If you say that banning a party because it plans to destroy democracy itself destroys democracy then you are talking of democracy as am absolute. So after banning the party democracy vanishes and we live in a not democratic state anymore. That’s not the case though. It would still be a democracy. Banning a party is a dilemma, either you let the people have their say which is more democratic and then after you have let them then you don’t have a democracy anymore or you don’t and then you have less of a democracy in the sense that one position of planning to completely destroy democracy is not allowed but it still is a democracy on all the other issues at least.

As for whether the party will use loopholes to destroy democracy: that’s a complex issue and difficult to determine. We may not agree on that. That’s why we leave it to a court to settle.

Banning parties isn’t always anti-democratic. The reason why is a bit unituitive so I explained it quite detailed but I believe that’s necessary. Take for example a hypothetical party X. Party X will use legal loopholes to effectively destroy democracy when it gets into power (restrict free speech, manipulate ballots, lock up the opposition, etc.) . Now party X gets the majority. That creates a situation where Party X stays in Power indefinitely. Now at some point the majority of people people change their mind and now they wouldn’t vote for the party anymore so the government isn’t representative of the people anymore. But it doesn’t matter anymore because democracy is dead in the country now. So now the people have to go through the whole establishing democracy process again which costs many lives and many years of living under oppression. That could have been skipped if party X had been banned. Now the problem remains that a majority of people weren’t represented in a election. That’s obviously bad. However keep in mind that the only thing we need to ban to skip all those years of oppression is to ban a single thing that party’s just aren’t allowed to do. And that thing is being antidemocratic. So banning that one single thing allows us to keep all the other nice thing that democracy has to offer.

Is’bound in your right eye’ a typo?

No it’s not anti-democratic. The parties can’t ban the AFD only initiate the process. Whether the AFD is antidemocratic and a has the ability to undermine democracy is decided by the highest court. Precisely so they can’t just ban the opposition.

The highest german court does. It’s beholden only to the constitution. The guidelines are are quite strict and very specific:

“Parties that, in view of their aims or the behaviour of their adherents, seek to undermine or abolish the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany must be declared unconstitutional (cf. Art. 21(2) first sentence of the Basic Law). According to the Federal Constitutional Court’s case-law, the mere dissemination of anti-constitutional ideas as such is not sufficient. To be declared unconstitutional, a party must also take an actively belligerent, aggressive stance vis-à-vis the free democratic basic order and must seek to abolish it. In addition, specific indications must suggest that it is at least possible that the party will achieve its anti-constitutional aims.” From the website of the court

No. Hope you figure it out though

I said don’t engage with spam bots. And no I can’t fully ignore baseless negative comments when I see them. They still register in my brain. I would need to have a filter in my brain or eyes that blanks them out. I wish I had one. Because they affect me even if they aren’t directed at me. Not in the same way but more in the sense that when you see a mother hitting her child on the train you feel compelled to say something. If I don’t I feel a sting and it doesn’t sit well with me. Because I care about others in general. Not implying you don’t. I know not everyone is a helpless child but a lot of people are mentally not in a state where they have the ability to deal with this stuff myself included sometimes. That’s also why I try to be kind to strangers on the internet in general.

You have been lied to. Well except if you do more than upvote the raunchy stuff.

Hey thanks for being a good human :)

We do not need all the engagement. Just engagement that most lemming users enjoy. The comments of spam bots for example are also good for engagement but are not enjoyable content. I personally hate being pissed of online cause it caries into my real life and people in general also do so most people come to this general idea that they don’t piss anyone of and expect other people to come to the same conclusion of not pissing anyone of. This leads to a less toxic environment which allows them to spend more of their time and energy on more productive stuff. Cause at the end of the day needlessly making other people feel bad for your own entertainment is a downwards spiral if everyone’s doing it.

It’s not a different version. Just a different spin on the same story. It changes nothing. Notice how the Tagesspiegel only says that some of the protesters used axes to break into a building, then threatened employees but not if they used the axes for it. It does not say they used them as arms. It also does not say if the protesters that threatened people and vandalised the building are the ones that are now about to be deported just that they also broke in. It implies it though. The wonderful thing about implications is that you can imply stuff about someone that isn’t falsifiedable. So it does not add relevant details about the four people threatened by deportation. Just spin. You are being toyed with.

Thanks :) I’ll bookmark them and check it out when I have time

For me personally I can say that I do not read the intercept often enough to have a grasp on how reliable they are. So the publishers name and it’s associated clout alone wasn’t enough for me to believe the story’s content. If you are more familiar with them then maybe that’s why our initial reactions to the story were different. Imho it’s ok to focus on a storys credibility first before discusing it’s content. Even if the contents message transports the right message. In hindsight it was bad of couse but hindsight is 20/20. Anyone who down votes this just because it may be false is overreacting though since it’s understandable that the intercept couldn’t link to any external sources here.

The Tagesspiegel since has https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nach-beteiligung-an-palastina-protesten-in-berlin-drei-eu-burgern-und-einem-studenten-aus-den-usa-droht-ausweisung-13468543.html (Article is in German)

The Tagesspiegel as well. One of the German papers of middle size. They also asked sources independently.

Nope I just thought it was wird that no other oulet was reporting in this. Since then they have picked up the story and got confirmation on the story indepentanly. But it was weird that something of this magnitude wasn’t picked up by anyone immeadeatly. I also would have believed it if the intercept linked to some sources but they didn’t. Probably because there were none that were public ally accessible. It sometimes happens that newsstorys get out that are false so I’ve made it a rule of mine to not trust story’s of significant magnitude when there is only one source.

Yeah fuck the Israeli government

Oh interesting. Can you tell me what they are Spending the money on? I know of DW who often pushes german Propaganda but I think in the whole picture of the news media their reach is relatively small compared to other news outlets’ reach.

But I still don’t think we pretend there aren’t any Nazis in Germany. You may have missed it or the news hasn’t reached you ;) but there was a big wave of protests in 2024 against rightwing extremism here Wikipedia no need to read it all but you can scroll down to the list of protests and look at the participant amounts.

I am a German citizen and we do not pretend we don’t have fascist citizens. Why do you think we do?

Taz for example being the biggest one. They are talking about Gaza contantly. They also haven’t picked up this story