App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music

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App Detects Neo-Nazis Using Their Music

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday December 4, 2013 @02:29AM from the watch-out-burzum-loving-hipsters dept.

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."

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Freedom of thought by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-04 02:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.
1. Re:Freedom of thought by g0bshiTe · 2013-12-04 02:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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 am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
2. Re:Freedom of thought by quax · 2013-12-04 02:51 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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?
3. Re:Freedom of thought by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2013-12-04 02:59 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
4. Re:Freedom of thought by jellomizer · 2013-12-04 03:00 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
5. Re:Freedom of thought by sideslash · 2013-12-04 03:00 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
6. Re:Freedom of thought by jalopezp · 2013-12-04 03:03 · Score: 2
  
  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.
7. Re:Freedom of thought by liamevo · 2013-12-04 03:09 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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?
8. Re:Freedom of thought by Entropius · 2013-12-04 03:14 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  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.
9. Re:Freedom of thought by erikkemperman · 2013-12-04 03:15 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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?
  
  --
  Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
10. Re:Freedom of thought by jythie · 2013-12-04 03:20 · Score: 2
  
  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.
11. Re:Freedom of thought by jythie · 2013-12-04 03:28 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
12. Re:Freedom of thought by jythie · 2013-12-04 03:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
13. Re:Freedom of thought by erikkemperman · 2013-12-04 03:36 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  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.
  
  --
  Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
14. Re:Freedom of thought by LWATCDR · 2013-12-04 03:38 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
15. Re:Freedom of thought by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-04 03:41 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  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.
16. Re:Freedom of thought by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-04 03:43 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
17. Re:Freedom of thought by hairyfeet · 2013-12-04 03:48 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
18. Re:Freedom of thought by LWATCDR · 2013-12-04 04:06 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
19. Re:Freedom of thought by erikkemperman · 2013-12-04 04:20 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
  
  --
  Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
20. Re:Freedom of thought by pla · 2013-12-04 04:35 · Score: 2
  
  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.
21. Re:Freedom of thought by Idarubicin · 2013-12-04 04:35 · Score: 2
  
  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.
  
  --
  ~Idarubicin
22. Re:Freedom of thought by pla · 2013-12-04 05:00 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  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.
23. Re:Freedom of thought by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-04 05:08 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  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.
24. Re:Freedom of thought by medv4380 · 2013-12-04 05:17 · Score: 2
  
  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.
25. Re:Freedom of thought by AlphaWolf_HK · 2013-12-04 05:46 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.)
  
  --
  Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
26. Re:Freedom of thought by orgelspieler · 2013-12-04 06:56 · Score: 2
  
  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.
27. Re:Freedom of thought by quax · 2013-12-04 09:34 · Score: 2
  
  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.
28. Re:Freedom of thought by CTachyon · 2013-12-04 20:20 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  Range Voting: preference intensity matters
29. Re:Freedom of thought by shutdown+-p+now · 2013-12-05 12:43 · Score: 2
  
  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.
Wagner by amalcolm · 2013-12-04 02:35 · Score: 2

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

--
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
1. Re:Wagner by amalcolm · 2013-12-04 04:01 · Score: 2
  
  Listening to the whole Ring Cycle would definitely be a self-inflicted injury!
  
  --
  Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
2. Re:Wagner by TWX · 2013-12-04 04:39 · Score: 2
  
  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.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I listened to Marylyn Manson... by jjohn · 2013-12-04 02:38 · Score: 5, Funny

...and now I am a pansexual vampire.
Music: it's as bad a Hitler.
1. Re:I listened to Marylyn Manson... by ElectricTurtle · 2013-12-04 03:35 · Score: 2
  
  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.
  
  --
  I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Protect your freedom of speech.. by xtal · 2013-12-04 02:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

--
..don't panic
1. Re:Protect your freedom of speech.. by harvestsun · 2013-12-04 03:51 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  >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:Far Right? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-04 03:09 · Score: 2, Informative

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.
Talk about mixing up cause and effect. by gallondr00nk · 2013-12-04 03:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
The laws where forced on germany by the allied for by angel'o'sphere · 2013-12-04 04:35 · Score: 2

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.

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Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Maybe not by coyote_oww · 2013-12-04 07:31 · Score: 2

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.