept much more extreme porn culturally, but show too much of one thing or another and it's illegal for even adults.

Re:Freedom of thought

[sribe]

You mean actions like embarrassing funny coloured people at an airport, or invading their country?

I've never heard of TSA targeting funny people, as long as they stay away from bomb jokes.

Oh, wait, did you mean funny-coloured people?

Re:Freedom of thought

[angel'o'sphere]

But they are a threat already.

Right now there is a court case in germany against the sole surviving woman of a neo nazi gang which killed together roughly 15 people. Mainly muslims and police members. Killed in the sense of: sneaking on them and shooting them from behind, not in the sense as "firefight with the police". They stalked people which they saw in uniform, till they figured where they lifed and simply killed them for being "in the police".

And there are "conspiration theories" that they had backing inside of the police force as it took ages to catch them and important informations that one agency had gatherd was not passed to other agencies (police offices or federal investigation officials).

One of the gang members commited sucide, with a weapon that was used in police murder. THAT is how they finally found them.

Re:Freedom of thought

[dcw3]

Much of the bill of rights only really started gaining legal traction over the last few decades...

You can't be serious.

Re:Freedom of thought

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Actually yeah, it was, though a different flavor of socialism than what you're used to.

But to be honest, I think sticking the terms right wing or left wing on these is stupid. It basically implies that there are two major schools of thought to politics when in reality there are many (infinite dare I say, because new ones spring up now and again.) Sure you can stick a compass for any one dimension on a particular ideology (e.g. freedom vs despotism) but you'll often find people traditionally identified as both left and right on either extreme of just about every dimension.

In fact, sticking a right or left label has the same effect as saying there's only one form of socialism. Marxist socialism is working for the betterment of the people, whereas national socialism is working for the betterment of the state (and part of building a strong national identity and pride.) Marxism might stress individual liberties with a collective identity, whereas national socialism is strictly a collective.

At least, this is what these things say on paper. Whether or not they actually do them is a whole other issue (for example, individual liberties never last under Marxism.)

Re:Freedom of thought

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Though to be honest, for oppressive world superpowers the US will probably go down in history as being one of the nicer ones. Used to be that in order to keep the peace, your village had to pay tribute to the local evil empire, and whatever they asked for they received. Today to keep the peace, the US issues foreign aid. Although the US currently the most hated of any in history, I don't think it will stay that way post mortem.

Re:Freedom of thought

[AlphaWolf_HK]

It could very well be that people do it more just because it's illegal and they want to be rebellious.

Think about smoking. What age group is most likely to start smoking? The one who is legally allowed to or the one who isn't? Which one is most likely to want to quit?

Re:Freedom of thought

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I don't think jew burning is quite central to the ideology, rather it's just a convenient enemy they needed to create in order to have something to rally the masses against.

Modern politicians do this all the time, though to a much lesser extent. They try to create an irrational fear of their opposition. US Democrats and Republicans are especially bad at this (of the rare times I see commercials, I remember seeing one a while ago showing some guy pushing a granny in a wheelchair off of a cliff, and it was some petty partisan issue, though I don't recall what.)

Re:Freedom of thought

[hackertourist]

Either the law is the law, equal for all, or its just so much politically correct farce and sadly more and more in the west the law has become the latter,with certain groups being ignored when they are racists while others are punished.

In case you missed it, TFA is about Germany. You know, the country that plunged the world into 6 years of hell thanks to the Nazis, and the country that is now committed to preventing that from ever happening again. So yes, they have special laws that target neo-Nazis. And I don't blame them.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

You keep using that word but I do not think you know what it means.

Re:Freedom of thought

[dyingtolive]

Well, we're hardly burning Jews, or anything like that, I agree. We're not the terrible monsters that is the stereotypical perception of the foreign attitude about us. I'm just saying, at the same time, we're not nearly as nice as we pat ourselves on the back for being either.

Re:Freedom of thought

[orgelspieler]

i'd say it differs slightly in that the hearing of the things is not deemed expressly harmful, whereas the seeing of pornographic material is.

If I had to choose between my kids hanging out with teenagers that a) listen to neo-nazi music, or b) watch porn, I know which one I would pick. I don't know how anybody could come to the conclusion that listening to hate-filled anti-minority bile is somehow less harmful than watching a couple of consenting adults going after it.

Incidentally, indecency laws are made at the state level apparently.

Not all of them. The FCC censorship decisions are made at the federal level.

Re:Freedom of thought

[sageres]

It is a lot more complex than that. One can not define governing philosophies in a single-dimensional space. I would say even Political Compass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_compass) is quite a bit simplified concept, political spectrum had a wide viriety of research. In my personal opinion, Nazis are economically to the left, socially to the far right. Comminists (Stalinist and Maoists) were also economically to the far left, socially to the far right. I personally think that a line of nationalistic tendencies is the last invisible measurement of the Political Spectra where actually Nazis and Communists are differ. Nazis were extreme chauvinistic nationalists. Communists were inherently internationalists. Also Nazis allowed private property (although the plan for the final Greater Germany called for the full nationalization of the world wealth for the benefit of the German nation.)

Re:Freedom of thought

[DNS-and-BIND]

LOL. Sure. Wikipedia, source of all knowledge. That article was written by who, exactly? And what was their motivation? Look it's not like the Nazis weren't left-wingers - they were. It's that they were the wrong kind of left-wingers. 20th century history is chock-full of left-wingers who thought that other kinds of left-wingers were the real enemy. Purges were common, and true believers in left-wingism frequently found themselves in slave labor camps or executed altogether. But let's not believe some random internet commenter, let's ask those National Socialists themselves:

"We have backed the wrong horse in Spain. We would have done better to back the Republicans. They represent the people. We could always have converted these socialists into good National Socialists later. The people around Franco are all reactionary clerics, aristocrats, and moneybags Â-- they've nothing in common with us Nazis at all!"
-- Adolf Hitler, April 1938

"I, on the other hand, have been striving for twenty years with a minimum of intervention and without destroying our production, to arrive at a new Socialist order in Germany which not only eliminates unemployment but also permits the worker to receive an ever greater share of the fruits of his labor.

The success of this policy of economic and social reconstruction of our people, which by systematically eliminating differences of rank and class, has a true peoples' community as the final aim of the world."
-- Adolf Hitler

We call ourselves a workers party because we want to rescue the word work from its current definition and give it back its original meaning. Anyone who creates value is a creator, that is, a worker. We refuse to distinguish kinds of work. Our only standard is whether the work serves the whole, or at least does not harm it, or if it is harmful. Work is service. If it works against the general welfare, then it is treason against the fatherland.

Marxist nonsense claimed to free labor, yet it degraded the work of its members and saw it as a curse and disgrace. It can hardly be our goal to abolish labor, but rather to give new meaning and content. The worker in a capitalist state Â-- and that is his deepest misfortune Â-- is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker.

He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces. Labor is for him only a way to survive, not a path to higher blessings, not a joy, not something in which to take pride, or satisfaction, or encouragement, or a way to build character.

We are a workers party because we see in the coming battle between finance and labor the beginning and the end of the structure of the twentieth century. We are on the side of labor and against finance. Money is the measuring rod of liberalism, work and accomplishment that of the socialist state. The liberal asks: What are you? The socialist asks: Who are you? Worlds lie between.

-- "Those Damned Nazis", by Joseph Goebbels (1932)

Re:Freedom of thought

[Redmancometh]

What exactly is far right in Germany? Nazi metal wouldn't mesh w the "far right" here

Re:Freedom of thought

[DNS-and-BIND]

Quick question: what happened to various countries in the 20th century when they adopted the left-wing view and put workers in charge of the means of production?

A) It was all cool, things happened naturally, we got along great without those bastards

B) Left-wingers ordered the deaths of tens of millions of human beings in order to further the cause of socialism.

Re:Freedom of thought

[SleazyRidr]

I have too many factual objections to that essay than I really have space to list here. I'll start by pointing you here: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/want-to-know-about-nazi-germanys-real.html

For a more direct, if slightly drier source, you could also consider reading Mein Kampf: http://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386185965&sr=8-1&keywords=mein+kampf

If that's not enough I could go on a rant about how confused you are about modern liberals.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience having worked for several universities, public universities without persona non grata policies are the exception, not the norm. There is a varying amount of bureaucracy involved in getting someone on that list, so someone has to cause problems repeatedly to get on the list. But if you do cause a problem, you will get kicked off campus (assuming what you did wasn't flat out illegal in the first place) and told if you return within some time frame they will arrest you for trespassing, and campus policy have a power to temporarily kick someone off campus until administration makes a more long term decision.

And some places have more restrictions that others on a given campus. If a building has no library or classrooms in it (some are just offices and labs), or if you are outside of a wide range of hours that classes may take place, then campus security can and will check for your id if they see you there (usually they are never there, and when they are, are too busy doing something else). I've had security stop me before when working really late nights (past ~10 PM), especially when looking for a non-broken vending machine, but my ID number is listed as having after hour access to that building. I've also seen policies where they id people driving onto/off of campus late at night, because of issues with car theft, or one case with more active patrol of a build area due to a stalking issue with one researcher, but those are not as common.

That said, I agree that the gp is pretty off base. If you don't act like a destructive idiot and don't harass people, you can get on many university campuses, even private ones, and make use of libraries (just not check out), etc. Although computers are becoming more difficult to use because many schools now require a campus login to library computers. And sitting in a lecture is pretty easy, even if the schools want to discourage it. Just ask the professor ahead of time, and make sure there is enough room for enrolled students to sit in the lecture. Employees (e.g. postdocs and engineers) of the schools do it all the time, but it is not like the profs ask if they are students or employees or to show an id.

