Germany Looks to Stop the Far Right From Assuming Power
Mainstream parties are changing laws to protect government institutions. Critics say the changes risk undermining democracy.
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Today, German lawmakers are rewriting bylaws and pushing for constitutional amendments to ensure courts and state parliaments can provide checks against a future, more powerful AfD. Some have even launched a campaign to ban the AfD altogether.
You see, democracy is when...
I'll help you with this sentence:
... it defends itself against an undemocratic power.
Right, like the USSR, China, DPRK, and Cuba
Yes. Democracy is when you refuse to allow the people to have a say in their systems of governance.
Time to pull this one out from the archives again..
And it is fixed when you understand that it is a social contract. You breach the contract? Then tolerance no longer applies to you.
Yes. Democracy is when you refuse to allow the people a party that wants to dismantle the democratic state and bringing in nothing than hate to have a say in their systems of governance.
Maybe if you want to prevent such a hypothetical future the democratic solution is to offer something better for people to vote for, instead of using threats of violence by employing the law to enforce your systems.
There is and never will be a perfect system of whatsoever. I'd rather watch them nazi party get forbidden than waiting for a solution that will come in place when it is already too late.
And unless you aren't a nazi, putin follower or trumpist, I don't know why I even have to explain why a German future with a nazi party at its front will be no good for nobody.
The perfect one is the one that has the power to stop fascists from taking over.
LOL, it's so funny how close you are and yet how far you are. When the USSR was dismantled by compradors in power and they invited the USA to come in and liberalize their economy, they suffered millions of death of poverty and their life expectancy dropped 10 years in 10 years, literally as bad as if they had been invaded and literally worse than what COVID did to the USA. So Putin gets elected on the narrative that he will reassert Russia's sovereignty and not allow the USA and Europe to continue imposing austerity, causing mass suffering, and then he does so. Everyone in Russia gets a better life after Putin takes office. And since he's KGB, he knows exactly how the USA is trying to infiltrate Russian politics and ensure a puppet government is in place. And yet, you can't see how Putin is doing exactly what you're saying Germany should do: prevent undemocratic forces from taking power by using his authority to do so.
Maybe one day you'll get it. The USA is the fascist core and Europe is the birthplace of the USA as well as the USA's luxury market and historical globe spanning power base. Every other country outside of them is doing absolutely everything they can to prevent the USA from taking away their ability to operate as a sovereign state, and in a lot of places that looks like authoritarianism. But in the end, it's literally anti-fascism.
Don't believe me? Look at the voting record in the UN for resolutions condemning the glorification of Nazis. The USA votes against it every single time.
It is easy to say that when you’re not the one that they are using the law against.
Will you say that when they come for you next?
If they come for me because I'm a fascist, then yes, just take me out behind the shed and put me out of my misery.
What if it’s for some other reason? You have to look at how easily this can be fucking twisted.
If they came for me because I was a communist, socialist, trade unionist, or Jew? I would speak up and fight back.
If they came for me because I was denying people their right to exist, like I said, stick a fork in me, I'm done.
Are you actually referencing the "first they came for the Jews but I wasn't a Jew" thing to argue that we should let nazis go ahead and take the power?
The solution being proposed here to prevent authoritarian systems is... other authoritarian systems. Can you understand why people see this as a problem brewing?
Retaining democracy is not authoritarian.
Removing people's ability to choose the government they desire is not democracy.
Unless they want to remove the ability to chose a government ever again.
What you are saying: It is okay to let facists and dictators take over the world.
What I am saying: It's not.
Simple as that.
Feel free to answer this post, I'm out.
Getroffene Hunde bellen.
Fuck off you fifth pillar arsehole
Checks and balances are about preventing a small faction of the government from gaining absolute control of the entire government. It's not about preventing a say, it's about preventing a total takeover that prevents anyone else from having a say in the future.
Are you surprised that the country that ushered the Nazis into power is more vigilant about making sure they never head remotely in that direction again?
Even the party’s leader resigned in 2022 because he saw that the party was becoming more totalitarian and incompatible with German democracy.
