GERMAN CHANCELLOR: NO FREE SPEECH ALLOWED FOR THE “EXTREME RIGHT”

Gript ^ | 1-21-25 | Ben Scallan

[Strict9]

“We have the freedom of speech in Europe and in Germany,” said Scholz.

“Everyone can say what he wants, even if he is a billionaire. And what we do not accept is if this is supporting extreme-right positions.”

For his part, Musk dismissed the criticism of his gesture as a “tired” attack.

“Shame on Oaf Schitz,” he said on his own platform X.

[Strict9]

The man in the funny mustache really did Germany it. It’s such a shame. A beautiful, wonderful intelligent people reduced to being neutered. Granted, they fought “The World”— twice (and it was close). No need for them to be this neurotic and guilty. Mr. Hitler is dead. Move on.

[kiryandil]

aka “Oaf Doltz”

[mewzilla]

The meme ban, the link tax, the Digital Services Act were all a preview of coming attractions...

[ansel12]

You think we have to endure the constant nazi, nazi, nazi screams, imagine what it is like in Germany.

[Strict9]

and then there is the project Stargate 500 billion dollar AI. I’ve seen this movie— it doesn’t end well

[Right_Wing_Madman]

Mr. Hitler is dead. Move on.

Germans do many things very well, but they're terrible at politics. The Thirty Years War, too, was a bloody slaughter.

They've had 15 different constitutions since the German Confederation in 1815. They can never get it right.

[mewzilla]

AI is a tool.

Tools don’t scare me.

It’s the people wielding the tool we should keep an eye on.

I trust Trump to do that.

[mewzilla]

Note to Germany: The US has the only Constitution on the planet that protects the citizenry from its government.

You need one of those.

NOW.

Feel free to crib ours. 🙂

[Strict9]

AI’s are amazing as long as you don’t give them lobotomies. Ask any popular AI out there to make an illustration of a Roman soldier or a founding father and you basically get a portrait of Maya Angelou in a funny hat

[dangus]

I don’t think Olaf (for whom Betty WHite’s fictional town was not named, in spite of him easily being stupid enough to have founded it) made a mistake. I think he’s trying to force the weak-right party into a coalition with the Alliance Fur Deutschland.

[JesusIsLord]

So, who decides on what is: “extreme-right positions”?

[Jolla]

“It’s the people wielding the tool we should keep an eye on.”

Bingo - its not the tool that is bad.

[mewzilla]

AI is like everything else computer related....

GIGO.

[mewzilla]

LOL.

I’m a recovering Luddite.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to say that. :-)

[mewzilla]

BTW, speaking of tools, get a load of this from NYS...

New York proposes background checks for 3D printer purchases — the bill combats 3D-printed guns

Guns and printers aren't the real threat, are they...

[AnotherUnixGeek]

“Everyone can say what he wants, even if he is a billionaire. And what we do not accept is if this is supporting extreme-right positions.”

It's funny watching people who don't understand free speech claiming that they practice free speech.

[nathanbedford]

As a long-term resident in Germany, I have long held the opinion that my neighbors here consistently miss understand the lessons of the "Hitler time."

The lesson they took is that the source of evil is Hitler and, by extension, the political right. So the paraphernalia and symbols of the third Reich are put on the verboten list. Suspicious hand gestures have become a criminal offense because they relate back to the third Reich.

Famously, to deny the Holocaust was a criminal act and that sort of speech was censored. While it is understandable that there is an overhanging sense of national guilt for the horrors inflicted on the world by their own country, that sense of shame has caused distorted political positions. That is so even though it may be said that the sense of shame shared to excess mostly by elitists and not by ordinary Germans.

So to atone for a shameful period Germany censors free speech because they do not understand the essential lesson to be taken from that terrible time was not to resort to more government power to restrain misguided individuals but to protect individual liberty of conscience when exercised free of violence.

The Germans are great educators, and they certainly educate their children about the horrors of the Holocaust, but they teach the wrong lesson.

[farmguy]

Looks like those cute Germans are at it again...

[Empire_of_Liberty]

Once, all the Germans were warlike, and mean,
But that couldn’t happen again.
We taught them a lesson in Nineteen Eighteen,
And they’ve hardly bothered us, since then…

(Too much Tom Lehrer while growing up)

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

Olaugh Scholz was at the WEF sitting next to Klaus Slob.....

Denying "free speech" to some citizens based on a political perspective is not free, it is wholly political. The European Left -- like our US corruption-stuffed Democrats -- is unraveling slowly but surely. It scares power to be challenged by other and competing power.