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A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

washingtonpost.com

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Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#111

Post by zepto »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #82
zepto wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not tell the difference between physical violence and words?

Worlds can hurt just as much if not more. Insults are unneeded. They are unnecessary to a discussion and they are a form of violence. Why should they be legal?

> Worlds can hurt just as much if not more.

Only if you compare words with the most trivial of physical violence.

> Insults are unneeded. They are unnecessary to a discussion and they are a form of violence. Why should they be legal?

This is dismissive of my perspective and therefore insulting. I think you should be arrested. Maybe the cops and the judge will agree with me.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#112

Post by nautilius »

jimmaswell wrote: post #7

And as an American, Germans/Australians/etc. will still insist they're more free than me because of something arbitrary like free healthcare. I don't think there's anywhere I'd feel particularly more "free" all things considered aside from maybe Mars.

How about using public places in a way you see fit (while not endangering others), e.g. skateboarding or biking in town?

How about letting your kids go to school or to a playground without perpetual parental surveillance, without you being persecuted?

How about the right to sit at a beach in whatever (non)clothing you want? How about just changing into your swimming shorts just there on the beach?

How about only being prosecuted for DUI if you were actually under the influence, and not because a passenger had a bottle of beer in their hand?

How about sitting with your friends in any city square in summer, listening to street musicians and drink a beer, and then walk to the next bar while drinking your beer?

How about just playing music on the radio without censoring ‘bad words’, and even having censored CDs in the stores?

How about someone cursing on national television without this becoming a scandal, or someone showing a breast on television as a singer on stage without it ending your career?

How about driving as fast as you want?

And to your example: how about having actual choice of leaving a job because health insurance is not tied to a job? (Yeah I know, with COBRA you can simply pay a couple thousand a month and just keep your insurance)

How about being able to actually retire in old age and not having to work at Waffle House and Walmart with 80?

How about yelling at some asshole in the parking lot without being legally shot dead because of stand-your-ground?

How about the freedom to study at a college of your choosing, without admission scandals and bribery, and without ruining your future with 6 digit debt?

How about freedom from religion, and still being electable for high office as atheist?

How about never having to worry whether you are in a good enough area of town to just drive through?

How about freely choosing your health insurance rather than being forced to pick one of the two your employer has contracts with?

How about freely choosing internet / power / gas, with the dramatic drops in price that go along with competition in a free market?

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#114

Post by zepto »

marcod wrote: post #77
zepto wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The relationship between the police and the public in the states also seems dangerously adversarial and does not inspire me with confidence. This is greatly exaggerated. Not that the bad things you see in the news don’t happen. Just that most interactions with the police aren’t in fact any more adversarial than in other countries. I am not white, and I have been stopped by police multiple times in the US, Europe, a…

Not saying your anecdote isn't true, but the data in the US, speaks a pretty clear language. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/young-black-adults-less-... https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/press-re... https://www.statista.com/chart/21872/map-of-police-violence-...

> Not saying your anecdote isn't true,

Given that your links are not cross cultural comparisons, your response doesn’t seem to be in good faith.

It looks like you just used my comment as a chance to post some anti-US policing links that aren’t actually relevant to what I said.

Bear in mind that racism and racist policing are present in Europe, and Asia too.

I assume you have no experience of police in different countries yourself.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#115

Post by foepys »

gewa wrote: post #26

As a German I have to emphasize that this has no support at all in Germany. The uproar was huge today and its seen as a misuse of power by the politician. Especially as he is not acting as a politician but as representative of the public office of interior. The search warrant needs to be issued by a judge and I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened. I would not be surprised if he will be forced…

To expand on this: the politician is defending himself by saying that it is standard procedure for a case like this but I can assure you it is not.

The police is not taking insults seriously, especially not being called "dick". On Twitter some semi-famous people stated that they routinely go to the police because people threaten their lives but the police won't do anything.

One interesting fact that the politician is not mentioning is that he as a Senator des Innern (senator of interior of the state of Hamburg) can actually order the attorney general of their state to investigate something. This has been criticized by law experts multiple times in the past because it makes the judiciary branch not strictly independent from the legislative branch in Germany. No attorney general will deny a request of their boss and will instead push hard for a judge (who are independent) to sign a search warrant. Plus the Landgericht Hamburg (lowest court in Hamburg) has made some very, very questionable rulings in the past related to technology.

Everything here has written abuse of power all over it. It's a systemic failure that is being exploited and Andy Grote tries way too hard to deny it.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#116

Post by ALittleLight »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #31
djrogers wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be hard to argue that a country where it's illegal to call someone a dick is particularly free, if that indeed is the case.

Then most of the world isn't free I fear. Why should it be legal to publicly insult someone? You can't punch people in the USA. Does that make the country not particularly free?

Some states in the US allow "mutual combat", meaning that if both parties agree to fight you actually can legally punch people in the US.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#117

Post by gewa »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #88
gewa wrote: post #26

As a German I have to emphasize that this has no support at all in Germany. The uproar was huge today and its seen as a misuse of power by the politician. Especially as he is not acting as a politician but as representative of the public office of interior. The search warrant needs to be issued by a judge and I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened. I would not be surprised if he will be forced…

> I'm sure there will be formal investigations how this happened It happened because you allowed your politicians to pass laws that regulate allowable speech, as many other countries have done. I’m sure it was controversial, but most likely also had a considerable amount of support from people who didn’t like the kinds of speech they thought this would criminalize. A distinctive feature of this case is that it has cr…

It doesn't seem like you are very familiar with German politics or culture, but this is definitely an outlier. Freedom of speech is a central part of our constitution. Defamation is one of the very few ways and enforcement and interpretation is mostly restricted to defamation of policemen. This is the reason why this has resulted in an outcry as the proportionality does not respond to the interpretation how defamation is treated legally.

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#119

Post by cirrus3 »

slapfrog wrote: post #35
paulpauper wrote: post #30

i dunno pick your poison: 1st amendment but militarized police and huge sentences and awful prison conditions or ppl summoned for making jokes but justice system better in every other respect

Why do you think either necessarily requires the other, in either circumstance?

both-sider showed up, welcome, did you have something to contribute?

Re: A Twitter user insulted a German politician, then police raided his house

#120

Post by sillysaurusx »

sho_hn wrote: post #103
thaumasiotes wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the cases where I'm going to ask why I'm downvoted. The HN title says the opposite of what the WaPo title says. And not only is this not a problem, but I'm causing problems by pointing it out?

I assume downvoters figured your point is obvious, but I found your comment valuable and useful.

I didn’t downvote, but I’m not sure what’s going on with HN today —- this is the third article I’ve seen with lots of HN metacomments.

That said, they’re probably right that the title should be fixed. It’s just getting a bit... well. I just wish we would all be a little more grateful for how much effort a site like HN takes to run. It’s also not so easy to get good moderators with tasteful editing abilities; imagine what a disaster it would be if Reddit let a subset of mods control most titles on /r/all.

I suspect the title is broken in this case because the title gardeners are taking a well-deserved break, hopefully enjoying the evening with their families.

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