Op sounds less surprised more disappointed.
Banning fascist organizations is not only democratic, it's one of the bare minimum tasks a democratic society should perform in order to protect itself. Personally I think their solution is a little weak. Fascists will always wiggle around courts and laws, then use those very same laws to their advantage. It's what they do. They fill in the gaps that liberal societies are always going to have, yet endlessly try to repair.
The best option is to shoot fascists in the head, without hesitation. That's not a metaphor for anything, I mean literally line them up against a brick wall and shoot them with guns. Then announce you'll do the same to any further fascists you discover. Drive all potential fascists into hiding, make them cower in fear and remain powerless. That's the only thing that has ever worked.
YMMV on the CDU vis a vis being fascists but I'd argue you can look back at Adenauers "Radikalenerlass" ("Radical Decree" or something) that purported to stop extremists from both sides from holding certain important jobs and somehow managed to find 1000 left wing extremists for every right winger in '70s germany.
Yes, because it's so easy to murder a few people. We just need to label people we don't like as Nazis and shoot them. What could possibly go wrong? And when we are at it, I think my neighbour is a nazi too, let me shoot him.
It's way easier to shoot a few nazis than to let them form political organizations, raise money, and present themselves as a threat. Yes, that's true.
You talk like it's difficult or debatable who qualifies as a nazi. It's not. They always expose themselves and announce their intentions clearly. This isn't a matter of people who we have a disagreement with. They're not simply people we don't like, they're people who threaten to kill us. This is a matter of fascists who publicly announce their intentions to pursue racist, bigoted murder against me and people like me. It is part of AfD's standard platform that LGBTQ people receive fewer rights than straight people, and that all foreigners should be rounded up and deported. Those are fascist threats, not some disagreement on who we like. They only historical method of dealing with these fascists is to destroy them before they destroy us.
It is part of AfD's standard platform that LGBTQ people receive fewer rights than straight people,
They've supported civil unions but not gay marriage, but consider it a settled issue. Their leader, Alice Weidel, is a lesbian woman with a Sri Lankan partner.
and that all foreigners should be rounded up and deported
The AfD has many immigrant supporters and members. That secret meeting they supposedly had, about "deporting immigrants who refuse to assimilate"? It was a random far-right crank meeting in which a single AfD member attended, and was alienated from his party for doing so. This is what Alice Weidel had to say about it, translated:
Untrue allegations of the most outrageous media and political scandals, ladies and gentlemen. These are DDR methods. I think it's great that they're now writing everything down in detail. Private encounter between personalities with different backgrounds, including one AfD member and people without party reservations. It wasn't a secret meeting either, just a private gathering that these corrective activists used secret service methods to construct a conspiracy theory from.
The Bundestag faction on how to deal with the millions of irregular and illegal migration since 2015 is not set in alleged secret meetings, but in party conference committees. It is based on the basic program of 2016 in the EU election program and the numerous statements and parliamentary speeches you can read and listen to. All right state resources to prevent illegal border crossings through more effective border controls. To revoke citizenships obtained illegally from criminals who are not entitled to naturalization. To expel and deport migrants who are criminals and terrorist suspects who do not have a right to stay.
Whoever is a German citizen belongs without question, without a doubt, to the German people. This is precisely why German citizenship must not be lost and distributed with a watering can. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the enforcement of applicable law and regulations that have been neglected by the government for almost a decade in this process.
I certainly don't agree with them, but their platform is basically American Republican "tough on border and illegal immigrants" and "limiting and prioritizing skills based immigration" style.
This kind of disinformation is exactly how 2016 happened in the US. Trump says he wants to build a wall and curb illegal immigration, liberals say he wants to kick every Latino out of the country, his supporters get to shout "fake news" at everything. Calling them Nazis only feeds their supporters' victim complex; it's like Hillary's "basket of deplorables" but 100x worse, and AfD politicians get to go "you're upstanding citizens, but the woke left see you as evil for caring about your country. They're the real Nazis."
