It's well documented, and covered in most of the histories regarding the rise of Nazism, that a not insignificant part of why the party was able to gain traction was that there was already an environment of political violence and suppression. The SPD, KPD, and Freikorps were fighting in the streets well before the Nazis were relevant (the 20s. The fighting dates back to the end of WW1 and through the Weimar period).
There was similar violence in Austria at the time including a small civil war in the mid 30s, probably not what one would call a great and peacful environment for appreciating art and music.
If Nazi propaganda might have any noticeable success in today's Germany (or US, or wherever), it's not because of some crackpots from stormfront; they are a consequence, not the cause. The cause should be addressed instead, first by assuming its existence. (No, I'm not going to discuss any probable causes here; I'm trying to show the logic, not to make a political case.)
That's not really accurate; the Nazis got power not by outright winning a democratic election, but because the various other parties were more concerned about each other than the Nazis, and thus more willing to tolerate a Nazi-coalition government than to form a coalition against the Nazis; the Nazis never were elected to power on their own before seizing power; they actually lost a large number of seats in the election preceding their coalition government from the preceding election (after which no government was formed), and even in that preceding election they had only around 1/3 of the seats.
Nazis didn't come to power because a receptive populace gave them a mandate, they came to power becausea large enough minority of the more numerous elected not-Nazis were more afraid of each other than the Nazis.
That wasn't exactly irrational, the Nazis were not the first or only party in Germany to be engaging in widespread violence. The Communists, for example, were a real and actual threat. Mass street violence and assassinations were common in Weimar Germany even when the Nazis were nobodies.
Nor did I say that it was (at least, based on information available at the time; it may have been strictly irrational in rational choice terms, where rationality implies optimality based on the actual future consequences and not merely anticipated ones.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_presidential_election,_...
The Nazis lied and cheated and murdered their way to power, make no mistake about it. And that was kind of like an onion, too, in that every layer of the Nazi apparatus deceived lower layers.
Apart from the intrinsic importance of things like poverty and unemployment simply because they hurt people no matter how people to react to it, what turned some people into sociopaths (and why it didn't others) is useful to know to prevent more coming into existence, and to leave the ones who aren't beyond the point of return a way out -- but it's also a destructive red herring when dealing with those who are beyond the point of return. They are eating chalk and holding up people who delivered themselves as hostages unto them, so you can have empathy they can only feign and use; and the question is, at what point does the tragedy of their hostages outweigh the tragedy of who they and their hostages will trample on, forever, if given half a chance.
I know it's cold and kind of heartless, but for many people who turns abuser after having been abused, you will also find those who have been abused even more, but did not turn to abusing others. It's not either person's fault or credit, but I can't cater to the first while ignoring the second. Insofar it's a zero-sum choice (and that's not generally the case, mind you, but it's also not never the case), I made my choice. Sometimes, the wheel that squeaks the loudest shouldn't get the grease, but simply should get replaced by a better or even no wheel.
The Nazis also lied and cheated and murdered, but it wasn't necessary for their rise to power; until they went about abolishing democratic institutions altogether, they could have worked entirely with above-the-board means.
So you may claim, and I disagree. Importantly, "they could have" != "they did".
of course we somehow manage to always blame the masses or the populists, but they rarely are the ones initiating the cycle
Nazism and other German nationalist movements were repressed early on by (generally communist) mob violence and later on by the state. That led directly to the rise of brownshirts (to counter the mob) and the radicalization of the Nazis - when people see that their belief system as being oppressed by the law, some of them conclude that when legitimate paths to power are denied, violence is justified.
The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J Evans covers the rise of the Nazis in great detail, and it didn't happen because Nazis were going around with hate speech.
This has been one of the many justifications for free speech for a long time. In general, I think the "but Nazis!" argument against free speech should be viewed with immense suspicion - it basically boils down to a pretty serious antidemocratic sentiment; you can't let people talk, because then they might convince the plebs to vote for Nazis.
Look at it from an outside view. Tibet was taken over by China and they are intentionally flooding it with Chinese immigrants. The goal is to destroy Tibetan culture and eventually assimilate or replace the Tibetan people. Liberals seem pretty upset by this and even consider it literal genocide. If a Tibetan is angry at Chinese immigrants and says something insulting to them, is that hate speech?
What does this matter at all? How does the GDP of Germany change anything? If Germany was poor it would be different?
>Germans do not find themselves in the same predicament as Tibetans, by any stretch of the imagination.
How exactly is that? It looks like exactly the same thing to me. The native population is being completely replaced with immigrants. It's a tragedy.
If it were poor and were being coercively restructured by some outside hegemonic power (as many argue Tibet is) then yes of course that would make a difference.
The native population is being completely replaced with immigrants.
