Ping
A leftie standing up for freedom of expression? A rare thing nowadays indeed.
He is all wrong.
The law was not abused. The problem was that there was a large bloc of Communist totalitarians in the Reichstag and a growing bloc of Nazi totalitarians as well.
The Reichstag was unable to proceed normally because bloc voting paralyzed all legislative intiatives by the government. Article 48 was repeatedly invoked in order to break obstructionist deadlocks by Communists and Nazis.
Each time Article 48 was invoked, the law required that each Presidential decree be ratified by a bare majority of the Reichstag. Basically Article 48 was invoked in order to force a vote, not to play dictator.
Hitler used the Reichstag Fire as an excuse to make the President invoke Article 48, but Article 48 is not what allowed the fiend to seize power. It was the Enabling Act in which the Reichstag transferred greater executive authority to the Cabinet, which Hitler as Chancellor controlled.
Hitler used the increased powers granted the Cabinet by the Reichstag's Enabling Act, not Article 48 - Article 48 gave the president more executive power not the Chancellor.
Was the law he was convicted under, an amendment to free speech? Does that law exist in this country?
Hate em back it keeps you warm....
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist."
Salman RUSHDIE
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
George ORWELL
I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking."
Woodrow WILSON
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln