burschenschaft

[scrabface]

I don't know how many of you already heard of these student fraternities, but we got many here in the german speaking countries. 'bursche' means something like 'lad' or 'young boy'. so only male students are allowed.
there are many very powerful fraternities like 'Olympia' and 'Germania'. I think you already know where this is going; right-wing extremism and neo-nazism. for example, Olympias' motto is: honour, freedom and fatherland. they celebrate the germanic culture and their apparently superiority. fencing is also a very important part of these fraternities. so when you decide to dedicate your life to the burschenschaft, you get a 'schmiss'. a schmiss is a big scar on your face after you got hit by a sword.
they keep in touch with right-winged politicians all over the world.
and you may wonder why are they still legal. I really don't know.

well and today the WKR-Ball is going to take place. wiener korporations ball (vienna corporation ball)
right-winged politicians and members from different burschenschaften from all over Europe are going to celebrate tonight in the Hofburg. it's the central building in Vienna where the Habsburger lived and the seat of the Austrian president.
oh and today's also the commemoration day of Auschwitz.
pretty disgusting, huh?



EDIT

how about extending the discussion about whether right-winged extremist ideas fall under the freedom of opinion or not.

[MeechMunchie]

Those wacky krauts.

[NyOe!s]

LOL imagine if one slipped!

[Bullet Magnet]

how about extending the discussion about whether right-winged extremist ideas fall under the freedom of opinion or not.

A million times, yes.

[Wings of Fire]

how about extending the discussion about whether right-winged extremist ideas fall under the freedom of opinion or not.

One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that 'bourgeois liberty' is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who 'objectively' endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought. This argument was used, for instance, to justify the Russian purges. The most ardent Russophile hardly believed that all of the victims were guilty of all the things they were accused of. but by holding heretical opinions they 'objectively' harmed the régime, and therefore it was quite right not only to massacre them but to discredit them by false accusations. The same argument was used to justify the quite conscious lying that went on in the leftwing press about the Trotskyists and other Republican minorities in the Spanish civil war. And it was used again as a reason for yelping against habeas corpus when Mosley was released in 1943.

These people don't see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you. Make a habit of imprisoning Fascists without trial, and perhaps the process won't stop at Fascists. Soon after the suppressed Daily Worker had been reinstated, I was lecturing to a workingmen's college in South London. The audience were working-class and lower-middle class intellectuals - the same sort of audience that one used to meet at Left Book Club branches. The lecture had touched on the freedom of the press, and at the end, to my astonishment, several questioners stood up and asked me: Did I not think that the lifting of the ban on the Daily Worker was a great mistake? When asked why, they said that it was a paper of doubtful loyalty and ought not to be tolerated in war time. I found myself defending the Daily Worker, which has gone out of its way to libel me more than once. But where had these people learned this essentially totalitarian outlook? Pretty certainly they had learned it from the Communists themselves! Tolerance and decency are deeply rooted in England, but they are not indestructible, and they have to be kept alive partly by conscious effort. The result of preaching totalitarian doctrines is to weaken the instinct by means of which free peoples know what is or is not dangerous. The case of Mosley illustrates this. In 1940 it was perfectly right to intern Mosley, whether or not he had committed any technical crime. We were fighting for our lives and could not allow a possible quisling to go free. To keep him shut up, without trial, in 1943 was an outrage

Yes.

[Bullet Magnet]

It is not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of the audience to listen. Every time you silence somebody to make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something. And you are hurting me, specifically, because I want to hear it. I want to know what they think and I want to know who it is who thinks in this way. With the right to free speech that these people have, you have come to learn what they really think, and denying that right doesn't change that or make them go away. It just allows you to be happily ignorant of the existence of such people. Which is surely a far worse problem.

John Stewart Mills said that if all in society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it becomes even more important that that one heretic be heard. Because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous and appalling view. Also put well by Rosa Luxembourg who said that freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently.

[STM]

But what about those that speak out with views dangerous to other people, I'm not talking about the downfall of an institution, but the destruction of peoples lives, should these people be tolerated to speak out?

[OANST]

Yes.

[MeechMunchie]

Of course.

[Bullet Magnet]

Words cannot hurt you. The only form of expression that can actually harm people are extremely flamboyant gestures, and even then, only up close. I've seen it happen.

Actions hurt people. And someone who can be persuaded with mere words to harm people was already dangerous.

Even threats. The threat itself does't harm you (though it may spark a cycle of psychological self-harm), but it can serve as useful intelligence regarding your safety. A warning, if you will. A threat is nothing more than the broadcasting of intentions. Much better than an unforeseen attack. Again: much better to know who these people are. They still think that way whether or not they are allowed to say so.


There is a British historian called David Irving. He is a holocaust denier. He has been deported and banned from more countries than I can name for his views. Between 2005 and 2006 he was actually in prison in Austria for them, for violating an Austrian law that only one version of World War II history is allowed. He didn't actually say anything, and wasn't accused of it. He was accused of perhaps planning to say something. As far as I can tell this is not just the suppression of free speech but the legislation of thought crime as a punishable offense.

I don't care how wrong or disgusting or offensive his views are, they are not nearly as so as this tyrannical suppression of ideas. The worst result I can think of for having heard them is to wonder how it is one actually knows that such a holocaust really took place, to which the correct response is to investigate for yourself how it is that anyone ever knew it, which is no bad thing. Again, we benefit from hearing these minority views. But suppose you did you investigation and found that he was right? With all the consequences that that should entail. Suppressing minority view is perhaps even worse if they re right, but you cannot know if they are right or wrong before you hear it, and before it is allowed loose in the public forum. Which cannot be allowed by those with the censorious instinct. Whether or not an opposing view is right or wrong is far from the minds of such people when they crack down upon them. All they care about is control of our thoughts.