Re:Freedom of thought

[chilvence]

I feel I should step in at this point and say that I believe labelling political parties as either right or left wing is about a useful and insightful as labelling them after colours such as 'red' and 'blue'. Once they've managed to dumb it down that much, they may as well be indiscernibly different elite gentleman's clubs secretly in cahoots with each other as they play piggy in the middle.

Oh wait...

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

I don't know who wrote that paragraph I cited, probably a dozen or so individuals. More importantly it has been *read* by very many people, all of whom could've flagged any errors.

So I'm going to go ahead and put more trust in Wikipedia than a pamphlet of the Nazi propaganda czar, but thanks.

Clearly I'm not denying that the nazis tried to appropriate some of the momentum that (internationalist) Socialism was having in Mid/East Europe. But in practice they never were left wing, in the parlance of their times nor ours.

If you can cite any credible historian who argues that the nazis were left wing, I'd love to hear about it -- and I'd be quite surprised.

I get the feeling that this meme originates with modern right wingers in the USA. Either because they understandably do not want to be associated with the third reich and/or because they want to associate their nemeses on the left with it.

Goebbels would be proud.

Re:Freedom of thought

[jythie]

Compared to the violations we saw before, say, the 50s, yeah, I am dead serious. Constitutional protections are taken seriously today in ways that would have been laughed out of court 70s years ago when they barely even pretended to have equal treatment. Civil rights fundamentally changed the way the law interacts with the constitution and opened up a whole new chapter in 'yes, you actually DO have to follow this'.

Re:Freedom of thought

[erikkemperman]

Wait, surely you didn't read my post about classical interpretation of the left/right wing politics as somehow praising the accomplishments of Stalin and Mao?

Also, regimes such as the Soviet Union and East Germany were not exactly known for actually putting workers in charge of anything. They arguably abused the Socialist moniker even worse than the nazis.

Re:Freedom of thought

[tristes_tigres]

Used to be that in order to keep the peace, your village had to pay tribute to the local evil empire, and whatever they asked for they received.

Whereas nowadays, your village has to pay tribute to the IMF, and those who refuse, are branded "undemocratic" and bombed with cruise missiles. Yes, humanity progressed a long way.

Today to keep the peace, the US issues foreign aid.

Keep it. I mean, seriously. The world is much better off with out your "aid"

Re:Freedom of thought

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...just FYI? Rohm and the SA leadership were pretty much ALL gay and Hitler and pals didn't have a problem with it until Rohm started talking about a "second revolution" because he thought "the little colonel" had betrayed the socialist part of national socialism, just FYI.

Re:Freedom of thought

[kwbauer]

You mean we would never just ignore the existing procedural rules about how to modify the procedural rules in order to change a procedural rule to make it easier to pass any law we want to? Nah, we would never do that sort of thing over here. After all, Hitler did that sort of thing.

Re:Freedom of thought

[kwbauer]

"Marxist socialism is working for the betterment of the people, whereas national socialism is working for the betterment of the state (and part of building a strong national identity and pride.) Marxism might stress individual liberties with a collective identity, whereas national socialism is strictly a collective."

So Mao and Lenin were actually against Marx? Exactly what individual liberties were they championing?

Re:Freedom of thought

[kwbauer]

Not for listening to music and promoting ideas. They clamped down on them for actually engaging in espionage and terrorism (blowing stuff up, murdering people, robbing banks, etc.)

Re:Freedom of thought

[quax]

It's a law to protect minors. The idea is that having gone through school and reached maturity, hate groups will have a harder time recruiting them to their cause.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Which leads to the confusion people have about conservative and liberal in the United States versus Europe. In Europe, "conservative" means authoritarian because that's what the old position was. "Liberal" means freedom-pursuing. In the United states, "conservative" and "liberal" are based on their views of constitutional interpretation. Conservatives prefer the freedom of the original signers' interpretations, whereas liberals prefer a liberal interpretation that allows them to bring about authoritarian laws whenever they please. Note that George W. Bush was a liberal Republican. Authoritarian, and they grow-em big in Texas. That's why conservatives didn't like Bush too much, while liberals like Obama expanded Bush's programs.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Wrath0fb0b]

This is in Germany. They have a different history than we do in the US. You will find laws like that in France and other nations that where under Nazi rule. They are a democratic nation and it is up to them to change their laws if they see fit. Canada also has laws about hate speech that would not fly in the US. The US never had Nazis in control of our nation so we feel the best protection is freedom of speech. In many places in the EU they do not feel secure in that. The US has stricter restrictions on porn because of our culture. Although the restrictions are really very minimal outside of broadcast TV and radio.
I hate when a bunch of people from Europe start spouting off options about the US's rules. Germany is a free nation so let it's citizens decide what works best for them.

This line of logic might be fine for Nazis, but ultimately it has the problem that "a free nation" is not just a statement about the derivation of rules but also about some meta-rules that govern the process of rules-formation itself. This is sometimes called constitutional (not in the capital-C sense) or meta-political ordering that goes beyond the individual policy choices. One of those meta-political rules that I think has merit is that, irrespective of the democratic nature of the process, no body-politic ought to be able to suppress organized dissent or prevent those from offering a contrary platform. Otherwise, I think you (in general, not in Germany ever) risk the run of falling into the "one-man-one-vote-one-time" trap where a democratically elected government is able to use the levers of power to permanently embed itself.

Ultimately, I'm not losing any sleep over it.

[ FWIW, I don't think there's anything wrong with (polite!) normative comments about contrary policies abroad. I have no problem when people from Europe say (respectfully) that they are bewildered by American support for the RKBA and that, if they were the voters here, they would not chose such a policy. I disagree with that, but they are entitled to their opinion and no one should begrudge them that. ]

Re:Freedom of thought

[TangoMargarine]

What do you mean, you can't declare war on nouns? War on Nazi Germany, AKA World War II...and, y'know, basically 90% of all other wars fought in history...

An idea is a subtype of noun. Person, place, thing, idea.

Re:Freedom of thought

[TangoMargarine]

How do we convince bad people that their viewpoints are bad if they can't legally tell us what they are?

Re:Freedom of thought

[dcw3]

While I'll agree with respect to civil rights, I think we've gone the other direction with the implementation of "hate crimes". Freedom of speech has reversed directions in recent years as well with limitations put in place due to political correctness. The fourth has been under attack. And, when was the last time someone actually had a speedy trial? The federal government has certainly been pushing aside the tenth amendment.

I won't get into a debate on the values of all of those, but I would say that civil rights is one (maybe the only) area where I'd agree with your original comment.

Re:Freedom of thought

[TangoMargarine]

To say that the world was in "6 years of hell thanks to the Nazis" is a rather narrow-minded viewpoint. The Nazis were a problem long before 1939.

Re:Freedom of thought

[iserlohn]

The left-right spectrum has nothing to do with what you said and has everything to do with ownership of the mean of production.

Seriously, has /. devolved into 4chan?

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

Funny things but very rarely do I see anyone trying to convince anyone that their view point is wrong. Most often I see people yelling, insulting, and preaching to the choir.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Your.Master]

It's not often explained why "porn laying about in the open and hedonism on open display" is bad. I'd be uncomfortable with that too, but the only strong reason I can give is that I come from a culture where that was thought to be bad.

Re:Freedom of thought

[NotQuiteReal]

Truth be told, the "middle of the road" party would win by a landslide in the US... if it were running (and could do anything if it "won"). However, we don't have that choice, the way things have evolved - we have a two-party system, since the two parties have made the rules (primaries, congressional committee assignments, etc.)

So, we flip-flop back and forth in an "us or them" proposition for each election.

Unfortunately the flip flopping is more like "ratcheting" - the "left" keeps telling you what you have to do, and the "right" keeps telling you want you can't do. Lose-lose with each flip-flop. Odd how the "in power" party doesn't undo anything... they just pile-on their agenda...

Re: Freedom of thought

[tolkienfan]

Racial profiling is morally wrong, ineffective and easy for a criminal to defeat. It's simply not justifiable.

Re: Freedom of thought

[tolkienfan]

Grammar-nazi! Wait... oops!

Re:Freedom of thought

[Bing Tsher E]

That's a very doctrinaire Marxist point of view.

Hint: Economists in the 21st century don't really consider Marx a good economist.

Re:Freedom of thought

[Bing Tsher E]

Ah, right. The 'Communism hasn't REALLY ever been tried. Give us another chaaaaance!' gambit.

Nice try, dude.

Re:Freedom of thought

[CTachyon]

Uhhh...just FYI? Rohm and the SA leadership were pretty much ALL gay and Hitler and pals didn't have a problem with it until Rohm started talking about a "second revolution" because he thought "the little colonel" had betrayed the socialist part of national socialism, just FYI.

Hitler had a pretty firm "babies good, homosexuals bad" policy for the common folk. Rohm was a party insider long before Hitler was elected Chancellor; in general, Hitler was pretty willing to give special treatment to party insiders, even ones less senior than Rohm. Even so, I'm not aware of any other SA leaders who got a pass for the same reason; care to name names?

