They are valid statements because the alternative is tyranny and thought police? Come on, look at the countries where this garbage is forbidden: UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Danemark. Do you honestly think that these are tyrannical states who employ a thought police?

And your conjecture that these laws are used to target political opponents is simply false. I dare you to find a single example where this law was used to silence legitimate speech in Germany.

Milo is just a troll. He will say any crap he thinks will make people angry and grab their attention. As a slashdoter you should know how to deal with trolls: ignoring them. Not inviting them to speak a Universities.

The question is not about who gets to speak, but what sort of speech is allowed. I only can't see what is the benefit to society of allowing people to openly preach that Jews should be exterminated.

Who gets to decide? The German parliament has already decided, so you could just look it up. This is not about tolerating any particular group, it is about not tolerating inciting hatred and violence against anyone.

Because it is hate speech. You are just preaching hatred against Islam, not only making the sweeping generalisation that all Islam is intolerant towards gays and women, but even saying that Islam is incapable of changing, by calling it "inherent".

You do get into a lot of trouble in Germany if you preach hatred against gays, for example. And being Muslim doesn't allow you to do it either.

"freedom of speech dying, control of the education system..." I think you are not aware of what is forbidden in Germany. Let me help you: What is forbidden is hate speech, e.g., saying that the Jews are a creepy conspiracy which is taking over the country and that they must be dealt with. Hitler enjoyed a lot the freedom of speech to spread his message of hate. Of course, after he came to power he had no problem with shutting down any voices that opposed him.

Maybe you should ask your relatives in Germany to tell you about the fall of the Weimar republic. I guess they know German history better than you.

Only the US, never having lived through fascism, is naive enough to think that freedom of speech should be absolute. The European countries, most of which either had a fascist government or were occupied by fascists, know that it is simply stupid to allow people to spread hate through the media, or to found political parties whose goal is to abolish democracy.

Maybe you're interested in what is classified as hate speech in Germany: publicly incite hatred against parts of the population or to call for violent or arbitrary measures against them or to insult, maliciously slur or defame them in a manner violating their (constitutionally protected) human dignity.

So saying the blacks should be sent to Africa is not ok. Saying that Muslims are terrorists is also not ok. Calling Mexicans rapists is also not ok. And this is as it should be.

Yeah, let's just get rid of the mainstream press and follow some random website that agrees with your preconceptions instead. You'll get all the alternative facts you want, everyone will support your conspiracy theories, and you won't be faced with inconvenient truths like global warming.

I'm not German, but I live in Germany, so I know a bit about what they think. What you are seeing is exactly the "nie wieder" in action. The Germans know very well how the Nazis used the openness of the Weimar republic to destroy it. How they used freedom of speech to advocate for the extermination of Jews. And so on.

It is very simple: you do not tolerate the intolerant.

The problem is the people who will use the very openness of a society to destroy it. See how the Nazis rose to power in Germany. This is known as the paradox of tolerance, proposed by Karl Popper, who personally saw everything going to shit, and in the end had to escape Austria before the concentration camps started working.

So no, the Germans know very well what they are doing, and they are doing it right: do not tolerate the intolerant.

Yes, that's exactly what happened in the 32 other countries which do have free healthcare for all. Everyone just wanted to go to the doctor all the time, and now you have to queue for hours to get your healthcare ration in order to fix a broken arm. That's why all the health indicators of these countries are so much worse than in the US. /sarcasm

Got a fact allergy, do you? If you cared to do a bit of research, you would see that the truth is the opposite: countries where the government is heavily involved in healthcare have much cheaper systems than the US.

Ouch! Facts are so inconvenient, no? If you paid attention to them you would need to change your beliefs instead of just posting bullshit to Slashdot. Too much work, right?

GP was being sarcastic: burning diesel is rather expensive, about any other form of producing power is cheaper. And Australia uses mostly the cheapest of all, coal. The fact that it for these farmers it is cheaper to burn diesel than to buy electricity from a power plant shows how thoroughly fucked up the market there is.

To be fair Scale Composites only got to space, which is much easier than getting into orbit.

And after they do land in the Moon you will no doubt invent new conspiracy theories to deny it.