Germany’s centre-Right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), which are holding coalition talks, have proposed a law that will block people with multiple extremism convictions from standing in elections.
Wake us up when it’s “have”.
A similar system has been there to prevent Nazism rise. Sadly, AfD and other right wing parties found a loophole a decade ago.
They’re not gonna
Then they’ll ban far left politicians from running.
Then they’ll ban anyone they don’t like.
And eventually, they’ll ban everyone who isn’t them.
Right wing lunatics are repulsive in almost every sense, but this isn’t the way you beat them. When you put the machinery in place to do something like this, it will inevitably be abused in the opposite direction in future.
It’s pretty hypocritical. Banning people from running in elections is about as far right as you can get.
The left-right divide is not a straight line, it’s a full circle.
It’s much harder to be abused when you ban the only party abusing it.
They know too well what happens when you let these fuckers get power.
The big issue with any form of attempted suppression will not suddenly sway their voters. It would be much smarter to not give people a reason to fall for populists.
But that would be too easy, I guess.
Nope, if the AfD gets banned, the entire structure and funding crumbles. It will take decades to build up this kind of Nazi momentum.
First of all, no, that’s wrong. The AfD got to where they are in 12 years, and that was from 0 - do you really think it would take them another 10 years to get to the point where they are now?
Second of all, it STILL would not convince the people that the AfD is wrong and they would just fall for the next right-wing populist party. So even if it would work, it would only be a temporary solution to a major issue.
The issue being Germany. Country who commited genocide should lose their right to exist. Totale Rückverdummung now
It’s like banning marijuana and then expecting people to just not do it.
While restricting other pain medication.
genocide supporting germanys already facist enough, I wouldnt trust them bringing laws of supression.
Does this have more backing than the motion to ban the AfD entirely did?
Its amazing how things work, the defendors of the democracy are asking to ban a political party. Do this exercise with me, imagine a country where the majority of people want a “far-right” party to rule them, they voted for them on a free and clean election. It can be for a lot of reasons, security, education, social paradox, conservative economic reasons, emigration… whatever, you choose, what would you do? Deny the will of the majority of the people from that country or let them freely choose what they want like true defendors of free will? Im not judging im just curious, i know my answer but i want to ear yours
Protecting minorities from the terror of the majority and protecting democracy for future generations that cannot vote yet are essential parts of democracy.
To answer your question:
Deny the will of the majority of the people
yes, because what you describe is not democracy, it’s mob rule
yes, because what you describe is not democracy, it’s mob rule
First part i agree with you but this one makes no sense to me, you are telling me that its only democracy when people align with your views, if they dont think the way you do “is not democracy”. I dont agree with this one tbh.
This is a paradox well described by Popper. The gist is: You can not be tolerant towards the intolerant.
You can not be tolerant towards the intolerant.
Yep, The paradox of Tolerance. Its way more deep that we think it is
I never considered it all that much of a paradox. If anything, it’s a linguistic contradiction. It’s a question of whether we should tolerate someone (in-)directly causing/wishing harm onto others. It also doesn’t matter whether they understand it themselves.
A lot of aspects that are considered “political”, are arguably just “harm onto A that benefits B”. I think it is right to call these out. Universal health care, education, affordable housing, etc. Take off the capitalistic monocle, and certain “rights” and “wrongs” are painfully obvious.
Yes. Would you allow a company to sell actual poison that is marketed as a health food? What if a study showed 50.1% of all people believed it was not actually poisonous because of a successful marketing campaign by the company? What if innocent babies and children were ingesting this poison because their parents believed it was safe?
What if all those people believed companies shouldn’t be allowed to sell poison. But that this company should be allowed to sell their product because they mistakenly believe it’s not poison.
If you agree with banning a child killing poison but not with banning a far right party, please explain how it’s fundamentally any different.
I would allow that company to sell poison.
But I would not allow them to market it as health food.
If a party campaigns on far right ideals, and get elected, then fair enough, that’s democracy. Sometimes you have to admit that your views are not wanted.