For that matter, Hitler's family doctor Eduard Bloch was Jewish, and he got special treatment too (only Jew in Linz with special protection from the Gestapo, notes Wikipedia). Adolf reportedly had quite the soft spot for him after he did everything he could to treat Klara Hitler's rather horrifically advanced breast cancer, despite her financial hardship. Basically, Hitler was a giant hypocrite who tried to ignore the brutality of his own policies by shielding only the people he cared about and could personally see suffering from them.

Re:Freedom of thought

[rioki]

and anarchists... and radical communists... and hate preacher... Basically any speech that is advocating changing or undermining the democratic order. Basically you can say anything, except burn down the government and kill all XXX. (And actually mean it.) Remember this is the country that banned the Communist Party, because they where advocating an armed revolution. To bad the borderline right wing parties are a bit more clever about it all. (They would be banned if they came out, what they say behind closed doors.) The good news is, they are becoming more and more irrelevant and stopped getting parliamentary seats in states.

Re:Freedom of thought

[GameboyRMH]

Well I learned something today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-American_internment

Re:Freedom of thought

[X0563511]

Come to think of it, I can't come up with a real reason either, only fuzzy things like "innocence" which are rooted in culture as well.

Re:Freedom of thought

[TangoMargarine]

Fair enough. If we just ban talking about it, how are we ever going to resolve the issue, though?

Re:Freedom of thought

[dyingtolive]

I think the extent of his argument is, "We're not the most evil people ever, so anything we do is still justified."

Re:Freedom of thought

[Triklyn]

i wasn't talking about prolonged exposure, but temporary and brief, as i'd hope that the school would take relatively immediate action in both cases.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

While the US has some shared history the US did not have to deal with what Germany did. Had France and the UK had just gone along with the US's plan for a "Just Peace" after WWI their might not have been a WWII. Instead the allies decided to punish the central powers.The US was in a different position at the end of WWII including the total defeat of Germany and Japan. That allowed for a far more just and long lasting piece and Germany and Japan becoming Allies with the allies and not future enemies.
As i said if modern German does not have the a combination of fear and anger when seeing a Neo-Nazi then they they are just stupid or evil. Frankly even in the US I think people should have the same feelings. Also I think that if you say it can never happen here you are not really helping. That attitude should be "I will never stand by and let that happen here" or in Germany "happen here again".
I have faith that Germany can work this out. While from my point of view in the US this law goes over the top Germany is not the US. I want to believe that there are enough good people in Germany, a strong enough democratic tradition, and a proper education level that such a thing will never happen again.

Re:Freedom of thought

[scottpig]

There are parts of the bible that are highly pornographic

Oh sure, in fact many Penthouse Letters are actually just verbatim excerpts of biblical verse.

Re:Freedom of thought

[LWATCDR]

I think that the issue that Nazis are bad has been solved to the vast majority of people. I am not saying that this is an ideal solution but it is one that the German people have chosen. I do not know if you are German but I am not so I really do not get the right be part of their system. All I can say is I do not find this really evil and that I can understand why they have taken that path.
It is kind of like when people ask why the US is so hard on sexual content compared to violence in media.
To me that is a simple answer. Parents are far more afraid of their kids getting pregnant or catching a STD than being shot. What is funny is that they are right in that danger assessment.

Re:Freedom of thought

[ender89]

Germany takes the whole "murdered 6,000,000 jews" thing very seriously and keep close tabs on people who are looking to bring back the nazi party. hell, they don't even allow historical reenactments over there. They treat the whole situation very similarly to a recovering alcoholic - one neo nazi is one too many. I'm not saying that they are "right" and kids will rebel regardless, but they are trying to be responsible in a world where they are a seen as a recovering super-villain.

Re:Freedom of thought

[WindBourne]

Although the US currently the most hated of any in history, I don't think it will stay that way post mortem.

LOL.
You think that the US is the MOST HATED OF ANY NATION IN HISTORY????? Really?

More than the Mongols were. More than Stalin USSR? Hitler's Germany?
Or even any of the many colonizing nations of Europe who pushed slavery all over the world, forced Christianity on other cultures many many times, murdered and butchered natives all over the world?

Oh, by all means, citation please. Please show us some good facts about how USA is the most hated of all times.

Re:Freedom of thought

[WindBourne]

it depends on what it does. The truth is that MOST US's aid actually helps many many ppl. The problems come in when it is used to support corrupt politicians, OR when it was used to help prop up our businesses in other nations. Thankfully, we are pretty much down with the former and done with the later. Sadly, 100% of China's aid, as well as much of Europe's, foreign aid are involved in both approaches. Otherwise, they skip giving the aid.

Re:Freedom of thought

[WindBourne]

actually, it does NOT make a solid case. It does not make a case at all. That kind of BS has been refuted for over 60 years. That is why nearly all academicians insist that NAZIs were far-right with a lot of similarity to today's neo-cons and tea*.

Re:Freedom of thought

[WindBourne]

W's policy was a direct extension of reagan's since he was a "neo-con" like him. There was NOTHING liberal about either of these two. You neo-cons hated W because he was not able to BS as well as reagan even though both were just about as destructive to America and the world. Both of these 2 had more in common with hoover, harding and coolidge. And BTW, when Harding finished office, he was considered a decent president, until great depression started and then ppl realized that their policies were total disasters. Coolidge is regarded as worse for having continued the hoover/harding policies. reagan and W are of the same ilk. W is considered bad, but in about another 20 years, reagan will be considered similar to W.
OTOH, POPPA Bush was a real republican in the same vein as Lincoln, Teddy, and somewhat eisenhower.

Re:Freedom of thought

[shutdown -p now]

This is in Germany. They have a different history than we do in the US. You will find laws like that in France and other nations that where under Nazi rule. They are a democratic nation and it is up to them to change their laws if they see fit.

In case of Germany, the irony is that most of those various "denazification" laws were actually put in place immediately after their surrender by demand of the Allies, including US.

Re:Freedom of thought

[WindBourne]

and the republicans for the last 40+ years have spoken of balancing the budget, while running up massive deficits under ever republican president for just about every year (save the last year of Poppa Bush), while both dem presidents dropped the deficit each of their years.

This is why historians look at their actions and not their words. That is also why historians and MOST political scientists regard NAZI's as far right, and only in a few obscure American republican political scientists do they say otherwise.

Re:Freedom of thought

[metaforest]

I decided to no-fly in the face of... what was that again? Nevermind. **sits back down**

Re:Freedom of thought

[jwhitener]

Well and even more simple: some things really are just bad. Advocating for blatantly racist ideologies is one of those bad ideas. Banning speech espousing those ideologies should be low hanging fruit.

The trouble, as many point out, is the slippery slope. Germany decided a long time ago that blatant hate speech isn't even on the slope to begin with. It is clearly off the Mountain.

Wagner

[amalcolm]

Young Nazis these days - what's wrong with a spot of Wagner - the original musical Nazi!!

Re:Wagner

[jalopezp]

You jest, but are entirely right. Quoting the article quoting the Federal Review Board for something:

This applies to, for example, media that contain indecent, extremely violent, crime-inducing, anti-Semitic or racist material, also to media content that glorifies National Socialism, drugs, alcohol abuse, self-inflicted injury or suicide, to media content propagating vigilante justice and to media content that discriminates against specific groups of people.

There is no way that doesn't include Wagner.

Re:Wagner

[amalcolm]

Listening to the whole Ring Cycle would definitely be a self-inflicted injury!

Re:Wagner

[TWX]

GP and you really don't know anything about Wagner beyond what you've seen on TV documentaries about the Nazis, do you?

Wagner himself may have held some horrible views, but the work that he produced was not geared toward racism, classism, or religious bigotry. His fascination with Norse Mythology was not based on an attempt to tie it to Prussian and later German history, rather to turn an epic tale into an opera and into profit for himself.

It's not Wagner's fault that fifty years after his death, Germany reappropriated his music, attempting to tie Norse Mythology, their concept of what a perfect human was (in the form of Scandinavian coloring) and finding a fit with his personal views (which I've already acknowledged were horrible) to attempt to redefine the music. Wagner never explicitly defined Jewish characters as foils or villains; one can argue that Shakespeare, in his body of work, was worse to the Jews through his character Shylock the Moneylender as being out for literal flesh when his borrower defaults.

Do you advocate banning Shakespeare for the same reasoning?

I tend to think of Wagner and his attitudes and personal history in a similar context to Al Jolson. Jolson's biggest hit was Swanee, demonstrably highly racist in that it was not only in Blackface, but pined for a fictional, idealized South that was kind to slaves that never existed. As such, some of Jolson's body of work doesn't appeal to me, but I can acknowledge the man's faults, choose to avoid those works that I don't agree with, and can enjoy what I don't find unpalatable. I can even acknowledge that given the history and legacy of the Minstrel Show, it's not surprising that at the end of the Blackface era, there was still acceptance of the style and that its commercial viability basically ensured that it wasn't going to go away quickly, and that Jolson and many other performers employed it because they were brought up finding it acceptable. I don't find it acceptable, so I don't embrace those elements of the performers' bodies of work.

It's possible to separate the man from the work.

thought police

[dlt074]

can't very well have any of THOSE kind of thoughts.

Re:thought police

[SirGarlon]

I suspect Nazi prohibition in Europe will work about as well as drug prohibition in the USA.

Re:thought police

[J'raxis]

They've been prohibiting Nazi-type groups since WWII. And as the article said, they're still a major problem in Germany. So yeah, it is working out about as well as the drug war. But hey, it lets the politicians say they're "doing something" and lets the cops get all sorts of new toys (and ever more tax dollars to buy more cool toys), so it's all good, right?

