Reichstag Fire Decree (1933) | Hacker News Reader

Reichstag Fire Decree (1933)

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84 pointsKnuthIsGod38 comments

This is a point that's probably very obvious to many Americans, but something I hadn't really considered about the second amendment and the like is that freedom is kind of zero-sum: a consequence of the right to bear arms is that armed guards might have to be stationed at schools, and that cops treat everyone like a potential armed criminal.

This last shooting will probably not lead to a meaningful change in gun-control, but it will create pretexts for this administration to crack down on certain political movements.

If your “freedom” requires walking around backwards waving a pistol is it really freedom?

the idea of the right to bear arms was to overthrow a dictatorial government if need be, not to milsim in city centers or shoot up schools. The 2nd amendment is not really meaningful in the age of palantir and f35s.

There are still many details yet to come out, and the future is as ever unwritten, but I think a better historical analogue for the killing of Charlie Kirk is Horst Wessel, who Goebbels turned into a martyr for the NSDAP.

Interesting, what triggered the post now?

I honestly cannot imagine why someone just now is posting an article about how a singular crime is used as a justification for a massive government power grab and an excuse to oppress the ruling party's political opponents, despite negligible evidence of any connection to the crime. [1]

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/us/politics/jd-vance-char...

hadn't seen that news yet, thanks for sharing.

What does [flagged] mean on this post?

It means that a number of users hit the "flag" button, but not yet enough to kill the thread.

And what does that mean? Probably that several users considered this off-topic, and (under current circumstances) to be political, and more likely to result in a flamewar than in a useful discussion.

This is what I return to every time when someone confuses morality and laws.

100% of Hitler's reign was legal. Everything he did was 100% legal.

Morality is and must be above laws.

(Edit: ChatGPT reminds me that Hitler's post-1933 actions were legal; the earlier (and failed) "Beer Hall Putsch" was illegal.)

which is also the excuse many nazis used at the nuremberg trials

Alas, this is the same argument that can be used against the 1st amendment and the political opposition: "Rejoicing in Kirk's death is immoral, therefore the 1st amendment doesn't apply, and let's abusively prosecute anyone we can tie to him in any way".

No it can’t, you’re literally confusing immoral with illegal in your comment.

You said that morality must be above the laws. That means that one has priority over the other. aredox is arguing based on that, not confusing the two.

Not really, the Nazis did manage to push a lot of pro-nazi judges everywhere, who judged that what their friends were doing was legal, but fair judges wouldn't have danced to the same tune.

A Brown shirt killed by a communist/socialist was always illegal, but a communist/socialist killed by a brown shirt was always self defence and always legal.

That's why the rule of law is so important, and that's why it shouldn't have exceptions for anyone, even policemen (arguments could be made for elected people as long as they are elected though).

> the Nazis did manage to push a lot of pro-nazi judges everywhere

Which is what republicans and Trump have been doing the past 10-15 years. Just need to look at how the supreme court is behaving as of late.

This is a common thing to hear, but I'm not sure how true it is. It would be nice to hear from a historian, but Hitler and the Nazis did many things that were not legal in the early days. They did dodgy and possibly illegal things to give Hitler German citizenship so that he could run in German elections. He literally employed a private army which was committing violent acts across Germany. Not long after being appointed chancellor he personally ordered murders and assassinations including the night of long knives.

> (Edit: ChatGPT reminds me that Hitler's post-1933 actions were legal; the earlier (and failed) "Beer Hall Putsch" was illegal.)

Looking back it seems crazy that he only got one year in jail for the failed Putsch.

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