Tomorrow Belongs To Them?

[timsinister]

Why should people like Jörg Haider be allowed to join the Austrian government?

Because people like Jörg Haider voted for him and his rancid party. They may be scumbags or just plain stupid, but if you deny them the right to be represented, someone else may feel entitled to deny you the same right. Bastards like Haider, for example, who exist everywhere.

Whenever anybody starts bleating about 'free speech' from ANY point of view, it's usually to defend one most right-thinking people would find repellant.

The simple fact is this; give humans any degree of free reign, and they f**k it up. Who else was rooting for Chancellor Palpatine?
I'd love to say that nobody should make hard and fast rules for a grey area, but I'm far more practical than that. Somebody should, and probably keep a boot on the neck of anyone who starts bitching.

[timsinister]

Bloody hell, anyone else having trouble with Heartland today? Please excuse the hiccough.

[aims]

I support freedom of justified speech. If someone can put forward a reasoned argument for what they're saying then they've earned the right to express it. This serves the dual purpose of making people stop and think about what they're saying and of fewer bigots wasting my anger

[markfiend]

But who judges? By their lights, any defence of, say, gay rights is not "justified" speech; it's an abomination against god and they'll quote you chapter and verse to prove it.

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to say something stupid.

[Obviousman]

I'm also very fond of freedom of speech, though I think you only have the right to be free if you let others have the same rights. It does not make sense otherwise.

They don't let others have their freedom of speech and therefore don't deserve to speak of what they wish to speak.

Seems to make sense, but feel free to correct me

[aims]

Good choice of issue

I would love to have a dedicated "Court of Speech" manned by those of completely impartial view points to apply a set of rigorous axioms to the debate...

You know what? I just wish truth were absolute

It would certainly make for an interesting philosophical novel: There exist certain axioms which are irrefutable. From this the beings of the world derive truths which some underlying system enforces the moment that they're arrived at. It's been in my mind for a while, but I've not had time to sit down and work on it...

[boudicca]

Freedom of speech includes the freedom to say something stupid.

Exactamundo.

You're showing your true colours today, Herr Sinister!

[timsinister]

I'm too ill to pretend I'm a nice person.

[Dark]

I read about Prussian Blue on various webcomics' forums and on GeekIssues.org some months ago. There may well have been an alt.gothic thread about it too.

Scum. I don't care how cute they may look, they're Nazis of the worst sort, and no better than any other facist from the bowels of humanity.

[emilystrange]

they're not even cute.

[paint it black]

Somewhere along the line, the more "intelligent" neo-nazis must know that they're wrong, surely?

I mean, the whole holocaust-denial thing, do they stick their fingers in their ears going "la la la I can't hear you" whenever they're presented with evidence?

as usual, are you 100% sure that's what they do Mark?

i've read books on this stuff, always a good starting point, and i think the general argument is the scalability and timing of it all. which goes something like: the figures don't stack up, in fact the larger majority 'disappeared' during ethnic cleansing post war and in the eastern bloc. not that i'm a neo nazi, and not that neo nazis wrote the books i read, if you want i'll leave you to your misguided leftie leanings, just trying to add both sides to the story is all

great name though, a cat, a true blue and, rather most disturbingly, a chemical agent (not many know the last though, so that's okay)

with you richey, loving the t-shirts

[/i]

[boudicca]

a chemical agent (not many know the last though, so that's okay)

From what I read, that's where the name comes from (and the obvious Germany/Prussia thing).

Something to do with the absence of this chemical in the gas chambers being "evidence" it was all a hoax...

I suppose I can't argue one way or the other about figures for the Holocaust... they could be exaggerated, they could be underestimated for all I know. I have not trawled through any books or evidence.

But I would bet everything I own that whatever the figures, the Holocaust very definitely happened. And that's the point.
Even if the numbers were half what is generally claimed... so what, three million dead is no big deal? The horror remains as a cautionary tale to humanity nonetheless.

[Dark]

Hell, even the Nazi survivors of the war have said it happened. So, what, did all those Jews just suddenly disappear over the course of the war?

It happened.

[aims]

Auschwitz made such a lovely ornamental garden.

I don't think

[lazarus corporation]

why haven't they been arrested?

I think it's called freedom of speech. Unless you'd rather fight fascism with fascism, of course.

The UK law means that people inciting race hatred can be arrested because of what they say. This means that, by your definition ("Unless you'd rather fight fascism with fascism, of course") the UK is a fascist state. Isn't that a bit of a Rik-from-the-Young-Ones remark?

a question for Andy (and anyone else supporting the 'absolute right to freedom of speech' position):

If (with the benefit of hindsight, obviously) you could go back in time to the 1920s/30s, and restrict Hitler's freedom of speech, so preventing the rise of the NAZI party and the subsequent deaths of an estimated 55 million people who died in the European theatre of conflict during World War II, would you?

I realise that it's an emotive and purely hypothetical (until the invention of time travel) question. I also realise that it presumes that restricting one specific person's freedom of speech would have prevented the rise of a political movement, which you may contend is debatable, but, for the purposes of this question I'd like you to take it as accepted.

[euphoria]

Hi to all first, my first post in the general chat - very interesting topic!

I realise that it's an emotive and purely hypothetical (until the invention of time travel) question. I also realise that it presumes that restricting one specific person's freedom of speech would have prevented the rise of a political movement, which you may contend is debatable, but, for the purposes of this question I'd like you to take it as accepted.

