At first blush, same here, but read the article a little -- basically, the lady in question feels they went too far, with more images than they needed.

Still ridiculous, but not stupidly so.

unfortunately germany isnt acting all that mature against its neonazis, in effect its politically softened hypocrisy.

Yes but how does limiting the number of images advance that cause? What power does a picture have that the rest of the information in the article doesn't? I don't look at a swastika and have a sudden urge to kill Jews or conquer Europe or bleach my hair and goose step around the block.

Would you rather have someone come across this kind of content on a site like wikipedia which is going to give some fairly objective analysis of the subject or stumble across it for the first time on some neo-nazi site?


Edit: just for clarification this post was in response to Wicked Flea... couple others posted while I was typing.

you know what sucks? the swastika shape is inherently (not explicitly) cool, I find its design attractive. its radially symmetric, it can be curvy or angular, it has almost a motion like feel to it.


I DESPISE the fact that the swastika has been tied down to genocide and despotism. I feel like I'm promoting racism whenever a swastika appears in a small doodle. its so REDICULOUS that people can attatch so much disgusting meaning to a shape!

frankly the world of history has been ruled by idiots, and will continue to do so for ages. I guess my point is: stay away from cool shapes, you political dickwads.

It does suck, but evil despots always take cool looking symbols to be theirs mainly because they hope the coolness of their symbol will get people to associate that with the regime.

Ironically, the swastika used to be an ancient religious symbol for life (and is still used as such). Yet, now the swastika is associated with one of the most murderous governments in history.

As for the German politician's complaint, I have a few problems with it.

First of all, its been 60 years, most of those who lived through that period are dead and the few remaining won't be lasting to much longer. Germany, if it continues to teach the real history of the Third Reich in its schools, is no more likely to turn into a neo-Nazi nation than the US (which, contrary to TGE's views, isn't all that likely ????).

Another issue is that this is incredibly subjective. This one lady thinks there is too much, but even other members of her party were basically calling her nuts (in a more polite form of course).

Furthermore, Wikipedia tends to end up with most well-known issues and items with a fairly balanced perspective. This is because if radical conservatives, like neo-Nazis, can put up stuff, so can radical leftists, like communists. Thus, as a net effect a moderate, centrist position emerges.

Finally, government imposed "guidelines" on Wikipedia would destroy all that makes Wikipedia great. It is a way for the average person to share their knowledge and ideas in a manner so that they can reach a wide audience. The internet, and Wikipedia, are a free-speech advocate's dream. Restricting or putting limits on views that can be expressed (so long as those views aren't outright lieing about stuff) would be horrible in my opinion.

I've absolutely no idea Wedge. That's her argument, and I confess I don't understand it either. I would understand the concern if they were plastered all over every wikipedia page related to Nazism with propaganda screaming from the page.

However, I don't see it. Seems like a paper tiger to me that "justifies" a more totalitarian censorship of the public of what does appear to be a decent encyclopedic resource. If they can hit one article, or series of articles, that they don't approve of then there's nothing to stop them from further censorship. I'm just waiting for it to be passed and that snare found.


Schod, the swastika is a neat shape, but the taint from Hitler has erased any interest I would've had in it. But I don't think everyone who doodles swastikas are Nazis either.

And banning Scientology is just taking a step back to Nazism, in a way, since Hitler banned all Christianity but his own church, which fully supported anything he wanted, of course. This time it is just one kind of church they've banned--the question is where they will stop banning churches and other ideologies.


TGE is right about the German variant of the "Patriot Act"--while ours is pretty overpowered, it doesn't hold much of a candle to what I've heard of the German's. I've not heard much on it, but it all makes me frown.


Scourge, that's the right versus left mentality right there... of course they say she's nuts! They just wish they thought of it first is all. (I'm joking, not to offend any Germans who sympathize with either side. I just hate the egocentric view that an individual considers their own leaning to be the only reasonable one.) I don't agree that there is a moderate centrist view to wikipedia, as even the middle has opinions of its own--you'll always have dispute even over the "moderate" center. Whatever moderate that might be in the subject or time.

Free-speech in a self-regulated site is democracy, the USA is a democratic republic when it all boils down, and the only thing that results without every wikipedian taking personal responsibility to maintain what they wrote is exactly what Aristotle defined democracy as: rule of the mob. All you need is enough people to sway the system. For those risks/reasons alone I am leery of trusting wikipedia beyond mathematics and programming.

