Commonwealth of Enlightened Centrists
They’re going to enforce this law consistently against Palestine’s sympathizers and enforce it against the neofascists maybe about a couple of times, similarly to what happened in the Weimar Republic, and that’s it. The bourgeois state couldn’t be trusted to eliminate fascism then, and it won’t eliminate neofascism now.
The prohibition on Third Reich symbolism is simply there to give the law a veneer of respectability. No doubt it’ll annoy plenty of neofascists, but at the end of the day it’s no big deal; they can just use other fascist symbols or the national flag (like in that photograph). Look at German neofascists: they’re fine with reusing the Twoth Reich’s flag, which also happened to be the Third Reich’s from 1933–1935.
And have you noticed how these centrists almost invariably single out the Third Reich? Do they have any idea what Fascist Italy did in Eurafrica? Or what the Empire of Japan did in Asia? Why do all of the other Axis powers get a free pass?
Let the Slippery Slope begin.
Let’s ban Nazis! “Sure sounds good”
and Hezbollah! “ok”
And Hamas! “sure”
and anyone who criticizes Israel! “well we already do that, so I guess it’s good to make that official policy.”
and anyone who criticizes allies of Israel! “Wait what?”
You Fascist anti-semite!
I mean, the joke is going to be in the enforcement, as a battalion of Australia’s largest and roundest uniformed fascist shitheads march through the streets breaking windows and swinging at the heads of anyone sporting a Palestinian flag.
You’re going to have folks with swastika face tattoos explaining why these anti-Zionist activists just need to obey the law.
Well that’s the whole point. Not to stop Nazis.
Actual not-rhetorical question: did it become a slippery slope in Germany?
Nope. Slippery slopes don’t really happen that often in reality. It’s mostly just an argument used by Nazi sympathizers to protest against anti-hate speech measures.
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I suppose this is the next phase of the slow? slide to fascism. It’s depressing
No, because slippery slope is the name of a logical fallacy, not something that actually happens.
If you made a colour gradient going from blue to green, at what point in that gradient does the transition from blue and green actually happen? It’s impossible to say! It is therefore impossible to tell blue and green apart! That’s the same argument the other comment is making. It suggests that because the transition point between A and B is blurry that something banning A effectively also bans B.
To quote United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, when asked what the criteria for pornography entails, “I know it when I see it”.
I suppose in this case I’m asking about a slippery slope event, not a slippery slope argument.
Your mistake is thinking the purpose of these laws is to stop “nazis.” It’s not. The purpose of these laws is to provide some legal backing to silence critics of the government. They will never make a law that says you can’t criticize the Government. But they don’t need to, all they need to do is make a law that says supporting terrorism is illegal, then it’s easy to squint and say that agreeing with a terrorist organization is the same as supporting terrorism.
For example, if the green party of Australia wants to stop coal mining or whatever and ELF blows up a coal mining truck, suddenly the green party of Australia is breaking the law by existing so they have to spend all their effort defending themselves against the law, rather then attempting to ban coal mining.
That scenario is the purpose of this law, but with governmental support of Israel. Every time a public figure criticizes Israel they have bend over backwards and spend the majority of their time claiming how much they love the Jewish people and definitely aren’t Nazis, and now if they don’t sufficiently prove their non-naziness, they are suddenly breaking the law and now there is another avenue for people who want to silence critics to pursue. It’s not a coincidence that this law was passed on Dec 8th.
That’s what the slippery slope is, the silencing of dissent, not the specific verbiage of the law.
For example, ask yourself why https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers'_Party would be be banned under this law?
Now do the genocidal apartheid ethnostate flag next.
But IDF flags are fine right…
and hate symbols inclu… oh for fuck sake.
I’m surprised, sad, shocked and disappointed that such laws even have to exist.
There are actually people out there who want Nazism to exist and flourish. Why are many so short-sighted not to learn at least from recent history?
- World War II and the Cold War
- Chernobyl and Fukushima
- Deepwater Horizon and Exxon Valdez
- Sidoarjo and Lusi volcanoes
- North Pacific Garbage Patch
- Climate change in general
… and so on. So many lessons to ignore and mistakes to repeat, because many can’t be bothered to look for new solutions to old problems.
Outlawing being pro-genocide and outlawing being anti-genocide
Meanwhile in Italy (CW literal Nazis)
I am beginning to notice a theme in the politics of the countries my government aligns itself with
Are they also banning the Viet Cong flag? Cause that’s basically what Hamas and Hezbollah are for their respective countries. Also, equating resistance movements with the Nazis is utterly disgusting.
fyi “Viet Cong” was a derogatory exonym for Vietnamese communists