Re:thought police

[postbigbang]

These don't correlate well. One is inwardly destructive, while the other is outwardly exclusive and destructive.

One involves a network of producers, processors, distribution, and sales, whilst the other is ideological, delusional, tribal, and "evangelical".

Oh, wait....

Re:thought police

[gnasher719]

They've been prohibiting Nazi-type groups since WWII. And as the article said, they're still a major problem in Germany. So yeah, it is working out about as well as the drug war. But hey, it lets the politicians say they're "doing something" and lets the cops get all sorts of new toys (and ever more tax dollars to buy more cool toys), so it's all good, right?

Not really a _problem_. It gives every good and law-abiding citizen a target to get rid of their aggressions without anyone complaining.

Re:thought police

[J'raxis]

The parallels to certain historical incidents in the same country are rather interesting, aren't they?

Seems nearly every population needs a hated underclass to dump on. Let's them avoid dealing with whatever their true problems are.

Sounds so wrong

[C0R1D4N]

I can understand why modern Germans would certainly hate anything Nazi related, but as an American the idea of just making the expression of ideas, or listening to certain music illegal sounds worse than the ideas they are oppressing (though any Nazis in power would of course do the same thing)

Re:Sounds so wrong

[east coast]

Don't worry, it's coming. I'm sure it's already here in some round-about manner. Being an American doesn't say much for how much freedom one does or does not have anymore. While I don't always agree to the whole slippery slope argument I'd have to be honest and say that it's been pretty much the case in the last few decades. Probably throughout the entire lifetime of anyone reading this.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Thanshin]

but as an American the idea of just making the expression of ideas, or listening to certain music illegal sounds worse than the ideas they are oppressing

Because America is the bastion of freedom where nobody has ever been sent to a concentration camp without trial. Ever. At least not in recent history. Well, not in the last... five months.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Triklyn]

can citizens apply for a permit to play the music in a public space?

or can they obtain a permit for a peaceful neo-nazi rally?

how nazi-ish does one need to be to be barred from obtaining said permit? what if they had no iconography, and changed their name?

who makes that decision, where does the designation fall?

how does one decide what neo-nazi music is? unless the song name is "yay nazis" isn't it open to interpretation? who decided that this music is promoting hate?

for some of us, even though it is happenstance, appreciate that the first amendment is first. The primacy of the first is serendipitous and right.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Sir_Eptishous]

I have an elderly neighbor of Japanese descent, who was actually born and raised in the US. We got talking one day and I realized he was around during the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. I casually tried to get him to talk about it... He admitted he was in the camps but wouldn't elaborate further...

The real questions is, how long will it be until it happens again in the US?

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Triklyn]

it's distasteful, but our constitution only fully protects us. And in a general sense we must make allowances for extenuating and ever changing circumstances. jurisprudence is written case by case, explicitly when the law is violated or unwritten.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Thanshin]

it's distasteful, but our constitution only fully protects us.

One problem that applies even for the most egotistical point of view, is when the definition of "us" changes.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[X0563511]

You are aware that NAZI actually means "National Socialist German Workers' Party" right?

Don't get me wrong as I am not claiming they are at all related, but a Republican is a Republican no matter what you call it - I don't see why this would be any different. It's a political ideology, and what you call it does not change the ideology.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Trepidity]

Ah yes, America, with its famous freedom of speech that covers all subjects without question.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[C0R1D4N]

I have never said anything positive about the US Federal government. I spoke only on the values I as an Americanxwas brought up to believe in. There has always been a disconnect between those values and the actions of our leaders. Many of us still try to hold to them though.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[LWATCDR]

The internment camps where not death camps. The US did not intern all Japanese and did intern many Germans and Italians.
What will prevent it happening again is for History teachers to start teaching history instead of political doctrine.
I had a friend who went to Dartmouth. Her history professor brought in a woman that survived Hiroshima as a child. It was to teach that the US where monsters and dropped the bomb because the US was racist.
The same teacher never mentioned the rape of Nanking, the Bataan death match, or Japans use of biological and chemical weapons in China. When teaching about the internment camps they never talk about the Niihau incident, the bombing of Washington state, or the shelling of Long Beach by Japan.
When will we prevent something like that again? When we understand that the people of that time where not monsters and that if we where put in the same position and had the same knowledge that they had we would probably do the same thing. AKA we need to stop thinking we are better than they where and be grateful that we can learn from their mistakes.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[rich_hudds]

No one is arguing that some Japanese did terrible things before and during the war. It doesn't justify dropping nukes or fire bombing their cities.

I'm British and we are (mostly) pretty ashamed of the way we bombed German cities.

I can understand how we ended up doing it but that doesn't excuse it.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[fnj]

The US did not intern all Japanese and did intern many Germans and Italians.

Certainly true, as worded, but could you produce comparative numbers, both absolute and as percentage of the population? The reason I ask is because it is not easy to find this information (to say the least). I would hazard a guess that FAR lesser percentages of ethnic Germans and Italians were interned, compared to ethnic Japanese.

The fact is that the Japanese were demonized from Pearl Habor onward in a way that Germans and Italians were, by and large, not. The Germans were not much demonized until around the time of the Malmedy massacre, and particularly when it became impossible to ignore the horror of the concentration camps at the very end of the war. The Italians were never demonized at all.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[fnj]

but the Nazi atrocities involved jews that makes it special, all other kinds of hate is fine

Your point? It WAS special, in degree and in egregiousness. I'm sorry if that makes you somehow unhappy.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[fnj]

I have never said this about anyone here, but you are one sick bastard and you need help.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Triklyn]

i thought it was pretty clear that i was referring to US citizens. legally, the definition of US citizen, naturalized or native born, has not changed in a while. It's only the fringe cases that there is any real ambiguity. anyone born in the United States or its territories is considered a native born US citizen and also some people who have to deal with some convoluted mess involving the parents' nationality and number of years living in the US vs abroad.

some rights are extended to foreign nationals, but the full rights guaranteed by the constitution only extend to US citizens.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[gl4ss]

maybe that they played it in a neo nazi convention decides that's what it is, if so I wish they would start playing country music.

and also no, you cannot get a permit for a peaceful neo-nazi rally in germany.

(some of their music probably is just "we're neo nazis yeah yeah yeah!" though, most of it in my country afaik is just kinda like hc punk)

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is arguing that some Japanese did terrible things before and during the war. It doesn't justify dropping nukes or fire bombing their cities.

Dropping the nukes saved probably 500,000 American casualties and millions of Japanese deaths from casualties and starvation. The American combat experience was that the Japanese would literally fight to the death on islands distant from their homeland. Certainly, the Japanese would fight no less ferociously for their home soil? Given that Japanese terrain favors defense, it was also reasonable to believe that an invasion and conquest of the Japanese homeland would take years.

Dropping the nukes was a no-brainer, absolutely the right thing to do. It also had a grim silver-lining - it showed what the effects of a nuclear blast on a population really are and did so when nuclear weapons were relatively low-yield. Without Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the effects of a nuclear weapon would have been mostly a matter of academic debate and it would have been far more likely that a weapon with the terrifying yield of 1 Gigaton or more would have been used somewhere by now.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Sir_Eptishous]

Don't waste your time on getting numbers from this guy.
Anyone that would make those claims obviously has a political agenda and isn't interested in history.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[LWATCDR]

Sigh.... You just don't get it.
The Japanese where demonized because of Pearl Harbor and the attacks on the US mainland. Germany was also demonized. Italy was less so but still demonized. Italy switched sides pretty early in the war so they had to be humanized. You really should look at the movies of the time as well as comic books and cartoons. Again you just do not get it. You are trying to demonize the people in the US that did this without understanding why you might have done the same thing. You are looking to make yourself feel superior because you are so sure that you would never do the same. That is a dangerous tactic and one that is all too common today in history classes. Think of it this way. FDR was one of the most liberal and progressive world leaders of the time. Why was he okay with this?
No it was not the right thing to do. However it is understandable how it happened and how good people would make that choice at that time.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[mcgrew]

There was a camp at Beale. I'm not sure if it was an internment camp or held POWs, but they were TINY little cages, 2mx2mx2m and open on one side (a barred door). Drawings on the walls, some quite good.

I wouldn't have wanted to be in one of those cages. I can see why he didn't want to talk about it, must be some horrible, terrible memories.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[fnj]

You are reading stuff into what I wrote that I neither said nor believe, friend.

Rounding up Japanese Americans wholesale was stupid then as much as it is in retrospect. Just as stupid as arranging the planes on Wheeler and Hickam Fields to protect against sabotage at the expense of making them ridiculously vulnerable to air attack. There was never any significant element of Japanese Americans participating in sabotage, on December 7 or any other time. Fear of it was unreasonable and counter-productive.

Studying history, even when the government indoctrination schools try to fill you with mush and lies, is always a good thing to do, and everyone can do it. The public library system and the internet are wonderful free tools. I sure as hell hope that good people would make the same choice now, or that they would be called "good" if they did make this choice.

Unlike the Japanese civilian roundup, the US treatment of POWs in WW 2 is a shining example of enlightened behavior and good policy.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Triklyn]

yeah i was aware it was an acronym in a language i don't speak. My point was, who decides what is and is not acceptable, and how do they decide?