Highly hypothetical, yes. If he had only been allowed the freedom of speech (instead of the freedom of absolutely everything, which was more the case), things would most likely never have got out of hand. I can recommend the film "Aufstieg des Bösen" in 2 parts ("Rise of the evil" in english maybe, I'm not sure.? There are surely better films, but this is fairly easy to get hold of.

I think Eldritch was absolutely right in his Haider opinion, the EU interferring in Austrian politics was incredibly embarrasing and harmful to the "european cause".

I would love to travel back and stab AH with a rusty knife somewhere around 1917 though.

[Ed Rhombus]

I’m always concerned when I hear all the blame being left at Hitler’s door as if he alone was responsible for all the unsavoury acts committed in Europe over that period. Had he been extricated from History, would the path that Germany had followed been significantly different?

Personally I think it’s more a case of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’

Maybe it’s easier to stomach, if we say that it was all one man, and when he died the whole philosophy he believed in and the support for it died with him

[euphoria]

Yes, of course. But it would have been a decidedly -different- world without Hitler, and I am quite certain Europe would have been much less brain-drained and the US much less the Cop of the World.

Back on-topic: racism is everywhere - can you imagine the headlines if the daily terror acts in Iraq had taken place in any western country?

[canon docre]

Personally I think it’s more a case of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’

I agree completely. After all, he and the NSDAP were elected by the Germans.

The 'hour' was perfect for someone like him to emerge.

[Obviousman]

Personally I think it’s more a case of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the man’

I agree completely. After all, he and the NSDAP were elected by the Germans.

The 'hour' was perfect for someone like him to emerge.

Indeed... And if we hadn't learned our lesson back then, what would we be right now? (though that's not really a nice thing to say, but still)

[andymackem]

Fair question, Laz.

As for the Hitler question, no I wouldn't. Making the Nazi's a covert organisation would have had little impact on their appeal, which was built around dismantling the 'establishment' which had precipitated the desperate state of 1930s Germany. If the fascists hadn't won popular support another extreme group (probably communist) would almost certainly have done so in that climate. IMHO, of course. Looking at the record of the USSR and their contribution to the 55m killed in the Great Patriotic War, plus the 30m+ of the purges, the impact of the Ukraine famine etc, etc, etc I can't see that being an improvement.

Rik from the Young Ones? Hmm. Harsh, frankly. But I'm not a big fan of laws against inciting racial hatred. I'd be much more comfortable with a system which comprehensively demonstrated the flaws in the thinking; not one which simply says don't think things we don't like. But that's hard work. Something about eternal vigilance, IIRC.

[markfiend]

Somewhere along the line, the more "intelligent" neo-nazis must know that they're wrong, surely?

I mean, the whole holocaust-denial thing, do they stick their fingers in their ears going "la la la I can't hear you" whenever they're presented with evidence?

as usual, are you 100% sure that's what they do Mark?

It was a question Ez. Do they know the evidence but still deny the holocaust?

i've read books on this stuff, always a good starting point, and i think the general argument is the scalability and timing of it all. which goes something like: the figures don't stack up, in fact the larger majority 'disappeared' during ethnic cleansing post war and in the eastern bloc. not that i'm a neo nazi, and not that neo nazis wrote the books i read, if you want i'll leave you to your misguided leftie leanings, just trying to add both sides to the story is all

The thing is, some of these arguments may have some validity. And as the Nazis destroyed as many records as they could when it became clear that they were going to lose WWII, the estimates of 6000000 dead Jews are just that: estimates.

So granted, we have some holes in the picture, but when what we do have looks like this:

Code: Select all

-OL-C-US-
HOLO-A--T
H--OCAU--
HOLOC---T
--LOC-UST
HO---AUST

it takes some mental gymnastics deliberately to fail to see the bigger picture, no?

[canon docre]

..., in fact the larger majority 'disappeared' during ethnic cleansing post war and in the eastern bloc.

care to elaborate? ethnic cleansing by who? the commies?

[paint it black]

..., in fact the larger majority 'disappeared' during ethnic cleansing post war and in the eastern bloc.

care to elaborate? ethnic cleansing by who? the commies?

the leftie commie bastards,

think andy summed up quite nicely. no need to elaborate further

[eotunun]

1.: Freedom of speech will demask those who are endangering it. And you can only work against something you can see.

2.: Yes, "cometh the hour, cometh the man". Without Hindenburg, weimarian Reichschancellor then, Adolf wouldn`t have had a chance of taking the power. And without a larger number of honourable citizens that joined the "Ostara", an organisation that worshipped the "heritage" of the ancient Germanians. Or rather phantasies about the latter. There also was a close connection between them and Richard Wagner, of whom Adolf was a great admirer.
Without the support of these circles, there probably wouldn`t have been a Third Reich. And these circles were working behind the curtain since the nineteenth century. Not to forget the rumor that one of Hitlers supporters was a distinct Prescot Bush from the USA.. Dubyas grand-daddy.. If that is true, did he know what the Kraut was up to?

And the two peroxide-girlies from page one of the thread?
Wait till they got a good brushing in the back of a mexican lowrider.
I bet they`ll make Hip-Hop ever after. Loyal to their new gang.

So what are the Nazis in germany up to? Well, Mr. Decker, chairman of the NPD (Nationaldemocratic Party of Germany), had contact with islamistic organisations in germany, probably talking about hating Jews. Or to find out if they were able to push over the established system if they joined forces. Their combination failed after all, as Odin doesn`t receive much sympathy as god from muslims..
Them Nazis, they are but a ridiculous bunch today.