Posted on 02/17/2025 1:49:58 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
A 60 Minutes segment on Germany's approach to policing online speech has ignited fierce debate on both sides of the Atlantic after it aired in the U.S. on Sunday. Critics have called the country's laws "Orwellian," while defenders insist they are necessary to prevent hate-fueled violence.
The CBS News piece showcased how German authorities crack down on online speech deemed harmful or offensive under the country's stringent speech laws. The report documented early-morning police raids targeting individuals suspected of posting content that could incite hatred, including insults and even memes.
Why It Matters
The debate over Germany's online speech laws gained traction in the U.S. after Vice President JD Vance, speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, accused European nations of suppressing free speech and marginalizing right-wing parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Vance argued that censorship and government overreach pose a greater threat to European democracy than external adversaries like Russia or China. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius pushed back, calling Vance's comparison of parts of Europe to authoritarian regimes "unacceptable."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
— German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius pushed back, calling Vance’s comparison of parts of Europe to authoritarian regimes “unacceptable.”
Apparently with no sense of irony.
I just saw an interesting YouTube video which explained that the Left used to focus on Liberty. Marx was not about Diversity, or Equity, or Inclusion. Marx wanted workers to be free to live their best life. In the same vein, Feminism was originally called Women’s Liberation and it was also about Liberty to live your best life.
The Left has thrown all of that aside and now wants to impose tyranny in which the worst and most perverted people in society are mandated to get exactly the same rewards as the normal, hard-working, and decent people. You need a very oppressive and controlling government to force society to make that possible. That’s the Left today. And, really, almost no one supports that.
Translation: Defenders insist they are necessary to prevent native citizens of the country any recourse or voice in the invasion forced upon them.
The report documented early-morning police raids targeting individuals suspected of posting content that could incite hatred, including insults and even memes.
I'd love to see a breakdown of exactly who the targeted individuals have been. I suspect nearly all of them are native Germans. And that we're to believe NO non-native Germans (i.e., Muslim immigrants) have been raided because certainly, they'd NEVER be insulting or hateful.
Germany a year. or two ago made hardcore child porn a misdemeanor.
Interesting priorities.
We should make ANY military help dependent on free and fair elections and free speech. We shouldn’t subsidize wealthy countries in Europe to jail free-thinking citizens.
The Left has thrown all of that aside and now wants to impose tyranny in which the worst and most perverted people in society are mandated to get exactly the same rewards as the normal, hard-working, and decent people.
Because they know it will destroy society, which allows it to build it back into their image. All of the perverts then will be first against the wall.
The self-nullifying Grundgesetz has denial of basic rights baked in. And this was allowed post-WWII.— German Basic Law, Article 5
- Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.
- These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honor.
- Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.
One German was jailed for calling the German vice-chancellor an "idiot" online. I'm not sure how that would have resulted in "hate-fueled violence."
There is a special court, or body, which has unlimited powers to ban speech, writings, songs, pictures or other images, people, political parties, or ideas if they leave someones brain and manifest themselves in speech, writing, or otherwise (podcasts, for example).
This power is absolute and not subject to amendment.
Germany had one chance, in 1990, to dump the whole thing and to write a new Constitution, but instead they chose the option of adding Länder from the former East Germany by simply having them sign the Grundgesetz to avoid the mess of a Constitutional convention (to be fair, this decision was taken with the Red Army still on their territory and Berlin occupied by the US/UK/France/USSR).
The point of this was obvious in 1947.
But the youngest Nazi party member, 18 years old in May 1945, is now 98 years old.
It is no coincidence that in 1965, with millions of living Nazis, we had Hogan's Heroes and in 2025, when the demand for Nazis greatly exceeds the supply, we are in the middle of a Brown Scare meant to justify expanding the power of the State so everywhere the government has the same power as that special German court.
This is the meaning of "hate crimes", "hate speech", "misinformation", "conspiracy theories", and Margaret whatever her name is blaming free speech for Nazis. After all, we love our Constitution and all, but who wants Nazis, after all?
I went to an early Women’s Lib meeting in, as I recall, Santa Monica. A couple of female university profs chaired the meeting. Women in the group, about 20 of us, were asked what we wanted.
A lot of nonsensical answers, but when I said I wanted equal pay for equal work, the leaders said, “That’s the only intelligent answer and that’s what the movement is about”.
A lot of bullschtein is promulgated today as “rights”.
Well, the Basic Law was drafted by leftist Germans, and introduced by (drumroll) the American, British and French High Commissioners to Germany in 1949.
Bet you didn’t know 😉
Funny enough, when I compare it to the 1936 USSR constitution (commissioned by Stalin), there are just too many similarities.
The United Nations charter also has close similarities to the 1936 USSR constitution.
If we had to recreate the Constitution today, it'll look something like this.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.
I am not so sure whether Marx really wanted freedom for anyone but himself and his disciples, just as the Jacobins in revolutionary France.
I believe his entire creed consists nothing but blackest hatred for anyone else, and their eventual enslavement or annihilation. Its fruits have definitely always
looked the part.
At the moment, we’re seeing some more of these toxic fruits ripening in Europe.
“We must hate. Hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists.”That is certainly the way Lenin and those that came after him interpreted things.
No; it contains none of what the Bill of Rights contains.
Like the 1936 USSR constitution before it, it renders all rights as the opposite of “negative liberties” as if they were all granted by government, and the way they are written is specifically self-nullifying.
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