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Triklyn]

well the "Rah Rah, we're all neo-nazi" songs would be easy to categorize, but beyond that? The immediate concern is music, but the larger problem is that it is a slippery and ill-defined slope from there to moderately offensive works tangentially referencing neo-nazi ideas in some way, to moderately offensive works with shared ideas with those derivative works. To just offensive works in general.

Re:Sounds so wrong

[Triklyn]

thanks for the clarification, it's heartening to hear that speech and assembly are protected to that extent. I'm fine with banning certain media, so long as it is taken on a case by case basis.

I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[jjohn]

...and now I am a pansexual vampire.

Music: it's as bad a Hitler.

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[Thanshin]

I listened to Freddy Mercury and while I don't feel gay, I must surely be.

Unless the gay soundwaves were countered by the manly music of AC/DC!

We need Germany to tell us the precise effect of each style, so we can decide what to hear to be the people we want to be.

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[ElectricTurtle]

As a historian, I listen to a lot of music as a matter of curiosity, and I have some real Nazi music (as in actual propaganda songs from the 1930s) in the same folder as other jingoistic things like Soviet propaganda songs from the same period and various national anthems including Hatikvah. So this makes me the world's first Zionist Nazi Communist.

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[dotancohen]

I would love to hear some of that material. My Gmail username is the same as my /. username if you wouldn't mind.

Thanks!

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[just_another_sean]

The Central Scrutinizer was right!

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[angel'o'sphere]

No fear, as long as you listen and don't public perform it (in a dance bar etc.), no one cares (not even the police, unless it is to loud ofc.)

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[ThreeKelvin]

Here you go.
Nazi party's anthem: Horst Wessel Lied or Die Fahne hoch.
Socialist song from the same period: Die Internationale (Still in use.)

Both are quite fun to sing. (I sang them in a musical we did in high school.)

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[mcgrew]

Wow, guys, way to misunderstand. Take the lyrics to the Dead Kennedies' Kill the poor and change the words to "Kill the Jews" and that's more like what we're talking about.

OTOH, I wonder how the Germans authorities would react if you changed the words to "kill the fags"? Would that be illegal, too?

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[Bing Tsher E]

In, say, 1970 when the people who chose the name AC/DC were growing up, it was stuff printed on the back of their vacuum tube table radios. It refers to the radio being operable with 117 volts of either AC or DC without a need for conversion. That's the literal meaning, I am sure the band AC/DC had some sort of metal/industrial meaning in mind. Not the gay-culture jargon the term has shifted into today.

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[dotancohen]

Nice finds, but some disturbing comments on those videos. Thanks.

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[shutdown -p now]

What if you invite a neighbor to listen, does that count as performance? What if you invite several? At which point is it "public"?

Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson...

[angel'o'sphere]

When it is in your home, it is not public. Perhaps it would be different if you made a "public" facebook invitation :D

The whole issue is about the song texts, because those are "hate speech". It basically has nothing to do with the fact that the music is labeled "nazi music" ... could be simply hate songs against blacks or aggitation against something else.

That means "playing" it is against the law, not the listening.

Re:Shazam with a filter

[fisted]

Protip: The device is not supposed to trigger on mainstream music.

(That being said, you should still refrain from touching its operational end.)

While I have no love for hate groups

[korbulon]

I hate hate group hate.

Protect your freedom of speech..

[xtal]

There's two unique things about the US:

#1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world.

#2. Private citizens can own handguns and assault rifles for their own protection and uses.

Fight for those rights with all you have, because once they're gone, I doubt the world will ever see them again. Particularly #1.

If an idea is so repulsive, the place to discredit it is in the open, not to push it underground into the recesses of the underworld, lending credence and appeal to the idea through it's illicit nature. The written word is not a place for the state, any more than the legislature is a place for preachers.

Nobody should be put in jail for their words. Not even vile ones.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[Anonymous Coward]

"#1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world."

Yes. Especially if you want to show the world the crimes and torture of your government. But by the way, I'm not sure if the US counts as part of the civilized world. No Healthcare, Death Punishment, many believing in Creation, I mean, that are medieval thoughts.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[Anonymous Coward]

What a nonsense, viz. wishful thinking and reality denial. There is not more freedom of speech in the US than elsewhere. You doubt that? Just write Muslim hate speeches on some forum and see what will happen. (And the test will also work with radical anti-consumerist messages, I guess.)

And yes, people have been put in jail in the US for their words.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[Entropius]

Especially if you want to show the world the crimes and torture of your government.

The thing about the US is that we recognize that our government doesn't always follow the law. Just because the government is going after people for airing its dirty laundry doesn't mean that the government is being either legal or constitutional in doing so.

No Healthcare, Death Punishment, many believing in Creation, I mean, that are medieval thoughts.

There is quite good health care in the USA. The only difference is that you pay for it yourself, rather than out of your taxes.
The death penalty is something I disagree with, but it's hardly common, and is on the decline.
Rejection of evolution isn't unique to the US. We are unique in that the population holding this particular superstition happens to be Christian and has been here for a while, but it's also common in the Muslim populations in Europe (which I presume you call civilized).

Come visit. We realize our government does some stupid stuff, and we'd like to change that, but our country isn't defined by its government.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[kamapuaa]

If this was really true half the people who leave comments on Yahoo News stories or Youtube would be in prison.

Number would be up to 98% if they also imprisoned people who wrote anti-homosexual comments.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[harvestsun]

>Absolute (well, for the MOST part... except for speech determined to "incite violence", or speech determined to be a "threat", or speech which violates a copyright, or...)

Yep.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ad #1: Citing John O'Hara: "America may be unique in being a country which has leapt from barbarism to decadence without touching civilization."

Ad #2: Congratulations! That's my dream.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[J'raxis]

#1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world.

It's true that the U.S. has the broadest free-speech laws in the world, but I'd hardly say it's "absolute" (and you even immediately contradicted this with "at least for the most part").

As another comment pointed out, there's libel and slander.

Then, apropos to the article here, there's hate speech, where if the government can claim that it was an immediate exhortation to violence, they can prosecute it. This is an expansion of the old court precedent against "fighting words."

And then there's so-called "child pornography," laws which started out meaning actual pornographic images of children, but which have been broadened to mean anyone under 18 and/or depictions of children that aren't in any way "pornographic" but might be considered somewhat sexual in nature to someone, such as fully-clothed child models. The rationales for these laws have been used to create ever more laws proscribing "harmful" imagery such as so-called "animal crush videos" and other depictions of animal cruelty, gory accident and crime scene photos and videos, and the like. And on the reverse side, despite the fact that these laws were rationalized as not prohibiting speech but intending to prohibit actual harm (to the children, animals, &c., in the photos), the government has also attempted---but so far failed, but only after lengthy court battles---to expand child-porn laws to cover cartoon/CGI imagery in which no real children were actually depicted let alone harmed.

There are also still plenty of old-fashioned obscenity laws on the books, and the government regularly uses these against more extreme kinds of pornography. Bush II's attorney general John Ashcroft launched several major prosecutions, and state governments do it all the time.

Then there are laws against making threatening statements. These laws may have started out meaning things like making direct "I'm going to kill you"-style threats, but nowadays anyone claiming to feel "threatened" by someone else's speech can get someone in trouble. There are both general "criminal threatening" laws in most jurisdictions and special laws protecting our privileged classes such as the president, judges, politicians, and so on.

The Federal Government still has a law on the books from 1918 that directly prohibits political speech if it calls for the overthrow of the government itself. Many states have copies of this law from the same era. There are laws against espionage that can be used to go after political speech, too. Look at what happened to Edward Snowden and what would probably happen to Julian Assange if they got their hands on him.

And of course there's the government's massive and ever-expanding war on "piracy." Try distributing someone else's "copyrighted" speech without their permission and see what happens.

There are also many, many laws prohibiting publishing "advice" without the requisite government permission. Try giving investment or medical advice without a license, or legal advice without being a lawyer, and see what happens. The IRS also regularly goes after people publishing books on how to get around taxes, books that claim the income tax scheme is illegal, unconstitutional, and so on.

There's no freedom of speech when "commerce" is involved (or the government can claim it is). Advertising, packaging, labeling, and so on, are highly regulated. Companies are prohibited from including a multitude of claims on labels, prohibited from using certain terms, required to use others, and in certain fields like alcohol and tobacco, there are even more stringent regulations, such as advertising that seems to appeal to minors. I know a microbrewer who was told by the ATF that he could not include an American flag on his label.

There's no freedom of speech on network television or radio. They censor anything the FCC considers "harmful t

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[mjwalshe]

Germany is keen on zee Guns - I recall talking to an old school mate who was a secretary working for deutsche bank in the UK and the German expats where most upset about not having their armed body guards (and presumably PPW's) when they got posted to the UK.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[L. J. Beauregard]

The US has healthcare and compulsory treatment of those with emergency medical needs.

And it is so much more efficient and humane to fight fires in the emergency room than to get people the treatement they need before there's a crisis.

Contrary to what you may have read in or heard about from the US media, which is dominated by people who support govt running the US healthcare system,

Citation needed.

there is no crisis in US healthcare, no widespread lack of access.

Because it is so much more efficient and humane to fight fires in the emergency room than to get people the treatement they need before there's a crisis.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

#1. Absolute freedom of (written) speech, at least for the most part, to a degree that I am not aware of existing anywhere in the civilized world.

And of course, the reason Germany in particular abolishes the expression of Nazi sympathies in its constitution, is that the US required it to do that after WWII.

So while "absolute free speech" may be a good in the US constitution (amendment) it's clearly not considered a good for everyone everywhere...