There are extremist minority politicians of the AfD who like to dogwhistle of course, which is also functionally the same as the GOP. Except if an AfD politician ever said something like "immigrants poison the blood of our country" as Trump did, they would be arrested.
I don't understand your point of saying the AfD are comparable to standard American Republicans as if that's a defense of them. I also believe Republicans should all be lined up and shot.
Do you realize how fascist you sound?
Is fascism just a tone of voice to you?
I mean there certainly is a tone to fascism. That and mass murdering your political dissidents
"So, you compare a country from what it came from, with all it’s imperfections. And those who demand instant perfection the day after the revolution, they go up and say “Are there civil liberties for the fascists? Are they gonna be allowed their newspapers and their radio programs, are they gonna be able to keep all their farms? The passion that some of our liberals feel, the day after the revolution, the passion and concern they feel for the fascists, the civil rights and civil liberties of those fascists who are dumping and destroying and murdering people before. Now the revolution has gotta be perfect, it’s gotta be flawless. Well that isn’t my criteria, my criteria is what happens to those people who couldn’t read? What happens to those babies that couldn’t eat, that died of hunger? And that’s why I support revolution. The revolution that feeds the children gets my support. "
Yeah I just don't care about right-wingers and their precious civil rights. They're a fungus growing on the world from decaying capitalism. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever and don't regard them as valid political opponents. They're a death spiral menace to the world with nothing meaningful to contribute
Which according to you is bad, but using force to stop it is equally as bad. Liberalism, everybody
You realize that you sound as extreme as those you want to destroy? I can't really tell the difference between Nazis and the likes of you anymore.
sounds like you see more nazis than we do. We don't have this kind of problem of not understanding who is who. We know who the enemy is and what they deserve. if your understanding of fascists is this shallow it's no wonder you'd sympathize with them
Who is "we"? A radical group of left wing fascists?
If you wanna insult me please call me a queer Marxist Stalinist devil worshiper or something, because that would be more accurate. Call me a North Korea apologist because that's true. I'd also readily accept insults like baizuo or first world crakkker, because those are unfortunately also true.
i think fascist for you just means "scary person with bad ideas." if it's only a pejorative to you, rather than a specific identifiable movement, then you're not gonna get it. I recommend reading Robert O. Paxton, or Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci or (my personal favorite) the historian Perry Anderson. They've all written on the particular contours of fascist ideology and how to identify it, rather than treating it as simply a set of violent tendencies.
If you're fascist and antifascists come for you, you have a choice. You can give it up. You can go renounce what you said. You could just go on with the rest of your life and stop turning up at fascist rallies. Anti fascists probably aren't going to buy you a pint and be your best friend but they'll move on. But if you're a person of color, if you're trans, or a person with a disability or gay or Jewish, and fascists come for you, there is nothing you can do to make them happy except stop existing. If you're a political enemy of antifa, you can become a friend. If you're a political enemy of fascism, either they lose or you die.
Abigail Thorn, The Philosophy of Antifa
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Pack it in everyone, the German scat fetishist can't tell the difference between fascists and anti-fascists. Wouldn't be the first, I suppose.
not sure about your neighbor but anyone caping for nazis the way you do should probably be lined up and shot alongside them
You sound like a nazi
You sound like you are realizing where your bread is buttered and arguing for that side accordingly.
L take. AES countries which are actual democracies do the same thing.
Though of course, banning it isn't gonna go anywhere for Germany unless they tackle the root cause of capitalism.
I think they're saying that liberal "democracies", as soon as they need to, will use the exact same censorship that they claim "autocracies" use, and which not using is the entire source of their supposed moral superiority.
Democracy is (in part) when you tell the fascists to eat shit, yes.
You see, we call it Wehrhafte Demokratie. According to Wikipedia this can be translated as battlesome democracy, though I find that clunky.
The entire idea of our constitution is to keep a democracy, we even have a constitutional right to disobedience, if democracy is threatened.
The constitution is deliberately very open, but there's one thing that's non-negotiable: FDGO, liberal-democratic basic order. If you're operating outside of that, you're not supposed to be part of the political landscape.