I think it's already been touched on, but the reason Germany made it illegal is to prevent Nazism from happening again. The German government wasn't trying to hide anything. The German government was trying to prevent Nazi's from hiding something.
I guess we're not substantially in disagreement then.
Note that the Anti-Nazi laws in Germany were not -iirc- put in place by Germans, but in fact by Americans. In 1945 these laws made sense to deal with the situation at the time: in a society that had been severely distorted by NSDAP propaganda. As German society has changed, they make less sense now, and people have slowly come around to changing/removing these laws. I'm sure you can see why they are doing so very carefully. I understand the original reason for the laws, and I support the very careful removal/change of the laws.
In case you're curious (I was!): it is entirely possible to get a library loan for Mein Kampf in Germany. A quick google shows you might get a heavily annotated version printed by the state of Bavaria, but it's definitely available.
I agree with you on b). Nor do I disagree with democratic decision making by the community in general. I might have some opinions on people trying to subvert democratic systems to backdoor censorship and/or propaganda. (See also above, with that odd situation in Germany with quite a story to it.)
I think institutions in most western countries are -these days- quite well armored against incidental subversion. That's actually pretty good because that makes it easier to catch before things really go wrong. However, the laws, traditions and processes themselves only slow things down. You still need to actively catch people doing it and work to prevent it, so end of day you still need to maintain (eternal) vigilance.
I'm really skeptical of this slippery slope argument. Germany has very rigidly enforced anti-nazi-speech laws and it doesn't strike me as being a totalitarian dystopia.
The rule of law, combined with the broadest possible free speech, is the best defence as had been shown in Western democracies for quite some time now. Democracy in Germany in the thirties was in a very weak condition for a variety of reasons which allowed the Nazis to undermine it fatally.
Germany banned Hitler from public speaking in the 1920s; all this did was give Hitler more notoriety, and the NSDAP more propaganda material to work with.
Nazi Germany still did not emerge through democratic processes; they failed to gain a parliamentary majority despite years of street/voter harassment. Instead, they subverted democracy by exploiting a civil liberty loophole in the Weimar Constitution.
If anything, the rise of Nazi Germany demonstrates why such loopholes in protections for civil liberties are so fundamentally dangerous. For a more modern example, look at how "hate speech" laws in Russia are in fact used to silence political dissent.
Germany’s laws are very clear that any form of endorsement of Naziism (or any hate speech) is illegal. It has been since the end of WWII. From the US, it looks ridiculous because most of that would be protected by the First Amendment. But in Germany, they really don’t want another Hitler.
Please stop comparing the current German government with fascists.
Trying to ban a political party in the open after year (decade?) long preparation is very different from taking all civil liberties (freedom of expression, freedom of press, freedom to assemble) and putting political opponents in prison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree 1933)
But it still proves the point - association with Nazism is not outright banned in Germany. The law is actually quite delicately applied after much consideration.
Yes, the Germans also were for the most part okay with stripping Jews of their rights. When will you idiots realize that tyranny of the majority has nothing to do with democracy and rule of law.
German laws required direct incitement for violence to be actionable offence. During 1930s and before, these people were not prosecuted for antisemitism, but for for literal incitements to violence. Racism (or accusations against race as they called it) were protected by law - unlike accusations against religion which was protected.
During that time, Nazi were engaged in quite a lot of political violence. Literal beating people violence. Even laws against violence were not actually really enforced for them. The argument that Nazi somehow had it hard to to pass through censorship is ridiculous. You are literally talking about time when SA were roaming streets beating people and Der Stürmer making up reasons for it.
Goebbels went to jail for insulting police chief. Not for anti-semitism.
>Here in Germany it's very popular to talk about, chastise and silence "Nazis" (be it real or assumed), which sort of makes sense knowing Germany's history.
And yet it doesn't even prevent the core of the problem, which is that the supreme law of the land is easily abusable as a weapon once the Nazis get in power (and if the German economy tanks to the point where people can no longer buy bread for a day's work, which was true in the Weimar Republic, they will).
Anti-speech laws have never been about stopping Nazis. It's all about the feeling that they stop Nazis, which (especially in majoritarian-biased politics) is all that really matters.
A “rule of law” is a tool that can be used for evil. I’m not sure why we’re being blind to this?
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