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[Bing Tsher E]

Because it is so much more efficient and humane to fight fires in the emergency room than to get people the treatement they need before there's a crisis.

Citation needed.

Really. Badly needed. Real empirical evidence, please. Not hand waving.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[someSnarkyBastard]

Not necessarily the second group, Republicans certainly acknowledge the existence of the Tea Party but you can be damn sure they aren't gonna give them even a farcical version of "good healthcare" (not that they would take it)

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[shutdown -p now]

Whoosh.

Re:Protect your freedom of speech..

[shutdown -p now]

Just write Muslim hate speeches on some forum and see what will happen.

And what will happen? I see those posted on YouTube all the time, and if you challenge the guy, he replies back - so clearly they didn't ship him to Gitmo.

Hell, YouTube has helmet cam videos from Taliban. I remember one where they have shelled an American base (with mortars). It was still around when I went to see it several months later.

A Conundrum...

[CanHasDIY]

OK, so TFS says:

That sort of action is illegal in Germany, where neo-Nazi groups are outlawed

But... if Nazi groups are outlawed... who's enforcing this patently Nazi law that punishes people for listening for certain types of music?

The German police are becoming "ill noise" Nazis?

[QilessQi]

I *hate* ill-noise Nazis...

Re:Far Right?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Left-World. In Left-World, anything good is left-wing, and anything bad is right-wing.

Whereas the real conflict is between the International Socialists and the National Socialists. Splitters!

First fiction, then reality

[gmuslera]

This looks like taken from the plot of A Clockwork Orange. Or Farenheit 451, with music instead of books.

Anyway, probably a lot of people would agree that the fans of certain music styles and groups should be put in jail or in a mental institution, but which music depend on each person and culture.

Re:First fiction, then reality

[VortexCortex]

groups should be put in jail or in a mental institution, but which music depend on each person and culture.

Ah that's easy: If they're country bumpkins, then folk music should land them in the klink. If they're teenage girls, then boy bands should do the trick. If they're of party-going age then we just throw 'em away for listening to electro / dubstep.

See? It's essentially all music that should implicate you in having a desire to not be ruled by laws like these. Well, you could listen to music that we're sure you don't like, but you'll have to be registered via FMRI to prove it first. Paper's Please.

Re:Far Right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Political labels don't mean the same thing in Europe, amongst the American citizenry and the American Media. In particular, the American media routinely call middle-of-the-road, mainstream political views, such as wanting to reduce govt spending, "far right", "right wing", "religious extremist" or "extremist". The American media also likes to call unprincipled or left wing politicians "moderates". The American media almost never even uses the label "left wing" and observing the American media call any leftist an "extremist" is about as common as duck teeth. Hell, Obama's buddy Bill Ayers set off bombs for the express purpose of trying to overthrow the US govt. Have the media ever called Ayers an extremist?

One of the biggest problems in translating political labels between Europe and America is that there is no equivalent in European politics for someone who supports deliberately limiting the power of a central govt, what we in America call an "originalist" or a "constitutionalist". In Europe, "right wing" and "left wing" are both labels for people who support very powerful central govt. Maybe someone would say that Europeans who call for limiting govt power are "liberal", but in American politics, "liberal" means socialist or progressive. I don't know what "libertarian" means to a European. In the US, "libertarian" is frequently used to label libertines.

Re:Shazam with a filter

[Sir_Eptishous]

Just the tip.

Fighting Fascism with Fascism

[wisnoskij]

Sounds like a open and shut case of a government preforming illegal activities.
I do not know much about German law, but if they outlaw fascist groups and literature, would that not make the government itself an illegal entity and all of the bills that its far-right fascist laws are written on illegal literature?

That would be interesting, I wonder what would happen if you brought that to the court system, and tried to have some government law or flyer outlaws, or the organization itself disbanded.

Re:Fighting Fascism with Fascism

[mic0e]

Define 'fascist'. I've heard all sorts of people use 'fascist' to negatively describe all sorts of things. While surely the german govt are the same kind of right-wing assholes that can be found all over the world ("we need to censor the internet because of terrorism and child porn!"), we have a whole load of laws against 'nazi' stuff. Outing yourself as a 'nazi' will mean that you immediately lose all reputation and carreer opportunities. you will be sent to jail for using swastikas, playing the horst-wessel lied, denying the holocaust or anything that might make foreigners think that germans are nazis. can you believe that world war II computer games are mostly sold with swastikas replaced by plus signs in germany? On the other hand, right-wing ideologies are well tolerated IF you don't use any 'old-style' nazi symbols as the aforementioned, while there are extended programs against all kinds of left-wing groups. tl;dr news at 11: Politicians are a bunch of liars, and there's _nothing_ you can do about it.

Re:Fighting Fascism with Fascism

[wisnoskij]

"world war II computer games are mostly sold with swastikas replaced by plus signs in Germany?"

I know, the German government is the biggest holocaust denier in the entire world.
And it is not just video games, German's are denied even a basic education in Nazism and the holocaust, I have had German tourists stay here and buy biographies and history books about those subjects, but plan to finish them before they went back, because you do not cross the German border with history books about the Nazis.

Which is part of why they are a Fascist government, Fascism is linked to control of the media, and holocaust denial (notice how one of the first things we notice wrong in V for Vendetta is a black list for music).
Defining what political and philosophical conversations can be made, and labelling all other as hate speech is another.

"Define 'fascist'"
Basically, Fascism is totalitarianism with a negative connotation.

Re:Fighting Fascism with Fascism

[mic0e]

That's not true. In school, all Germans learn how the nazis were horribly evil and killed all the jews and how we have to give free submarines to Israel to make up for it.

Also, George Orwell wrote in 1944:

It would seem that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting, bullfighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

Can't say I care for this

[onyxruby]

I'm no fan of Neo Nazi's, but this strikes me as crossing over to the realm of thought crimes and criminalizing unpleasant people. Look at what they are trying to do, identify music as being wrong and identify a group of people as being wrong. Now take this same technology and remember that it can be used on other groups. What about using this technology to identify gangbangers that like gangsta rape or hackers since we know that they like techno?

The stereotypes are bunk of course and many people listen to music of multiple genres. From heavy metal bands that are classically trained and influenced (Metallica S&M etc) and so on. The whole thing stinks of trying to outlaw certain types of people simply based on who they self identify as. Society should stick with outlawing behaviors and stop being so judgmental of others. Slipper slope over here...

Re:Has nothing to do with the USA

[fluffythedestroyer]

Without hearing the music per say, i can't tell you if its wrong or not but... People tries to find their bubble (or a break from their reality) and for lots of people its in music. We're told to shut up when time comes, buckle up in cars...do this, do that, so many rules in society, obey the law here and there. The only way to let go of yourself is in music as theirs no boundaries or rules.

So is it justified or is it paranoia since the early years got to them soo much with the last 2 lost war on their shoulders. i completely understand why they would put a complete stop but all I got to say is put too much restrictions on one group and that group will rebel

Talk about mixing up cause and effect.

[gallondr00nk]

The trouble isn't Neo-Nazi CD compilations leading upstanding, bright young people down an alley into right wing extremism. If they're disaffected, for whatever reason, they will continue to be so even after the CDs are destroyed or the books are burned.

Yeah alright, ban it all. Ban the CDs, ban the literature, ban the swastica. No-one will be a Neo-Nazi anymore, right? All the problems are solved.

Wrong. You don't become a Neo-Nazi because you love and respect the society you live in. You become one because you want to tear it down. They'll just funnel their dissatisfaction elsewhere.

The key to learning from history isn't to ban it, but to educate and prevent the social and economic conditions that would mean repeating it.

Re:Talk about mixing up cause and effect.

[SleazyRidr]

Part of the propaganda is also to try and make the young people dissatisfied with the state of their country. Whenever there's an economic downturn there are always a lot of out-of-work young people just waiting to be converted to rebel groups. If the movement gets big enough it'll draw in the more moderate people and you'll have a problem on your hands.

Deja Vu

[roc97007]

Kinda reminds me of the efforts in the 50's and 60's to ban that-there rock and roll in the US and England, because, you know, it leads to bad things. There may even be a common cause in disaffected youth.

Freedom of Speech is not absolute

[cowwoc2001]

1. Freedom of Speech is not absolute, nor should it be. Case in point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater
2. Freedom of Speech does not protect you from the consequences. If you openly slander your boss, he is free to fire you from the job.

All this to say: No rights are absolute, nor are they free of consequences.

Re:Freedom of Speech is not absolute

[shutdown -p now]

Freedom of speech should be absolute when it comes to voicing political opinions. Otherwise, you don't have a true democracy, since opponents may not be able to argue their point.

Freedom of speech, as a political right, does protect you from consequences from the state. Of course it does not apply to other private entities, as those don't have any political power over you.

Re:Freedom of Speech is not absolute

[cowwoc2001]

Freedom of speech should be absolute when it comes to voicing political opinions. Otherwise, you don't have a true democracy, since opponents may not be able to argue their point.

Freedom of speech, as a political right, does protect you from consequences from the state. Of course it does not apply to other private entities, as those don't have any political power over you.

I would support that. But that means that groups such as Neo Nazis would not have the right to spread hate against racial groups, because racial groups do not represent "the state" you speak of.

Re:Freedom of Speech is not absolute

[shutdown -p now]

Well, sometimes they do, sometimes even explicitly so - there are many states that explicitly self-declare as nation-states, for example, and which practice jus sanguinis.

