We recently discussed the arrest of two Chinese tourists for taking pictures of giving the Nazi salute in Berlin. Now, an American has been arrested for giving the salute in Dresden — after a passerby punched him. The arrests highlight the failed effort of Germans to criminalize certain forms of speech to deter neo-Nazis.
The tourist was reportedly drunk and gave the salute multiple times. The 41-year-old was slightly injured when he was punched by a bystander.
As discussed earlier, I have long been a critic of the German laws prohibiting certain symbols and phrases, I view it as not just a violation of free speech but a futile effort to stamp out extremism by barring certain symbols. Instead, extremists have rallied around an underground culture and embraced symbols that closely resemble those banned by the government. I fail to see how arresting a man for a Hitler ringtone is achieving a meaningful level of deterrence, even if you ignore the free speech implications.
Arresting tourists for giving salutes is not only a curtailment of speech but a useless exercise given the burgeoning population of neo-Nazis in the country. The neo-Nazis routinely make a mockery of the limitations by making slight changes in their speech to evade the laws. The real impact is to make these extremists into self-described victims and to make a mockery of Western principles of free speech. The solution to hate speech is counter-speech not the criminalization of speech.
you will have to speak to the socialists trying to recreate the USSR. We’re too busy watching many of those crimes get dismantled and trashed at the rate of 14 canceled for every new one put in place. and enjoying e every minute of watching the their 100 plus year old revolution against our Constitutional Republic be dismantled and junked.
As to where they went? Who cares they rejected their citizenship and when last hear of were trying to find the USSR… Shall we tell them it doesn’t exist anymore. and as for their white ID party of establishment aristocracy with their neo feudalism they are Target Number One now with their RINO right wing of the left running a close second
The single party system of government is no more and their two kinds of socialism didn’t work either. By the way you got inalienable wrong too. The word you missed out on is unalienable meaning can not be changed as opposed to inalienable meaning which can be changed. PC Fictionaries are not valid as it happens nor are PC sources.
Don’t you tire of never get anything correct? No? How culd you. You sold your soul, power to reaon and individuality to The Collective and now must pay the price for playing stupid in rush hour traffic.
Not much different than the USSA. The criminals that call themselves government consider tens of thousands of non-crimes (where there is no victim) to be crimes. Only because the criminal state says so….
you will have to speak to the socialists trying to recreate the USSR. We’re too busy watching many of those crimes get dismantled and trashed at the rate of 14 canceled for every new one put in place. and enjoying e every minute of watching the their 100 plus year old revolution against our Constitutional Republic be dismantled and junked.
As to where they went? Who cares they rejected their citizenship and when last hear of were trying to find the USSR… Shall we tell them it doesn’t exist anymore. and as for their white ID party of establishment aristocracy with their neo feudalism they are Target Number One now with their RINO right wing of the left running a close second
The single party system of government is no more and their two kinds of socialism didn’t work either.
About 8.5 million Germans, or 10 percent of the population, had been members of the Nazi Party. Nazi-related organizations also had huge memberships, such as the German Labour Front(25 million), the National Socialist People’s Welfare organization(17 million), the League of German Women, Hitler Youth, the Doctors’ League, and others. It was through the Party and these organizations that the Nazi state was run, involving as many as 45 million Germans in total. In addition, Nazism foundsgignificant support among industrialist, who produced weapons or used slave labor. Denazification after the surrender of Germany was thus an enormous undertaking.
As with their brothers in the International Socialist movement the rule was if you aren’t a member you only count as slave labor. As Patton put it, albeit p;oorly, they became Nazi’s the same way some become Democrats. gp along get along and no will to fight. the worst of the the bunch in our country became RINOs.
The significant suipport among industrialist came from their one main and only difference with the internatinal socialists. who allowed ownership as long as it was tightly controlled by the government. thus the definition of fascism. compelete control by any and all means possible. where as the russian version stated no one owns anything thus everyone owns all things including the shirt on their backs.
That Fascist Economics came from Marist Economics and turned in to State Economics described socialist economics with a very very thin veneer of capitalism.
Thus you suceeded in describing perfectly the various left wing factions and fractions of the secular progressive led left. but failed to mentioned how it has failed everywhere it has been used. Sweden one fo the latest and best examples.
Thje rest of it is just a mish mash of name changes with only one description that never chantges. Anyone they disagree with or disagrees sith them is called a ‘conservative’ and that too as it he word liberal a phony desciption.
But such is life in the party of those who rejected the social contract of their country and rejected their country and are now nothing more than stateless, undocumented illegals with less rights to be here than the current versioin from south of the border.
“The solution to hate speech is counter-speech not the criminalization of speech.”
What do we do when the counter speech is meant shut down all reasonable conversation??.. Like.. Hate speech will always lead to murder. Please!!!!
We have a limit of Ethos and Logos but we have tons and tons of Pathos.. To the point of pathological!!
Several times, this statement has come up:
“The solution to hate speech is counter-speech not the criminalization of speech.”
I hate to be a sour apple, but I am not so sure that “counter speech” will always do the trick. It sounds nice, and I would like to believe it, but I am not all sure that it is any better advice, than if a parent tells a kid,. “Just ignore them [the bullies], and they’ll leave you alone.”