However, if a far right party campaigns on truth and love and free kittens for everyone, then instead is shown to be liars and haters and give out free guns, then I would have an issue.
OK Adolf.
Free speech is only allowed if you agree with it, huh?
There we go… Your arguments are indeed so strong that im speechless, you are a comunication guru my friend
Yes we could, but the inner security is stalling the investigation and the conservatives and liberals think they could get the nazi votes and lean heavily into the rethorik. Yeaaah doesnt work out. Never did
This absolutely needs to be a thing in every country. Ban far right parties, ban far right media
Considering the CDU could be considered a far right party themselves, they just wanna eliminate their competition, so i wouldn’t get my hopes up.
They literaly had an election poster with the slogan “You don’t have to vote for the AfD to get what you want. There is a democratic alternative: the CDU!”.
As long as privately owned press and corporate social media algorithms try to shift the overton window as far right as it can go that’s not gonna happen.
The CDU thinks they will get their votes but they won’t.
I love how the commenters on that page hating all on the “far-left”, despite the left has exactly nothing to do with that idea. dumb fucks as far one can see.
It’s classic whataboutism and trying to draw false equivalencies to muddy the waters. They want to put everyone else on defense about the decision to ban Nazis by making you waste time explaining why someone else isn’t a Nazi.
To sum up: fuck them. Nazis are bad. Please continue punching them, both metaphorically, legally, and physically as needed to keep them in their hidey holes.
For what it’s worth, I wish we would do the same thing.
But with a proper definition where “center” is pretty far right.
Do it. Honestly I’m a little surprised you didn’t do it 80 years ago
In a way we did. Anticonstitutional parties are generally not allowed. The problem is that courts and judges must be absolutely convinced that a party is anticonstitutional to actually ban them.
While I understand the point, won’t this just make politicians run on lies even more?
A far-right uprising in Germany, which is at the moment re-militarizing itself. Doesn’t anybody else worry about that?
That’s a point we are really worried about here in Germany too. The armament of the nation feels wrong in itself too many of us (even though most of us don’t have any better ideas when looking at Putin-Russia). But the outlook that the AfD (our stupid Nazi party) could inherit the upgraded army and it’s arsenal one day is really frightening.
This will 100% be used to suppress left politicians.
Just ban the fucking AfD already.
Why would it suppress left politicians? It’s not like any of them have multiple extremism convictions, that’s usually rightwing politicians.
Being against genocide in Gaza is “extremist” in Germany.
Because they might get convicted of something a judge would call left wing extremism. I have zero trust in this system.
Ok, I see now how that could happen - I forget people would abuse a law like that.
Thanks.
You are much smarter than the users I encountered below, who downvoted the following examples I provided:
It’s no different to a “means test” for voting. It sounds great initially, but falls apart if you dig deeper. The virtue of the means test is determined by who governs the means test. Once you create it, you have created the attack vector, and all the fascists have to do if they weasel their way into power is simply change the terms of the means test — you’ve already completed and normalized the hard part for them. As an example, Trump is currently using a 200 year old law to deport any immigrant an ICE agent chooses, without trial. He’s using this law because it gave the president blanket unilateral powers to apply it as they see fit.
Another example from the US that has assisted fascism in denying blacks their right to vote; an old law declared anyone convicted of a felony ineligible to vote, then conservatives created the war on drugs to target and persecute blacks and the left. All they had to do was make non-violent drug offences a felony. As a result, millions of blacks have been denied the right to vote. All because the gov could decide who could and couldn’t vote because of X, and any future gov could control the terms of X.
Extremists need to be defeated, but you can’t defeat fascism with the tools of fascism. If the 2nd example I gave above were never created, America may have never devolved into MAGA/fascism.
I’m not sure I agree with your. Acting like your 2nd example wasn’t created because of the fascist nature of the US government, I have a bridge to sell to you.
US has never stopped being fascist, they just got beaten by Germany at the world stage with the reveal.