But, more importantly, nowhere did I say that only speech that goes "against the state" is important. It is certainly a subcategory of political speech in general, but not all political speech is in opposition. As for Nazis, they are certainly in opposition - not because the racial groups "don't represent the state", but because most modern liberal democracies espouse multiculturalism and similar policies, and Nazi are basically the ones who are most vitriolically opposed to that.

What's so great

[log0n]

about Nazi-ism (not just facism, but the particular Nazi flavor) that it draws so many people in? All we are ever taught about it is all the horrible, reprehensible stuff they did (it could be just the people perverting things as always ie the way things are headed in the US) in WW2, but was/is there anything worthwhile or morally uplifting about being Nazi that we've never been aware of?

Being a Nazi fanboi for shock value or for the perception of freedom to hate I can get.. some people are just wired that way. But what about all the 'legitimate' people who thought it was a good idea?

There are lots of systems of government that have good (moral, social, ethical, etc) ideas. Most of the time the people in charge are the ones who fuck things up.

Re:What's so great

[log0n]

[sentence 1: didn't mean to sound like a Nazi atrocity denier, I meant it in the vein of bad people who spoil things for the rest of us.. etc]

Re:What's so great

[king neckbeard]

They do have snazzy outfits...

Re:What's so great

[shutdown -p now]

Nazism (and many other totalitarian ideologies) are very good at making powerful emotional arguments, which are complete and utter bullshit when you try to analyze them rationally, but the whole point (as far as they are concerned) is that you're not supposed to.

Protect the white children! (picture of a cute blue-eyed little girl) Stand up for your race! Your blood kin are being slaughtered in their homes, and your sisters and daughters are raped by the filthy Xs! (picture of a typical gangsta rapper in a hoodie with a gun) Take up the banner and the weapon and fight for your ideals! Think of your proud ancestors! (picture of a grim looking Nordic warrior in armor with a ship and a flag in the background) Even if you die, you will be a martyr to the cause, and your name shall forever be remembered! (another warrior picture)

All that kind of stuff can get to the head of the more emotional people, especially when they are young. Depending on how masterful the propaganda is, the barrier of entry can get lower - Hitler, for example, was a master orator who could convince your average middle aged family guy of all the things above.

Really, go to YouTube and watch Triumph of the Will. You'll see what I mean.

All animals are equal?

[knarf]

That app better also recognize gangsta rap glorifying crime... and hate preachers of any denomination...

To make it perfect, add Justin Bieber to the list to make the world a safer place for all mankind.

Now excuse me while I'm trying my hand at the latest North-Korean hit songs entitled "We Shall Hold Bayonets More Firmly" and "The Joy of Bumper Harvest Overflows Amidst the Song of Mechanisation"...

Tonight, a freedom died east of Old York.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Whelp," thought The Comedian, staring at the big, ugly figure in the door, "I suppose it was only a matter of time before computer analysis to assuredly declare you committing thought crimes got here. Kinda strange, given I'm supposed to be the fascist."

The laws where forced on germany by the allied for

[angel'o'sphere]

When germany "invented" those laws they where actively forced on us by the allied forces.
Perhaps we nevertheless had made similar ones .. no idea.
But it is pretty difficult to change that now.

Bottom line "freedom of speach" is only restricted regarding nazis and hate speach, so most germans actually agree that those laws are very well set up.

Not a qustion of style

[angel'o'sphere]

It has nothing to do with the "style" but the actual song texts. (Like: "Burn all jews on the pire! Conquer Poland to settle in their ready build farms/towns! Throw all black scum into the river Rhein!")

Music is not NAZI music just because it has a certain style, or Ramstein perhaps would be considered a NAZI band, too.

Not true

[angel'o'sphere]

#2. Private citizens can own handguns and assault rifles
That is only true in certain states. Many states forbid either assault rifles or both kinds of weapons, e.g. New York AFAIK.

Re:Not true

[narcc]

That's not true.

Re:Not true

[angel'o'sphere]

IMPORTANT NOTE: Your New York State pistol license is only valid in the counties outside the 5
counties of New York City. Unless it is validated by New York City. You may not take your handguns into
the city, this includes Self Protection licensees, with a few exceptions.

From: http://www.handgunlaw.us/states/newyork.pdf

Re:Not true

[narcc]

So ... you wanted to tell me that I was right?

Re:Not true

[angel'o'sphere]

You never where right when i saw a post of you on /.

You are only a angry little boy. If you can not recall the discussion:
a) someone claimed you can wear weapons whatever you want, especially assault riffles, anywhere in the USA
b) I said, no that is not true.
c) you claimed I was wrong
d) I showed you : I was right and you where wrong
And now you try to turn everything around again ...

Sorry, I even would bet that an ordinary citizen has no chance at all to get a permit for an assault riffle in NYC. But well, perhaps there are some extraordinary hard to meet obligations under which you can. However, YOU certainly wont met them (mental illness and such, oO!)

Re:Not true

[narcc]

Let's review:

Private citizens can own handguns and assault rifles

This is true.

Many states forbid either assault rifles or both kinds of weapons, e.g. New York AFAIK

This is false.

Your earlier post supports my assertion, as it makes it very clear that the State of New York does not "forbid" "both kinds of weapons".

Re:Not true

[angel'o'sphere]

I posted you a link which clearly shows:
Many states forbid either assault rifles or both kinds of weapons, e.g. New York AFAIK

This is true ... don't know what your brain problem is.
Your earlier post supports my assertion, as it makes it very clear that the State of New York does not "forbid" "both kinds of weapons".

It does, seems you are unable to read the link I provided, or to comprehend it.

Re:Not true

[narcc]

I posted you a link which clearly shows:
Many states forbid either assault rifles or both kinds of weapons, e.g. New York AFAIK

Ah, I see. You just don't understand what you posted.

Give it another go. You'll figure it out. (Hint: It does support your claim. Quite the opposite, in fact.)

Re:Not true

[shutdown -p now]

What he is saying is that there is no state which bans pistols outright. DC used to be one place where you couldn't even keep them at home, but Supreme Court ruled that unconstitutional. With respect to the link that you have posted and the quote from it, what it says is that the New York State license is not sufficient in New York City on its own, and you need another one from the latter to possess and carry. But they still issue them, and, for possession at least, they are constitutionally bound to.

With respect to assault rifles, it depends on how you define the term. If it's the proper definition (rifle in intermediate caliber capable of firing in full automatic), then you're correct, as many states ban all full auto firearms. If you mean the popular definition of "it's black and scary", then that again depends on what exactly you do and don't count as one (as that definition is inherently vague). Many states do have laws titled "Assault Weapon Ban" and such - California being a prime example - but they don't outright ban semi-autos, only specific, mostly cosmetic features on them. So even in California, you can own an AR which fires in semi-auto, though you'll be restricted in magazine capacity and certain other things, or you'll have to work around them by various means (e.g. "hi-cap" mags are legal in Cali if your gun doesn't have a pistol grip, so people have made ARs which don't have one).

And a great too for the Nazis.

[Beer_Smurf]

It also sounds like a great tool for the Nazis to use if they ever got back into power.
Find all those Jews and Partisans.
Evil in the name of good is still evil.

RE: Fighting Facism with ...

[angel'o'sphere]

Sounds like a open and shut case of a government preforming illegal activities.
I do not know much about German law, but if they outlaw fascist groups and literature, would that not make the government itself an illegal entity and all of the bills that its far-right fascist laws are written on illegal literature?

Are you actually sure you know what the word facism means?

It is not a random label you can put on anyone, like in your case the government (or more precisely the parliament as laws are not made by the government) ...

You don't agree with those laws and as a result you label the government "facist" ... that is pretty dumb!

Re:All I can say to that is...

[cayenne8]

Friends don't let friends listen to metal....

Still, better than rap...

RE: Talk about mixing up cause and effect

[angel'o'sphere]

There are plenty of people who simply want to be NAZIs. Education does not really help.
They believe for what ever reason they are superior to blacks, jews, women ... what ever.
They even beleive they are so superior (god given) that they can treat the inferiors in any way they please (because those have no rights at all).

You say that, but.....

[Ixpath]

When I was in high school many of my friends who really got into Manson did in fact start dressing like vampires. Furthermore, I have encountered a number of people who got sucked into the neo-Nazi scene via the Nazi-punk rock.

Re:You say that, but.....

[shutdown -p now]

The nice thing about getting into nazism, fascism, communism, anarcho-capitalism etc while you're young is that you grow up eventually, and then you get immunity to that crap for life.

Re: Fighting Facism with ...

[wisnoskij]

Generally: Fascism is totalitarianism, with negative connotations. More specifically, it is often used as a alternative term of Nazism.

Having a black list of songs (see V for Vendetta) is extremely fascist.
Denying the holocaust is tied to fascism, see all of Germany's laws that deal with the holocaust, that restrict and outlaw information about it.
Outlawing some political parties and types of discussion is fascist.

Re:Nazi isn't right...

[king neckbeard]

Right and left don't fit well with anarchist and authoritarian, which is the dichotomy you are describing.

Re: Fighting Facism with ...

[angel'o'sphere]

Fascism is totalitarianism, with negative connotations
No it is not.
Having a black list of songs (see V for Vendetta) is extremely fascist.
Lol, even if your definition on the top was right, this would be wrong, too! If a "black list" is introduced by LAW then it is not introduced by "totalitarianism", unless the politcal system was perhaps totalitarianism and made laws at will.

