German police probe student poster slur against Merz | Hacker News Reader

German police probe student poster slur against Merz

dpa-international.com

38 pointsroflcopter6928 comments

I have to say correctly so. It is a case of "ROMANES EUNT DOMUS" [1]. What is "Lick eggs Merz" supposed to mean? In order to be a proper political message on a proper demonstration of proper school kids, it should at least say who's eggs Merz should lick and why. And clearly hint why that is either good or bad. Which would give Merz the opportunity to reflect and change his behaviour.

[1] From the Life of Brian

While I am happy to see that this causes Streisand, I am not sure why this reaches the frontpage of HN. Is there anything special?

It's weekend.

Lack of freedom speech in the largest (remaining) democratic country in the western world seems concerning?

You're confusing "freedom and speech" and democracy. They're not the same. You cannot even give someone the middle finger in Germany.

> showing the middle finger (Stinkefinger) is illegal in Germany and considered a criminal offense under Section 185 of the Criminal Code (StGB). Known as an insult (Beleidigung), this gesture can lead to fines, or in severe cases, up to a year in prison.

It is a "probe".

When I report to the police UFO landed in my backyard and I feel my life is threatened, the police are obliged to probe into it. Not that anything may come out of it.

Freedom of speech does not automatically allow insults. Now whether "Lick balls" towards a state leader is an insult or is allowed criticism is probably debatable, but this is what courts are for.

American freedom of speech unconditionally allows insults. In Germany they have freedom of opinion - you can think, but you can't say. How generous of them to not make thoughtcrimes.

This is basically bullshit.

First of all - most people also in the US obviously don't know that there are exceptions from the First Amendment, excluding certain categories of speech from protection. Second, the First Amendment at the time it was created had a much more limiting interpretation of this freedom - e.g. insults were actually punishable.

Additionally - freedom of speech has never been absolute - it was limited in Ancient Greece, where it originated, it was limited as it was declared in the French Revolution (which was used as the template for the First Amendment), and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - which provides the internationally valid definition of freedom of speech, its scope is also limited.

As opposed to the US, in Germany, the legal system is built consistently from the most generally valid principles to the most specific ones. The most universally valid principle is the one of the human dignity - this is why it's prominently placed in the first sentence of the German Basic/Fundamental Law. Everything else is more or less directly derived from the First Law, making them subordinate to it - thus if freedom of speech violates someone's dignity, the dignity is more important and has to take precedence, limiting the freedom of speech.

And this is consistent and concordant with the international definition.

Technically, the slogan says "Lick balls Merz" (any balls are fine).

Isn't it "Merz lick eggs"?

except the "balls" used here would mean "eggs" if you apply "any x are fine"

Still, technically correct.

It's pretty weird phrasing. Maybe it's a typo for "Merz leg Eier". Is it still an insult then?

> According to Germany's Criminal Code, defamation statutes apply when someone knowingly asserts or disseminates untrue statements about another person

It seems more likely to be under the Insult clause of that statute:

> Insult (§185 StGB): Covers disrespectful, demeaning, or contemptuous statements made to or about someone, including public insults.

That's a pretty heavy handed law.

The tweet cited by the article says that the charge investigated was “insult”. There may have been a multistep misunderstanding here, because they seem to have found information (elsewhere, not in the cited tweet), and in loose discussion the “insult” section is within what is broadly described as “defamation laws”, though it is not the specific offense of “intentional defamation” (Section 187) nor is it roughly within the scope of “defamation” as that term is usually used in English (as both “intentional defamation” and the separate offense of “malicious gossip” [Section 186] would be), but its the closest broad category of law with a common name in English.

Politicians literally have their own paragraph with insane protections, it's §188. You don't ever want to say something negative about a politicians in Germany. The police will kick in your door within days.

Name-calling and specific accusations that cause damage are so different. This is really a blight on Germany's system, if this is considered slander.

The translations in this article are wrong.

My prediction is that the US war with Iran will lead to severe oil / gas shortages, which will be devastating for the German industry (think job loss, not necessarily people freezing to death). This year the winter started at 75% gas reserves and we're currently at 20% and we're lucky to have a warm winter. Now, next year Germany wants to exit completely from Russian gas (currently still served via Turkish pipelines) and LNG imports will have even more shortages thanks to the Iran war. So, analysts predicted that we can at most fill our gas reserves to 50% this summer, which will basically make the reserves go to 0% or negative in the next winter period. It's basic physics / geopolitics and there's little that any party can do at this point. Which will repel any industry first this year (even worse job market than last year), and then hit people at home later with energy / food / gasoline prices. Expect official government propaganda to be denying everything until the last second.

The German government fudged the official propaganda numbers on gas statistics now or are straight up lying because it would be bad for elections this year. I'm personally not voting because I consider the situation as hopeless either way, no matter what party you look at it's not a problem that voting can fix.

As it is more likely, "we" (I'm German, sadly) will this/next year go to war with Iran "to defend democracy", so they'll re-introduce the draft in 2027, etc. In any case, I'll have to try to switch countries this year as I'll hopefully have the ability to move abroad this year. If German politicians think they're above physics then I wish them good luck, this is just a heads up comment for other Germans who don't know what's going on.

Europe is going totalitarian everywhere. Just yesterday Hungary arrested 7 private individuals for carrying gold. Granted it was a big amount $40m but there was no probable cause for arrest.

These were not private individuals. This was an official cash/good transfer between Austrian bank and Ukrainian bank.

And Hungary is pretty much a rogue EU state - their government did go full authoritarian and is aligned with Russia.

An investigation isn’t going totalitarian.

A conviction would be totalitarian.

But a solicitation can’t be an untrue statement.

Hungary is led by a dictator. There’s a huge difference between Germany and Hungary

Naaa, you have to think of the poster in options. Like, "would you want to have some extra publicity with your poster for an extra 100 bucks?"

Are you American? A country that is using something called civil forfeiture? I think the joke is on you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

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