Germany's immigrant population is 10-12%, and last time I looked everyone in the German government was German. It's impossible to take your hyperbole seriously.
I don't think the outside power is relevant to the argument. The effect is the same whoever does it. To some conservative rural German, the government may very well seem like an outside hegemonic power.
As far as economic success being relevant. Tibet's economy is growing rapidly. Eventually they will be as rich as Germany today. Yet their population will be almost completely replaced and their culture gone. Economic success doesn't make up for it.
>Germany's immigrant population is 10-12%
40% of German under 5's are immigrants (http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/21/germany-40-percen...). They have a 2-3 times higher fertility rate than the native population. And the rate of immigration keeps increasing and is already unsustainably high. Germans will be a tiny minority of Germany in just 2 generations.
I can't help counterfactual perceptions.
40% of German under 5's are immigrants (http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/21/germany-40-percen...). They have a 2-3 times higher fertility rate than the native population. And the rate of immigration keeps increasing and is already unsustainably high. Germans will be a tiny minority of Germany in just 2 generations.
Breitbart is one of the poorest sources you could possibly cite and you do your credibility no favors. Some immigrants have higher fertility, but it's a distribution, not a monolith. Also, immigrant fertility tends to revert to the local mean within a couple of generations as fertility is inversely correlated with economic stability, which is why it's lower in the recipient population to start with.
Your idea that Germans will be a tiny minority of Germany's population within 2 generations is laughable. socioeconomic behaviors do not generally follow the exponential trends you imagine, but are often better mapped by a sigmoid function. I strongly suggest you try reading a textbook on demographics instead of getting your analysis from Breitbart.
>Some immigrants have higher fertility, but it's a distribution, not a monolith.
The distribution is irrelevant. On average they have 3 to 4 kids per coupe and natives have less than 2.
>immigrant fertility tends to revert to the local mean within a couple of generations
By then it will be far too late.
>immigrant fertility tends to revert to the local mean within a couple of generations as fertility is inversely correlated with economic stability
Religious minorities tend to have much higher fertility rates even within first world countries. Look at Mormons or Orthodox jews. Poverty is not sufficient to explain the high Muslim birth rate. And it's high even among the second generation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/world/europe/germany-twit...
> In a tweet on Sunday, the lawmaker, Beatrix von Storch, questioned the decision by the police in the western city of Cologne to put out a message in Arabic, as part of a multilingual campaign to promote the theme of this year’s New Year’s Eve festivities: “Celebrate — with respect.” The message was also posted in English, French and Persian. The festivities in Cologne, in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, draw thousands every year.
> “What the hell is wrong with this country? Why is the official page of police in NRW tweeting in Arabic,” Ms. von Storch wrote on Dec. 31. “Are they seeking to appease the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men?”
> Her comments were particularly provocative because Cologne was the site of a rampage on New Year’s Eve 2015, in which hundreds of men groped, assaulted, harassed or robbed women. Many of the men were asylum-seekers or other immigrants, and the attacks on women fueled criticism by the Alternative for Germany, which argued that Ms. Merkel should not have opened Germany’s doors to so many foreigners.
> Facebook later removed that post, Ms. von Storch told her followers. She vowed not to be silenced by the new law, but to continue to “call out problems by name.” She went on to insist that the young men who had sexually harassed German women were “not Protestant Swedes, not Catholic Poles, not Orthodox Russians, not Jewish Israelis and not Buddhist Thais. The overwhelming majority of them are young Muslim men for whom women and followers of other faiths are second-class citizens.”
It seems to me that, in context, this is an inflammatory statement, and somewhat a silly one (why does that mean they shouldn't put it out in Arabic?), but given that she was commenting on a situation that did literally involve rapist hordes of men who happened to be Muslim, I have trouble accepting that a country could justifiably declare that speech illegal. It's even more disturbing to me given that she's apparently a prominent politician and the government is looking into charging her for this statement.
Where did you see this? From what I can tell, the government (public prosecutors) only said they received a bunch of complaints. Nowhere did I see they were looking into charging her - nor would that be possible without lifting her immunity.
> Prosecutors must now decide whether there is sufficient evidence of criminal action to open a formal investigation that could lead to charges, Mr. Willuhn said. But before that step can be taken, Germany’s Parliament would have to lift immunity.
From the article I linked above.
"German atheist runs afoul of country's rarely enforced blasphemy laws after he was fined €500 for driving around with anti-Christian slogans on his car"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/121...
No... But thats pretty bullish of you.
If you were in a restaurant in 1930s Vienna surrounded by great art, music and intellectuals you may have been forgiven for thinking that wonderful setting would continue on forever. Unfortunately, a short time later millions we're dying on a continent engulfed in war.
When the stock market is up we think it'll keep going up. When we have peace we can't imagine war. History is not a straight line and destructive ideas can still take hold in the wrong conditions.