Go read yourself what facism actually is and means :D I'm tired to explain it all the time.

Sic Transit Pink Floyd

[locust]

I guess I won't be able to listen to "The Wall" again.

How long before the whole album gets censored because of the lyrics of In The Flesh...

Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me,
Get him up against the wall!
That one looks Jewish!
And that one's a coon!
Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint,
And another with spots!
If I had my way,
I'd have all of you shot!

But hey, I guess if they can ban huckfin for the use of the N word... this one is a no-brainer

Re: Fighting Facism with ...

[wisnoskij]

You seem to be very confused. Specifically where you imply that totalitarianism is somehow opposed to laws (aka authority). I see, totalitarianism is anti-authority...

politicalcompass.org

[bussdriver]

politicalcompass.org

There is no left or right - it's a false dichotomy which is why people get confused trying to characterize things in the real world using something that fails miserably to describe it. You can't describe a sphere if you live in flatland.

Re:Nazism is far-left, not right!

[bussdriver]

Stop living in Flat Land / The Matrix, go to politicalcompass.org and wake up.

Socialism is so broad in definition and so loaded with propaganda the word is dead except to an educated minority.

Nearly everything can be described in Socialistic ideology; even the economic anarchists claim their beliefs result in the best situation for mankind (it is what they consider best that is in dispute. Fair is letting the weak and unfortunate starve to death for "the greater good".)

Re: Fighting Facism with ...

[angel'o'sphere]

No you seem confused as you believe every totaliarian system is facistic, too. Which fortunately was not the case in human history.

wargamers

[coyote_oww]

all know about Finland being on the wrong side, due to no one else being willing/able to cross Russia. Most Western countries were pretty understanding, other than stuff like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Volunteer_Battalion_of_the_Waffen-SS. Most Western allies had small contingents of Nazis or Nazi admirers themselves, albeit not full-blown military formations participating as part of the German war machine.

Mis-labeling, constantly

[danielpauldavis]

"Nazi" = "National SOCIALIST." A Nazi is far LEFT, not right. A Nazi is the uber-liberal, not conservative.

Maybe not

[coyote_oww]

This site (http://www.solargeneral.com/jeffs-archive/hate-crimes/blacks-more-likely-to-be-arrested-for-hate-crimes/) seems to suggest that this is not the case.

Further, that Florida preacher was arrested because he loaded his Korans into his trailer, then doused them fuel THEN drove to the site where he was going to actually torch them. This is a hazard, and he was properly stopped.

Would have been more interesting if he had transported the fuel in a safe fashion, and conducted his burn safely. I don't think they could have charged him.

First not most in amendments

[coyote_oww]

Doesn't work that way...

The nature of amendments is that the LAST one has most primacy. If it were not that way, you couldn't change the law. Say you passed an amendment banning alcohol. Then you passed another one making it legal. Which one should we follow?? The most recent, or highest numbered amendment.

So, ironically, the first amendment should logically be interpreted AFTER any other amendment. If tomorrow we pass an amendment banning talk about decreasing taxes, that would take precedence over the first amendment, and tax reduction talk would be illegal.

Re:First not most in amendments

[Triklyn]

yeah, i know, but i like to think of first as being the best

Re:First not most in amendments

[coyote_oww]

Agreed. I wouldn't mind seeing every amendment written to, as a secondary clause, reaffirm #1.

Re:All I can say to that is...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Rap is a technique, not a genre.

Hiphop is a genre.

Unlike yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater...

[Quiet Sound]

Nazism has killed millions of people. Why is it acceptable to limit speech that turns people into a stampede under false pretenses but not speech with a history of turning people into mass murders and war criminals?

Re:Unlike yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater...

[Lucky_Pierre]

And Communism has killed even more. But wearing a Che Guevara shirt is perfectly acceptable in Germany.

Re:Unlike yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater...

[Quiet Sound]

Which in no way addresses the question of, why is it acceptable to limit speech that turns people into a stampede under false pretenses but not speech with a history of turning people into mass murders and war criminals?

Re:Unlike yelling 'FIRE!' in a crowded theater...

[shutdown -p now]

It's only acceptable to limit speech that turns people into a stampede if stampede is the direct, immediate and obvious result of that speech. In this particular case, the speech is generally far removed from the action, if there is any action at all.

The other reason is that censoring political speech of any kind is a very dangerous slippery slope, since once you begin, it's hard to say where it might stop. For example, one could argue that US Republican party espouses an ideology hostile to human rights solely on the grounds of their opposition to public healthcare (which, objectively, does considerably increase human suffering and results in many unnecessary deaths, thousands if not quite millions). Does this mean that we should consider their platform as "hate speech" and ban it?

Sounds like something the Nazis would have done

[Lucky_Pierre]

Oh wait

Friggin' Nazis

[E 99]

So, whichever side you come down on this one, you're basically siding with Nazis.

police state

[drwho]

Stalin must be proud

Lets be frank about what this is really about

[davydagger]

> This applies to, for example, media that contain indecent, extremely violent, crime-inducing, anti-Semitic or racist material, also to media content that glorifies National Socialism, drugs, alcohol abuse, self-inflicted injury or suicide, to media content propagating vigilante justice

Just like in great britian, where the porn filter, trying keep porn from kids, manditory, now covers exoteric and political material, this is covering a wide range of topics, not just national socilaism.

>But if anythingâ€(TM)s worth bending a few ideals for, stopping Nazis is probably it.

they are going to violate your freedoms, by bringing up the nazi boogeymeny into giving them up. Swap nazism with terrorism, or socialism, ot "mentally unstable", or whatever fear word is now cropping up.

I see this used to target vast swathes of socially and politically aware musicians, especially those anti-capitalist and anti-government.

No, you're a fucking US Government shill

[YoureGoingToHell]

He obviously doesn't know what he is talking about. davek is yet another silly American who upholds the "values" of the "US Constitution" that too many Americans whine about. That Constitution is getting in the way of them protecting themselves from terrorism domestically as well as waging wars internationally which keeps the whole world safe. Their Constitution is all but ignored now anyway, and the Americans seem happy and complacent. That is all that matters. Down with the Constitution. Down with the parent who is a blatant troll.

Die in a fire.

this is just like the IRS!

[micahraleigh]

The Germans going after their political outcasts is the same thing as the Obama IRS going after people for supporting limited government.

Most revolutions end opposed to what they argued

[Phil Urich]

So Mao and Lenin were actually against Marx?

Umm, yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Although in both cases it's a bit complicated, however most of it is just that, with any revolution, the tendency is going to be towards retaining the power that has been grabbed, especially since power-hungry people will be attracted to the revolution as it gains steam. See Stalin, especially how he very successfully outed Trotsky. In Trotsky's advocating of rotating governance, so that average people would be given chances to be in positions of government authority but no one would hold on to it for long, he was being very Marxist (and is far more in line with what you'd think the definition of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be). But obviously that was a threat to the folks currently in power (and still with that fresh new-power smell to it!), so they backed Stalin in outing Trotsky to preserve their own power.

None of that is an indictment of Marxist socialism per se, any more than how the French Revolution ended up in a dictatorship should make us believe that Democracy is unworkable and always leads to dictatorships. It's just that in periods of societal upheaval, when power structures are being shaken up, it's quite likely that people and factions will successfully grab power for themselves, which will never be particularly empowering or beneficial for the common person.

John Birch Society

[Phil Urich]

The John Birch Society which has re-materialized as the modern day Tea Party is a perfect example of what you are talking about. Their policies were marginalized by the Rebublican Party back in the day now accepted as mainstream in today's Republican Party. An intersting note is that Fred Koch founder of Koch industries is a founder of the John Birch Society. Charles and David Koch the sons of Fred Koch are the biggest funders of the Modern day John Birch Society AKA Tea Party.

Huh. I think I had heard vaguely about the John Birch Society many years ago, but I was unaware of the connection to the contemporary Tea Party. Certainly they've improved their branding (to the detriment of the historical Tea Party, sadly).

Re: Talk about mixing up cause and effect

[Keyboard Rage]

There are plenty of people who simply want to be NAZIs. Education does not really help.

Oh, come on, don't be so polarizing. It's completely normal, NORMAL, I tell you, to call your child "Aryan Nation". Or "Zyklon-Bee".

Re:All I can say to that is...

[cayenne8]

Potato...potAH-to.....

To the broader public...they're synonyms.

Re:Far Right?

[shutdown -p now]

It's not really about countries. Nazism has historically been considered "far right" in America same as everywhere, and it still is, save for some fringe cooks.

Re:Nazis

[shutdown -p now]

Nazis are right wing. Historically and currently, right wing does not mean "guys who like freedom" or "non-authoritarian". You can consult your dictionary for further details.

Nazis were also not anti-gun. They took guns away from people whom they oppressed, like Jews, but they did promote gun ownership among "Aryans". Which is not exactly surprising, given that it was an organization that was originally based on extrajudicial violence, and has used it for its goals until the very end.

Re: Fighting Facism with ...

[shutdown -p now]

Totalitarianism is quite often opposed to rigid law systems ("rule of law" etc), because it likes to arrange an occasional extrajudicial disappearance and such. It doesn't mean that it's anti-authority, of course, it means that it's about authority being above law.

As far as fascism goes, it is certainly inherently totalitarian (seeing how the term was invented by fascists to describe themselves), but it's much more specific than that. Every fascist regime is totalitarian, but not every totalitarian regime is fascist.