So no, US was always going to MAGA, mostly because every civic institution was ran over by money.
And can be stop pretending that fascists follow laws? It’s not like they won’t create new ones if the existing don’t fit their narrative. Or just do whatever, not even pretend to hide behind excuses.
You are not arming them with laws, you are arming them with making general public needlessly suffer, like no social safety nets, uncontrolled rent hikes, inflation through the roof etc.
For instance partaking in seating blockades on the routes of Nazi demonstrations is considered left wing “extremism” and could be charged as crime ranging from “coercion” to “breach of public peace / rioting”. Now whether it is convicted as such is a different topic, but for instance many climate activists have been convicted with prison times for glueing themselves to the streets. Many courts consider this to be violent coercion. So making yourself vulnerable and unable to act, but in the way of some car, this is violent extremism in Germany.
Yes, and that’s how it should be if a politician of any party is convicted for serious offense, eg violence or hatred. Laws should apply equally to all.
Which means such law should be carefully crafted to prevent its abuse for partisan purpose, supressing the opposition, etc.
For instance making it a judicial process, not an arbitrary administrative/executive decision. Restricting this to specific well-defined offenses. Making it a time-limited ban, not a lifetime ban.
In countries where banning parties is a thing, such parties usually have another on the shelf ready to go.
It’s usually the party leader that gets banned and the party can’t re-register or something.
So when the leader gives their thanks goodbye speech they usually mention the new party.
Germany’s law on party bans automatically bans successor organisations. And membership in a forbidden organisation is a crime that will bring all sorts of repercussions.
TIL. Thank you!
Yeah we did learn a thing or two with the nazis and made our laws that way. Sadly many people (especially east germans) didnt
That is roughly correct, although:
The successor organization would still need its own proceeding where proof needs to be provided that the successor organization is actually successor of a banned party. But that’s all that is needed to ban a successor org.
Maybe also consider bribery convictions and we might get rid of a few CDU/CSU politicians as well 🙃
By far not the same level as extremism.
Fck little sister of whataboutism, the self-elevating sarcasm.
So you’re OK with a plutocracy?
I’m not okay with saying extremism is the same as taking money for influence.
Who said that? They’re suggesting that, since you’re putting restrictions, you might as well add other restrictions that also make sense.
Yeah but clearly the original comment is ironic since it addresses CDU as corrupt. You know, one of the two parties that would be main drivers behind the suggested extremists banning?
Soo it kind of looks like whataboutism.
The comment I‘m commenting
This is a slippery slope fallacy I believe. Stop with the fallacious reasoning
Not really. Governing through bribery is a way to implement plutocracy.
To be clear: “I tolerate plutocracy but I draw the line at fascism” is a valid opinion, even if I don’t agree with it. I was just asking if that’s the opinion held by our fellow lemming.
Won’t do much if nobody ever gets convicted for bribery/ corruption
If the thing that user asked to happen doesn’t happen then the thing won’t happen?
Do you smell burnt toast?
If the thing that user asked to happen doesn’t happen then the thing won’t happen?
My understanding was that they asked that politicians with bribery convictions are blocked from running in elections (aka the topic of this thread).
Which can not happen if the prerequisite bribery convictions - which is something different from being blocked from the elections - have not been met.
I can see what your line of thought was now, ty for elaborating
Less inequality and better education are really the only solution.
People reach for extremism when they feel let down by the existing system.
Less inequality and better education are really the only solution.
People reach for extremism when they feel let down by the existing system.
Whatever actual or perceived grievances a person may have (even though merely being born in Germany already constitutes winning the global class lottery) - that only ever causes vulnurability.
That person then turning to actively undermining democratic systems and the international community is something that only happens if some con artist used that vulnurability to convince the person that it constitutes a solution to their problems.Equality and education are great. Letting con artists run around freely is a completely separate issue. Letting folk get scammed out of their life savings is just as detrimental to a healthy society as letting folk get scammed out of their vote.
