German authorities crack down on free speech, refuse debate on Mass-Migration
German government sets up task force to prosecute “inappropriate content”
As Hungary confirmed the number of migrants heading towards Europe to be in the range of 30-35 million, Germany is still refusing to put an upper-limit to the number of migrants it can accommodate. Berlin, unwilling to change its open border policy, is urging EU member states to take in their “fair share” of migrants. Germany’s deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democrat) is calling for economic sanctions against East European countries, if they continue their opposition to Germany’s (and EU’s) generous stand on migrant intake.
Back home, mainstream media is in lockstep with the political establishment. From the “Die Linke”, successor of East-German communist party, to Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian-Democrats, all significant political parties back the current course. German politicians and commentators are now boasting of a “political consensus” on migration policy.
Not satisfied with shutting down the debate on the political stage, German authorities are now taking on the dissent to its migration policy on internet and social media platforms. German government is pulling out all stops to ensure Facebook complies with its idea of acceptable speech. Wall Street journal reports:
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said after a meeting with Facebook executives in Berlin that the ministry would coordinate the creation of a task force with Facebook and other Internet competitors to evaluate whether inappropriate content flagged by users falls under freedom of speech or is illegal under German law.
Furthermore, Facebook Inc. has agreed to fund activist groups to play vigilantes on the social media:
Facebook also said it would give financial support to organizations that collect complaints against online hate speech to help remove comments faster. The social network earlier in the day announced other measures, including a task force to encourage users to draft countermessages to hate speech on the Web and campaigns to generally strengthen antihate speech on the Internet.
In recent weeks, German authorities have shown zero-tolerance towards individuals posting critical or hateful comments on the social media and internet. Police have confiscated computers and courts have imposed heavy fines to the tune of thousands of Euros.
This judicial activism would come as a surprise to anyone who witnessed German authorities’ inaction in face of massive anti-Semitic outbursts and violence during the Gaza conflict of 2014. Police across Germany failed to take action against demonstrators calling openly for violence against Jews. In July 2014, Police in Frankfurt allowed its megaphone-van to relay antisemitic hate. And when 3 men were arrested for burning the Synagogue in Wuppertal, courts acquitted them of hate crime — calling their crime an “act of protest [against Israel].” The men were found guilty of lesser charges and released on probation.
Same German authorities that were willing to extend “freedom of protest” to the burning of synagogues, and turned a blind eyes to anti-Semitic outbursts last year, are now acting surprisingly thin skinned in face of protests against their own policies.
Refusing a public debate on migration will only benefit Far-Right in Germany. Germany’s official response of shutting down the debate and wishing for it to go away, might come at a heavy price.
(Cover image courtesy Phoenix, You Tube)
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The progressives can help out by sending a copy of the Sedition Act of 1918 as a model for modern day Germany legislation to deal with those annoying people who dare to question the ruling class.
“Shut up!” the German government explained.
Those who fail to learn from history………
Another German leader shut down free speech back in the 1930s. The difference is he was pro-German. The current lunatic has a death wish for Western culture.
“Same German authorities that…turned a blind eyes to anti-Semitic outbursts last year”
I have seen reports every now and then that Western European leaders (leftists all) tend to allow leftist protesters to get away with all sorts of violent attacks on non-leftists.
As with all fascist states shutting down dissent only
hardens resolve to have a voice and a say when Big Government tells you you will comply.
The right wing will grow in Germany.
Not if its beheaded by the religion of peace first.
I thought the lunatic policies of the progressives / socialists in Europe would take a few more decades to implode. Now it seems we may be watching it happen before our very eyes. This is not going to end well.
We can pray that people here in the US will watch and learn what progressivism will bring, since so many are apparently too stupid to learn from the somewhat more distant past.
Soon every Mercedes, Porsche, VW and BMW will come with obligate prayer rug and engine cutoff for prayers. Islamic militancy will become greater and greater as their populations swell in Europe. Dhimmitude will be a dark shadow forever cast over Europe…. and soon the world at this rate.
Germany has very strong anti-hate propaganda laws, which are a reaction from the Nazi period.
They apply to the refugees as well.
There is no economic case against the migrants.
Germany, in fact, needs people. It has the lowest borth rate in the world – 8 per 1,000 people. According to an op-ed piece on the Wall Street Journal today, they should be taking in 1.5 million migrants a year for the next 15 years, (not the half millon for the nexxt five years that Angela Merkel wants) if they want to maintain the current balance between working age population and retirees.
They only have to avoid putting them on welfare. That may mean re-starting or intensifying apprenticement programs.
People will probably only be flagged for saying things hat are clearly untrue (which includes generalizations) about the character and nature of the migrants.
“They only have to avoid putting them on welfare. That may mean re-starting or intensifying apprenticement programs…”
I’m still laughing.
“People will probably only be flagged for saying things hat [sic] are clearly untrue” is pretty comical, too.
palm-to-face! and WHO decides the “truth?” some people will never understand until they’re hauled away.
This appears to be the thread shift I was watching for. The issue as being discussed is political and cultural, not economic. Germany may have economic problems, but this mass invasion has costs (cultural and political) that are already showing. The economic value is very low.
“Progressives” have been educating our young to delay having children and reduce the number of them, thereby creating a “need” for more young people.
