John Hinderaker:
In Germany, it is a crime to insult someone—even a politician!—in public, and even more so on the internet. So is anyone being prosecuted for insulting leaders of the Alternative For Germany, the reviled anti-immigration party? Oddly, the 60 Minutes reporters never asked that question.
The 60 Minutes narrator says, “We were with state police as they raided this apartment,” looking for evidence of posting a “racist cartoon.” In German, “state police” is Gestadt Polizei. I’d swear I’ve heard that phrase somewhere before. You could shorten it into something catchy…
If the rest of us see echoes of the Third Reich in these efforts to criminalize wrongthink, the Germans themselves—consistent with their reputation—seem blind to the irony.
# posted by Ranger @ 9:40 PM