Good... I've seen people who did something, then looked back and realized that it could be taken for a swastika. It wasn't meant that way, but the radial symmetry of the Swastika makes it easy to stumble across by accident.



Good, I didn't hear about that.

Sorry to step on toes Aldarian, it wasn't my intent.

I'm sorry, I don't seem to see what this has to do outside an inaccuracy or bug in those software packages. I'm not referring to old Germany, in case that's what you infer.

I'll set aside my ethnocentrism if you will, Aldarian. You assume that because I'm American that I applaud, or approve, of Guantanamo. It started as suspected terrorists during a time of war, this was back when we were retaliating against Afghanistan--even though war wasn't declared. When it didn't stop there I think everyone I knew became wary and suspicious of Guantanamo. The point was to temporarily hold the possible terrorists until the Taliban was overthrown, bureaucracy again overstepped its bounds.

The military and intelligence "wings" of the government don't report to me. I'm just a civilian. But so far as I know things are much better than they were. In my own personal opinion those individuals involved in the torture and those responsible for the orders should have been quickly court marshaled and shot--but we're too "humane" for that aren't we?

That's not the point. In the last fifty years the United States has been a totalitarian state represented by only professional politicians who lobby for fringe interest, usually on behalf of huge corporations like Monsanto. That's why I support men and women like Ron Paul.


If you think rumors or opinions don't sway opinion please think again. It is hard to tell what is smoke and what is real anymore. Would you enlighten me to what the current state of Germany is? Whether it is police state or otherwise, and how the ban against swastika's and Nazi symbols apply to that? I am curious, and yet you make no attempt to even set the record straight. That does disappoint me since you give me nothing to correct in my knowledge save that it could be inaccurate for unstated reasons. Kinda hard to assimilate in that manner.


That's good news. I wondered how the legal advise the woman had helped her decide to put that forward, it seemed kinda silly to me.


Excellent point! The government is there to protect the populace and enforce law, at its basest definition. But one cannot help but wonder at certain proposed threats you know. There was a law here in a state some time ago, I no longer remember which state, where a woman could not drive a car without her husband sitting on the hood with a shotgun to warn off anyone in the way. Pfeh, politicians!

Mmmmm... start using? As in they aren't? Almost every single modern phone, bar none, contains a GPS unit. You don't think they can't and don't track you? And don't forget about OnStar, the helpfully intrusive trackers. (Whether the national government or global tracks you I don't think it matters which, just that either does.)

You aren't the only cynic skeptic when it comes to governmental bureaucracy you know.

Its only a short overview



Sounds like "persecution mania"

Not really. More like concern over GPS equipped, open source phones such as the gPhone. There is already opt-in technology that uses IM clients to share positional locations to a buddy group. Doubtless with the opensource initiative getting started in phones, the GPS powered "bye, 'buddy'" IED will appear. No proof whom did it either, just transfer the software to a new phone with the same virtual identity. No offense meant, but I am hardly the first to think of this.

The Patriot Act did authorize big brother to eavesdrop on anyone through their phone, and wiretap the phone, without any notice, warrant, or suspicion. No mania, just a lot of dislike.

The link was somewhat helpful, Aldarian, but I still see no direct translation of things like personal rights and how people are prosecuted. The clinical nature of wikipedia's writing makes skimming difficult. I will admit one thing, our rights as persons in the USA are given by amendment ... which means they are no more than liberties that can be legally taken away. I envy your personal rights entrenchment, though I don't even know what rights those are considered.


Scourge, we aren't shipping pork to Iraq--that'd just tick the Muslims off more. I think the government is a little smarter than that. However, I do be we ship our excess genetically modified grain and plants over there...

Back to the subject! (sort of)
Why aren't they banning the use of the Red Communist star in the eastern europe?
I mean, I live in Croatia where you can still see consequenses of the bombing and ethnic clensing that Yugoslav National Army did in Croatian War of Independence.
And no one is banning the communist star!!! But, i might know the reason. They do not bann it because it woud invoke curiosity! I think that if they woud loosen the grip on it in Germany first there woud be some riots, but then things will settle down, like they did in Croatia.

To find out more about the Croatian War of Independence go to:
WWW Link

BTW The Serbs (in the YNA) did the first ethnic cleaning sience the WW2.????