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Originally Posted by bevdeforges
I'll admit to having real mixed feelings on this. On the whole, I'm a big believer in the "free marketplace of ideas" ala John Stuart Mill, but lately I've been rather dismayed with how some of my compatriots back in "The Old Country" seem to latch onto half-baked ideas, more or less simply because they have seen them in print somewhere "so they must be true."
Back at university, I took a fascinating class (I was a German major) where we read Hitler's speeches and took them apart to see what he actually said and try and figure out how and why it appealed to so many at the time. Oddly enough, we were reading them in the original, published in Germany by a rather prestigious German publisher. Said publisher is probably still not able to publish Mein Kampf, which is really only more of the same. All that strikes me as extremely bizarre, though I can appreciate the sensitivity of the issue in Germany, especially after having lived there for a few years.
Unfortunately I think that banning "hate speech" only drives it underground and makes it all the more attractive for those gullible individuals who have never learned how to read critically.
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I know I'm going to ruffles some feathers for saying this, but....
I once watch a Third Reich documentary (I think on The History Channel) and it included a couple of minutes of a Hitler speech. I speak
very little German, and could not follow a word that was said - but - I listened to the sonic phrasing and cadences of the spearker. Darned if it wasn't the same patterns (in a different language, of course) of a classic Southern Baptist Hellfire and Brimstone sermon. I've never heard anybody ever mention that...