Hacker News Reader

Comment by pluma | Hacker News Reader

Yet at the same time the police manages to identify, process and charge said protestors just fine but seems to be absolutely incapable of doing anything about literal nazis openly performing illegal salutes and calling for violence, even if they have it on tape and have police officers present and witnessing.

There's a reason Germans left of center have a disdain for the police and it's obvious why that tends to escalate.

If you're okay with police officers injuring themselves while violently suppressing protestors being counted as "injured by protestors" you should also be fine with the police being held to the same standards. Somehow even if someone dies in police custody the investigations never amount to anything though, and the government is okay with that because the police investigated itself and said the police isn't doing anything wrong.

View on HN

Wait, is that illegal in Germany? Do Germans not have a right to free speechi

There is no right to free speech in Germany. The constitution protects freedom of opinion and you are allowed to voice your opinion in most cases, but there are restrictions (e.g. demagoguery).

What exactly? I'm not sure if you're low-effort trolling, but the Hitler salute (or more accurately: a number of symbols, salutes and chants related to the government party of the 1930s/1940s) is illegal in Germany, yes.

The US has a fairly unique view on what constitutes "speech" and what forms of it should be protected and to what extent. In the case of Germany, Nazi propaganda is considered equivalent to shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater for obvious historical reasons.

I guess having experienced a fascist dictatorship using carefully crafted speech as propaganda to control its population and erode "reservations" about literally murdering millions of people makes you look at "freeze peach" a bit differently from ... largely doing the same for centuries but getting away with it.

EDIT: I wonder whether I got rate-limited automatically because I mentioned the war or by a moderator. Either way, the fact that I got rate limited while arguing about the limits of free speech and policing seems kind of ironic.

The US also banned books and newspapers (you needed a license to be allowed to publish!) in post-war Germany, along with other acts of denazification.

It sure feels stupid to hear Americans complain about the free speech angle regarding Nazi speech and imagery in Germany, when they were the ones to force it upon Germany.

The Allies would certainly not have accepted a variant of the US Constitution as post-war Germany's constitution.

Thinking about it, can you name a single place where America has been "nation building" in the last 70 years that got something resembling the US Constitution? I can't.

> Thinking about it, can you name a single place where America has been "nation building" in the last 70 years that got something resembling the US Constitution? I can't.

No, but they do get US-style copyright and patent laws - the US isn't shy about exporting those. See e.g. Iraq order 81, which banned re-planting of licensed seeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Orders

Germany even has an agency (the "Verfassungsschutz") that is explicitly tasked with spying on the political views and activities of political "extremists."

Nominally, this is to prevent the rise of another movement like the Nazis. But ironically, one of the first parties to be banned was one of the only two that had vigorously opposed the Nazis during their rise, the KPD. Nowadays, there are suspicions that the Verfassungsschutz is riddled with far-right sympathizers itself, given how it has handled several cases.

To clarify: historically Germany has been obsessed with left-wing terrorism because we had a domestic terrorist group called the Red Army Faction (RAF) which gained infamy for abducting and murdering a politician in the 70s and also performing several bombings and assassinations against politicians and government officials/institutions all the way into the 1990s.

However the Verfassungsschutz has a terrible track record when it comes to investigating and preventing right-wing attacks e.g. against asylum seekers and immigrants. There have also been several cases of dubious use of informants (at one point it was joked that the far-right party NPD is entirely run by informants) and intentional destruction of records.

Also Verfassungsschutz members have publicly spoken out against the dangers of left-wing extremism while being dismissive about right-wing extremism, the most recent case being the person literally in charge of the organisation who insisted that a video showing a group of people attacking immigrants posted on Twitter was likely fraudulent despite several news outlets vouching for its authenticity and providing fairly exhaustive evidence from their fact checking departments.

On a side-note: in communal politics, the right-of-center "majority party" CDU just formed a coalition with the far-right AfD, which had previously been a taboo and was officially ruled out by the CDU party leadership. So the risk of far-right extremism being normalised is very present and very real right now.

Even on countries with very permissive free speech laws, explicit incitement to commit crimes such as murder is still prohibited. Nazi-ism explicitly called for, promoted and practiced genocide.

In Germany glorifying and promoting Nazi-ism is simply considered equivalent to explicitly calling for and promoting the things Nazi-ism called for and promoted. Hence it is prohibited.

In the US the distinction is drawn on "imminent lawless action." People are free to say or 'incite' whatever they want, unless its likely to lead to "imminent lawless action." And in the precedent on record, imminent is a standard that is not taken lightly.

- "This building should be [unlawfully] burnt down." = legal

- "I've got gas and matches. Let's meet up today and [unlawfully] burn this building down. Who's with me?" = illegal

As for as I know, the USA is the only country that explicitly grants the right to freedom of speech.

Article 50 of the Constitution of the Soviet Union granted its citizens not only freedom of speech, but many more rights than its American counterpart.

Which tells you something about how meaningless the discussion about whether a country explicitly grants this right or not is. Whether there's a piece of paper saying you have freedom of speech tells you nothing about whether you have de-facto freedom of speech.

What an interesting example. I'd never read about this before. The article is [1]:

"In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations. Exercise of these political freedoms is ensured by putting public buildings, streets and squares at the disposal of the working people and their organisations, by broad dissemination of information, and by the opportunity to use the press, television, and radio."

[1] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Soviet_Un...

True, but having it in your Constitution is an important starting point. Dissidents in USSR weaponized Soviet C. against Soviet administration, just by asking "Where's all the stuff promised here?" And Soviet Union did a lot to prevent its citizens from reading their C. in full (it was notably absent from schools, and public libraries, reviews, and excerpts were offered instead) which suggests these words on paper had some magic power even if absolutely disrespected by the state.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Auction-Listings/Can-y...

It is illegal in France and Germany to sell certain items.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com