Assuming what you’ve written is true (and I have no reason to believe it’s not), why then doesn’t Germany recruit out of work Americans or other westerners to come to der Vaterland and join the workforce there? They’d be much better off inviting other westerners, with their shared culture and values than with those they’re allowing in now who represent a threat to what being “German” means.
Angela Merkel is assuming these refugees, particularly from Syria, land of Assad and ISIS, and everything bad, who have given up a lot to come there, and often were reasonably successful and well-educated (or else they couldn’t have been able to manage it) do share the same values.
“Angela Merkel is assuming these refugees, particularly from Syria, land of Assad and ISIS, and everything bad…”
I am having trouble understanding your assertion. The photos I see are of healthy army soldier age mostly men, like if you were invading.
Also, ISIS is creating an Islamic state, a heaven on earth. I understand why Jews and Christians would flee, but why would any Muslim flee the coming utopia in Syria and go to the pagan state of Germany?
You have a point about birth rates and the ability for the state to pay for all the promises they’ve made. I believe this is the underlying reason why you see so many of the DC insiders here, regardless of party, pushing for amnesty. They’ve promised voters the world for decades and they know they can’t pay for what they’ve promised. Yet they desperately want to cling to power. How? Lie some more, of course.
But mass immigration is not a solution… it’s societal suicide by ingesting a slow-acting poison. Admitting a huge influx of third-worlders and putting them on welfare isn’t going to solve the “revenue” problem, it’s going to make it worse. Immigration worked when people came here and had to right for food, clothing and a roof over their head. When they come here and get on umpteen government programs and sit back in the AC and watch TV all day, not so much. Who you gonna vote for? The one that gives me the most shit OF COURSE!!!
And then there is the issue of when the incoming Muslim radicals start gang-raping all the frauleins…. the Germans won’t take it sitting down like all the brits did.
I think it won’t be long before the old USA has to bail Europe out again. They just don’t seem to learn anything from history.
The old saying “If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas” will be very apparent in a few years. Europe will be the flea capital of the world.
“I think it won’t be long before the old USA has to bail Europe out again.”
Oh, yes! Let’s expend money we do not have, and destroy even more of our good breeding stock for the benefit of people we saved twice before. People who, within five years of being helped or saved, turned around and hated our guts.
Let them fend for themselves this time.
If you compare the massing of Muslim men in the streets every Friday in France to the Nazis marching in the street then they will put you on trial.
“Marine Le Pen Faces Trial Over Muslim Nazi Comparison”
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/09/23/marine-le-pen-faces-trial-muslim-nazi-comparison/
BTW: The label “Far-Right” today has a specific meaning. It is not about extremism of the target but rather the extremism of those who wield the term. It is shrill overkill, as substitute for argument or any useful description. It is ad hominem attack on the masses to display moral vanity. Try not to repeat it, other than to condemn its use.
So: Because the German government decided it’s wrong to call openly for violence against Jews and to burn synagogues, therefore it’s equally unacceptable to say “Maybe it will be harmful to us and our children if we import large numbers of people, mostly young men, who dislike our culture (and hate Jews) but demand freebies from us?”
How does that compute?
I don’t think these people they want to act against say “maybe”
Of course this has to be done properly and impartially, and against any kind of vilification coming out of Moslem quarters, too, but Germany has had these kind of laws for a long time.
a poignant reminder of why we need to protect the 2nd amendment so the 1st can thrive.
We helped to create this problem when we installed a government in post-war Germany that was authorized to stifle freedom of expression in the name of stability and the extirpation of Nazism. It started with banning the party and the party’s symbols, but, as with any government, the authority has gotten out of control and is now used to suppress and and all groups out of sync with government policy and approved views.
Islam uber alles…..
Germany needs to compensate for its feminist policies, including mass pro-choice/abortion of its Posterity. They wanted a libertine society and now they need to pay for their juvenile indulgence.
As for the humanitarian crisis, it’s four-fold. One, the social and diplomatic arming of terrorists that causes collateral damage. Two, the immigration solution that leaves behind people to suffer and die in a wasteland. Three, the dislocation of native people in host nations and compensation for p/regressive policies (e.g. pro-choice/abortion, class diversity). Four, creation of minority classes through management of urban ghettos.
The refugee crisis is another wicked solution to a “wicked problem” promoted by social advocates/activists. It provides cover for leaders who want to avoid responsibility for their actions. The solution should be to stabilize the region and remove the threat. Instead, they hope to shift and exacerbate the problem to someone else’s backyard. Presumably done to exploit democratic leverage and suppress native competition.
Should be taking in 1.5 million people a year? All people are not the same. What they really need to do is encourage a higher birth rate to preserve a very successful culture.
I think there’s a European convenience store or taxi driver joke in here somewhere…
When you have ONLY young men coming in with no families, I think that you have a ” Trojan Horse,” type of an Invasion on a new/old idea, to overthrow a Country’s Sovernity. That is an army without weapons. They are unruly, trash the Country, Demand housing & money. They threw down on the ground food offered to them. Some say this is ISIS in secret.
The invaders will get weapons, just like here in the USA.
They already have all the right answers, so why would they need to allow any opposing views?