Germany’s history informs its current laws. That much is undeniable. But it doesn’t excuse the over-correction applied by legislators in hopes of heading off another Hitler. And it cert…
from the be-the-stasi-you-wish-to-see-in-the-world dept
I’m not from East Germany, and not inclined to argue with those justifications. They sound valid and despicable.
Let’s also not pretend that this law which is justified for the reasons in your post is being consistently applied to those ends.
The article mentions that they are hitting 95% rate of failure to convict, which tells me that the laws are being applied capriciously.
Speech laws being applied capriciously are definitely a tool in the despot’s pocket, and the article also mentions seizures that were unlawful and apparently politically driven. Insulting politicians should never result in charges or property seizure like this, especially when the laws being wielded purport to protect the vulnerable.
A quick search and you will notice that the people suddenly concerned about Germanies hatespeech laws are trustworthy folks like jd vance, trump and other far right actors. Also the fact that procecusion doesn’t happen often, shows that it is enforced with causion and not arbitrary like in the case of the current US deportation nightmare. That is abuse of power.
Maybe the US wouldn’t have trumps fascist takeover, if they had speech laws, like in Germany.
So just because people you don’t like express concern about something means that it automatically must be false? This type of “logic” is very dangerous. And prosecution clearly does happen a lot. Literally 10 cases a day in one German state according to the article and only 0.5 of those cases actually result in conviction, which means that clearly this is used to intimidate and punish people generally rather than a sincere attempt to enforce the law.
Lol, no one who just “expresses concern” will be sued in Germany. It will always be insults and incitement to violence that will lead to this.
However I would say that there have been trials because of really “easy” insults, started by politicians. And here you’ve got a point IMO that these laws are also used for intimidation. As a politician you should be able to tolerate some insults without having to sue each and every offender out there.
95% failure to convict indicates the defendants may have shown rehabilitation and regret so the judge applied jurisprudence. I know this may be a foreign concept to a US american but in the civilised world, prison is a rehabilitation solution, not a “for profit” slavery distributor to help GAP and McDonald’s get free labour.
I’m not from East Germany, and not inclined to argue with those justifications. They sound valid and despicable.
Let’s also not pretend that this law which is justified for the reasons in your post is being consistently applied to those ends.
The article mentions that they are hitting 95% rate of failure to convict, which tells me that the laws are being applied capriciously.
Speech laws being applied capriciously are definitely a tool in the despot’s pocket, and the article also mentions seizures that were unlawful and apparently politically driven. Insulting politicians should never result in charges or property seizure like this, especially when the laws being wielded purport to protect the vulnerable.
A quick search and you will notice that the people suddenly concerned about Germanies hatespeech laws are trustworthy folks like jd vance, trump and other far right actors. Also the fact that procecusion doesn’t happen often, shows that it is enforced with causion and not arbitrary like in the case of the current US deportation nightmare. That is abuse of power. Maybe the US wouldn’t have trumps fascist takeover, if they had speech laws, like in Germany.
So just because people you don’t like express concern about something means that it automatically must be false? This type of “logic” is very dangerous. And prosecution clearly does happen a lot. Literally 10 cases a day in one German state according to the article and only 0.5 of those cases actually result in conviction, which means that clearly this is used to intimidate and punish people generally rather than a sincere attempt to enforce the law.
Lol, no one who just “expresses concern” will be sued in Germany. It will always be insults and incitement to violence that will lead to this.
However I would say that there have been trials because of really “easy” insults, started by politicians. And here you’ve got a point IMO that these laws are also used for intimidation. As a politician you should be able to tolerate some insults without having to sue each and every offender out there.
95% failure to convict indicates the defendants may have shown rehabilitation and regret so the judge applied jurisprudence. I know this may be a foreign concept to a US american but in the civilised world, prison is a rehabilitation solution, not a “for profit” slavery distributor to help GAP and McDonald’s get free labour.
The laws will always be applied inconsistently.