On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:22:04 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:59:21 -0500, Warp wrote:
> 
>> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> >> I suppose you could look at it that way.  The friends I have in
>> >> Germany have described it more as suppressing hate speech.
>> > 
>> >   There's a fine line between suppressing hate speech and suppressing
>> > freedom of expression. It seems that European countries in general
>> > are slowly but steadily probing how much they can extend the latter
>> > in the name of the former before people get angry.
> 
>> You have to admit that Germany is something of a special case, though -
>> one of my friends there works in government (not as an elected
>> official, but as an IT guy) and he's stated that that chapter of German
>> history is something that should never, ever be repeated again.
> 
>> I think that's something that most people would agree on.
> 
>   Yes, but what I find questionable is the *timing* of these laws.

As Floridan said, some have been around for many, many years.

>   WW2 and the nazi regime happened over 50 years ago. Why exactly are
>   these
> laws being enacted *now*. Why werent't they enacted in the 50's or 60's?

Well, for the more modern laws, I can only speculate that there is 
perhaps a resurgence of those ideas and that's what's prompted an 
apparent rise in political awareness of it in the country.

>   I also find it ridiculous to ban the swastica as the nazi symbol.
> Do they honestly think that outlawing a symbol is going to diminish the
> amount of hatred, xenofobia, racism and anger people have?

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but it is a very strong symbol.  
Outlawing it (which as has been mentioned elsewhere, by Florian, I 
believe, isn't strictly what's happened) raises people's awareness of it.

>   What they *really* want is to outlaw certain political ideologies. But
> they cannot do that (yet) because it would break certain constitutional
> principles. Thus they invent these ridiculous laws to get around the
> problem. Since these undesired political ideologies tend to use certain
> symbols to visually express their stance, what the government does is to
> ban the symbols, so that they will have an excuse to punish the people
> with those unwanted political ideologies.

That happens with all sorts of laws, not just laws of this type - we 
criminalize behaviour that isn't inherently criminal itself.

>   Of course this won't stop the political ideologies from proliferating.
> It will only cause these people to express them in other (still not
> outlawed) ways.

Yes, but from what I understand in Germany, outlawing some of the symbols 
has slowed any serious movement down.

Jim

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