Maybe. Maybe that will work, but doesn’t that kind of approach assume that the bullies, or the hate-speakers, will react in the predicted manner. What if they don’t? What if the bullies don’t leave the kid alone, but instead escalate, and beat the crap out of the kid? Would it not have been better to teach the kid to pick up a stick, or a rock, or a roll of dimes, and beat the ever-luvvin’ crap out of the bullies? Or maybe call the cops?
The same with “counter speech.” The U.S. has survived, more or less, 200+ years but I am not sure when or if during our history, that “counter-speech” has ever really worked. I would love to hear some examples. For example, the peaceniks of 1941 were not persuaded by any counter-speech, that the Axis was coming for us, if they were indeed coming for us. No, it took the Japs bombing the crap out of Pearl Harbor to wake up up.
Then, we convinced the Japs and the Krauts to stop fighting, not by counter-speeching them, but bombing the crap out of them.
I am not sure that counter-speech will ever work. Plus, what we see from Antifa and BLM is not just hate speech, but hate conduct. They violently shut down conservative speakers Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, and Milo, or recently, shut down the White Supremacist whatevers’ rally in Virginia.
Sooo, saying that the answer is “counter-speech” assumes that the “other side” is reasonable, and will be agreeable to listening, and coming to mutually satisfactory solutions. Which view, does not seem to comport with Reality. Which view, doesn’t even work with lawyers, which is why so many issues wind up in Court.
That’s my two cents worth.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
good post Squeak! You may well be the last of the real journalists commentators
Thank you, Michael!!! I was being honest that I could not think of any examples of “counter-speech” doing any good. The ones that I thought might come close to being examples, seemed upon examination to dissolve into various forms of intimidation and social pressure, not counter speech.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Using a technique like that is not something one can find done properly in todays uneducated world. It demands a superb command of the language and an equal command of subject knowledge.
When the elements of debate or speech are not provided never mind nuances from parent to engish other languages the well delivered counter elicits nothing more than ‘huh?’ and a comment not germane. I thought long and hard before sort of inventing for myself the phrase ‘it’s not ad hominem unless one is dealing with a human. Humanoids and machines don’t count.” Still I treasure reading each word when some of our brighter members can distilll that sentence into a few words.
Like any debater one must be able to go extemp at a moment’s notice then back on track but the effortis not for the original poster who usually dies and disappears to be replaced by other names in the effort to keep up. The thought of a dictionary is beyond most and that’s a shame. It was a standard part of the verbal arsenal 55-65 years ago. Now we have retiring teachers who can’t cut it and never excelled in an entire career.
“You don’t know…..? It’s common knowledge”
“If it were common knowledge I would know. There fore it isn’t common knowledge. ”
But then common knowledge holds that we live in a democracy. What is one to do with untrained minds who are fed such pap?
i enjoy your writings along with some of the regulars ….few and far between but always welcome.
But when one hears that Pelosi is trying to block what she has decided is a white supremacists rally’s try for a peaceful assembly as a ‘fascist’ danger. Then forgets to add they are just another version of her own political beliefs another wing of her own party’s ideology ….one has to wonder if she wouldn’t have been better off staying in the glamour calander business when the botox wasn’t necessary.
No doubt the nation would be far ahead
Just as an example. and one I would have tried on my 8th Grade teacher.
“The solution to hate speech is counter-speech not the criminalization of speech.”
My constitutional law professor was no Prof Turley, but this is what he said about the first amendment. Sage comment.
Hurray for common sense.
Murder is not a first amendment right.
Gee, neither is shutting down somebody else’s political rally. And, you still have not answered the very simple question I asked you earlier. Do even White Supremacists and KKKer’s have a Free Speech right to hold a rally, free from violence.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
These Nazis had no intention of holding a peaceful rally. That is not to say
somewhere someplace they might and should be allowed to do so.
They came prepared for the Antifa and BLM Thugz. If Antifa and the BLM Thugz had simply had their counter rally at a different place, or day, then there would have been no violence. Unless you want to pretend that Antifa and BLM are never violent.
The White Supremacists and KKKer’s had a Free Speech right to be there, and as far as I am concerned, if you don’t want trouble, then stop interfering in other’s peoples rallies and speeches.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Yes they do but when peaceful assembly is violated and apparently by prior planning there can be no free speech nor can that exist when it is bought and paid for by the wealthy.
Write a letter.
Tell James Hodgkinson that.
Which one? I tried to google the answer using the same format for the questin as last months question using my own famiies name. this month all I got is….apparently only one., Is anybody some entreprneur going to set up an honest researdh system.. Or do we get to keep bashing the same individual no matter how guilty and assume that is the one referred to in the poorly written post?
Suze, you have not been paying attention or the lazy, greedy, striking, communist, teachers union thugs in your local public school failed to teach you about the U.S. Constitution – it’s understandable, they live in the Communist Manifesto.
Freedoms are natural and god-given and freedoms existed before government was established.
Regarding, thought, speech, assembly and religion, citizens require nothing more than the 1st Amendment. Every other conceivable freedom is provided by the 9th.
To wit,
Amendment I
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Read and enjoy – your only problems are communism and communists.