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AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

bbc.com

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Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#11

Post by incomingpain »

Freak_NL wrote: post #9
incomingpain wrote: post #3

Guess this will be unpopular. >The AfD came second in federal elections in February, winning a record 152 seats in the 630-seat parliament with 20.8% of the vote. What does this give german intelligence the power to do? The german government is now monitoring the telephone, internet, and intercepting emails of their political opponents? They MAY also be using informants and undercover agents? The federal ministry of…

Not sure what your point is. The AfD is not the first extreme right party to gain a sizeable number of seats. And yes, if they continue to win elections with an ever growing percentage of votes, at one point they will rule, and could eventually change the constitution if they gain a supermajority. This happened before (it's a been a while though). Until that happens, they are beholden to the law like any other politi…

>Not sure what your point is. The AfD is not the first extreme right party to gain a sizeable number of seats.

Firstly I get the nazi thing and the laws are set to prevent another instance.

AFD obviously still exists so a court has not banned them. Innocent until proven guilty.

The flipside problem is that these anti-nazi measures can be abused, false positive type situation. The measures would of course need to be biased toward false-postives to prevent future false negatives.

>Until that happens, they are beholden to the law like any other political party. They do not appear to be singled out because they happen to be the opposition.

I guess that's where i disagree. It looks like to me that the politicians are abusing powers. That the afd growth of doubling their power since last election and AFD is now polling in first place.

So to win the next election they need to essentially remove AFD from being an option; or lose.

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#13

Post by flohofwoe »

detaro wrote: post #4

Now the election is over and everyone has decided that they really don't want to form a government with them, the agencies are suddenly allowed to state the obvious without potentially embarrassing their future bosses.

This has been cooking for a very long time (pretty much since the AfD was founded in 2013, and some federal chapters of the AfD (like the Thuringian AfD under Hoecke [1], the Saxon AfD [2]) and five 'AfD Youth' federal chapters already earned the 'extreme-right' classification before [3]. The news is only that now the entire AfD is classified as extreme-right (to nobody's surprise).

The AfD also isn't the first party which got the label, the AfD is just the latest reincarnation of the NPD (since the 1960s) and the so-called Republicans ('Die Republikaner') since the 1980s. There's also various smaller splinter-organizations which are more openly right-extremist than the AfD but at best play a minor role in municipal elections).

[1] https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/thueringen/afd-rechtsextremis...

[2] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/deutschland/afd-sachs...

[3] https://www.rnd.de/politik/wo-gelten-afd-und-junge-alternati...

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#14

Post by LaurensBER »

_mlbt wrote: post #12

I’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

Some of their ex-members have been literal Nazis. Something that doesn't go over very well in Germany. The party banned these people but their standpoints are still very controversial, the main issue is that in some aspects they do no support the juridical system.

So yeah, regular right wing compared to American standards but I think we can all agree that respecting the trias politica is a good thing in any country.

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#16

Post by roenxi »

Given that AfD represents ~20.8% of the vote, 25% of the Bundestag and have upwards trending poll numbers; we can probably start talking about the collapse of democracy in Germany if they aren't allowed to engage politically as any other party. These numbers are too large to ignore.

I wish the Germans the best of luck and reiterate that declaring war on their own energy supply was probably a mistake.

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#17

Post by dweinus »

_mlbt wrote: post #12

I’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

> They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

Correct, both have an agenda of subverting the rule of law to violate human rights of immigrants, under a flag of white nationalism. There is a single word for this.

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#18

Post by thrance »

_mlbt wrote: post #12

I’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

This should tell you more about how far right America has gotten. What's your definition of extreme-right and why don't they fit it?

Both the GOP and the AFD are acting extra-constitutionally. Trump's administration has shown to Europeans that needed a reminder how dangerous these politics can be.

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#19

Post by boudin »

_mlbt wrote: post #12

I’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

A pretty big clue is in the article: >>> "The ethnicity- and ancestry-based understanding of the people prevailing within the party is incompatible with the free democratic order," the domestic intelligence agency said in a statement.

Re: AfD classified as extreme-right by German intelligence

#20

Post by _mlbt »

LaurensBER wrote: post #14
_mlbt wrote: post #12

I’m not a German so take this with a massive amount of salt, but what makes them extreme-right? Is it the anti-immigrant stance or is there more that I’m missing? They just seem to be regular right wing by American standards.

Some of their ex-members have been literal Nazis. Something that doesn't go over very well in Germany. The party banned these people but their standpoints are still very controversial, the main issue is that in some aspects they do no support the juridical system. So yeah, regular right wing compared to American standards but I think we can all agree that respecting the trias politica is a good thing in any country.

I’ll be honest, as an American looking in from the outside, this looks like the leftist parties in Germany trying to silence the opposition. If the party is expelling the true extremists like the Neo-Nazi former party members that you mentioned, I don’t see why they should be held responsible for them.

This would be like declaring the entire American Republican Party extreme-far right because of a few whack jobs like the Proud Boys.

Opposition parties are extremely important to a properly functioning democracy.

What is so extreme and dangerous about the actual current AfD party members other than their anti-immigration stance?

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