[STM]

This is true I suppose, but...and this is key here, if the suppression of a dangerous view stops people from accepting it and this causing harm to others, is that good? For example, what if Hitler had been kept in prison and his writing apparatus had been removed, if the NSDAP had remained outlawed and members such as Goering and Himmler never assimilated. The mass suppression of these characters would have stopped World War II.

[OANST]

Meaningless hypotheticals.

[STM]

More so a scenario in which you can't contemplate an answer without ruining your previous assumptions.

[OANST]

Not really.

[moxco]

As far as I am aware, Hitler never even said anything too radical prior to becoming fuhrer.

[Wings of Fire]

Define 'radical'.

[Manco]

This is true I suppose, but...and this is key here, if the suppression of a dangerous view stops people from accepting it and this causing harm to others, is that good? For example, what if Hitler had been kept in prison and his writing apparatus had been removed, if the NSDAP had remained outlawed and members such as Goering and Himmler never assimilated. The mass suppression of these characters would have stopped World War II.

The problem with this is that Hitler and the Nazis did not merely speak about their views, they made them law and took actions which caused people harm.

As Bullet Magnet said above:

Actions hurt people. And someone who can be persuaded with mere words to harm people was already dangerous.

The Nazis wound up in power because of the political and social climate of the times – Germany was recovering poorly from WWI, and there was a lot of bitterness there. If not Hitler, some other radical extremist would have taken power.

People should always have the right to their opinions, but when they actually begin to cause physical damage that becomes a different matter. There is a difference between suppressing views and preventing them from causing physical harm.

“The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.” –Oliver Wendell Holmes

[Bullet Magnet]

It goes back to what George Orwell said as posted by WoF. Once you agree that the existence of certain ideas is a danger to democracy's survival and that they need to be suppressed, you yourself become the greatest danger to democracy, as your misguided efforts create a totalitarian tyranny.

Has anyone ever read or seen Robert Bolt's play A Man for all Seasons? It is about the trial of Sir Thomas More, who refused to go along with the "heresy" of King Henry VIII divorce and leaving of the Roman Catholic Church. He ended up on trial, and he and his future son-in-law William Roper were aware of the corrupt Richard Rich's intended perjury and that it would lead to More's execution. Roper pleads that More have him arrested first. But More states that Rich has broken no law,

MORE: And go he should if he were the Devil himself until he broke the law!
ROPER: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
MORE: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
ROPER: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
MORE: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Every time you violate or propose to violate the free speech of someone else you in potentia create a rod for your own back. Once you've established this precedent or made this legal exception, how long can you trust it will not be used against you as well? When some maleficent force makes its way into power, it's journey eased by these very anti-speech laws you helped create, and then uses them against you? What are you going to do then?

The most salient question is this: to whom to do you award the right to decide which is the harmful speech or who is the harmful speaker? To determine in advance what the harmful effects of such speech might be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To decide for you what you should be able to read, to delegate the task of deciding for you what you can see and listen to? To absolve you of responsibility to hear what you might have to hear? Do you know such a person? Does anyone? Are there any nominees? I don't think that I'm assuming too much to believe that no one does. Any law, and they already exist in Britain and Canada and other countries without a First Amendment equivalent, requires that there be such a person. And such a law invites us to be liars and hypocrites and to deny what we know already. About the censorious instinct we already know all we need to know and we have known it for a long time.

[Glitch]

Freedom is nothing without consequence. Exercising ones freedom to say something extremely offensive necessitates the acceptance of the consequences such a freedom will cause.

You may be free to call me a bastard, however, I am free to punch you in the face, in turn, the state is free in incarcerate me for breaking the law.

Freedom is bound by causality, too few people understand that.

[OANST]

You may be free to call me a bastard, however, I am free to punch you in the face, in turn, the state is free in incarcerate me for breaking the law.

No. You're not free to do that. Just the fact that you would be incarcerated for having done it means that you're not free to do that. You are however free to sulk, write a blog about it, and hold a grudge. Anyone want to take bets on what the more likely scenario would be?

[STM]

He...is free to do it though, because he can do it, after he has done it, there will be a punishment, but that doesn't mean he isn't free to do the act. Besides, he could punch someone in the face in the dark with no one around, in which case he got away with it.

[OANST]

Not in the context of what we're discussing, no. We're talking about a situation that limits what people can say. In this situation, there is nothing physically constraining them from saying the words that will get them in trouble. It's the government mandated response to saying the words that we are discussing, and that's what we mean when we talk about freedom to do this or that.

[STM]

Ah fair enough, I have a tendency to forget guidelines and wander a bit in arguments. =P

[OANST]

You're not forgiven.

[STM]

I never begged your pardon.

[OANST]

It was implied. And you're not forgiven.

[STM]

Well you misconstrue my intentions. Don't worry though, I forgive you.

[OANST]

You've misconstrued your own intentions, and your refusal to not forgive me is noted, and also not forgiven. Also that time you touched yourself. Not forgiven for that either.

[STM]

It doesn't matter, God will forgive me...no wait...

I missed this.

[Varrok]

Ah, forgiving, such a Catholic thing to do