[bloobloobloo]

> the slippery slope that is always brought up never materialized.

Very true. Well, except maybe for that one time when Germany became an open-air rape camp under the noses of police who did nothing for fear of being accused of racism. That kind of sucked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaul...

And, oh yeah, there was that time they threw a lawyer in jail for defending a Holocaust denier.

http://www.dw.com/en/german-neo-nazi-lawyer-sentenced-for-de...

But otherwise, sure, unqualified success. Great example.

[spenczar5]

> And, oh yeah, there was that time they threw a lawyer in jail for defending a Holocaust denier.

That's not an honest reading of the article you linked. From the article, "[the lawyer] also signed a motion during Zündel's trial with "Heil Hitler" and shouted that the lay judges deserved the death penalty for "offering succour to the enemy" -- leading the court to dismiss her." She was a neo-Nazi herself.

[lr4444lr]

How about this one then? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germar_Rudolf

[bloobloobloo]

In other words, she didn't defend him the way you feel that she should have.

We'll just make a list of all the arguments that are okay to advance in court, so then lawyers know which ones are forbidden.

That seems like a good concept with no far-reaching implications.

[yflu]

You are generalizing well beyond the scope of the action.

[bloobloobloo]

A lawyer went to prison, for statements she made, in court, in defense of her client.

The action doesn't need embellishment from me.

[yflu]

Do details no longer matter?

"A man was arrested for walking." and "A man was arrested for walking and aiming a rifle at a woman." are clearly different actions.

A lawyer went to prison, for illegal statements she made, in court, in defense of her client. These illegal statements that would be illegal even outside the context of being a federal court lawyer.

I can't understand this fetish of generalizing to the point of total vagueness. Case-by-case analysis is just as important now as ever.

[bloobloobloo]

> for illegal statements she made

Oh it was ILLEGAL. Why didn't you say so? That makes it totally palatable that a lawyer might be imprisoned for doing his job, and doesn't AT ALL impeach the entire concept of a "trial."

> would be illegal even outside the context of being a federal court lawyer.

You have it backwards, friend. The inside of a courtroom needs MORE protections for speech, not fewer, than the outside. Laws like libel simply don't apply there (disclaimer: in the US. Can't speak for how they do it in failed states like Germany), and for very good reason.

[Asdfbla]

I have nothing to say really about your first point where you do nothing but speculate about police motives, but the second one doesn't prove anything either.

The second case is not a slippery slope because it does precisely what's codified in German law, nothing more and nothing less. The lawyer herself denied the holocaust and that's punishable in Germany. So the law was correctly applied. That has absolutely nothing to do with the slippery slope discussion.

[bloobloobloo]

> you do nothing but speculate about police motives

80 cops "failed to notice" over 1000 violent crimes taking place in a space about the size of a football field, over the course of several hours.

My "speculation" is, by far, the very kindest interpretation.

> So the law was correctly applied.

Let's hope so. Defending her is a crime so we'll never really know.

[Asdfbla]

You can defend her if you can resist your urge to praise Hitler and deny the Holocaust yourself in court. Again, that's all transparent and clearly defined in German law, so it literally had nothing to do with the original slippery slope discussion.

[bloobloobloo]

And you can defend a black girl who won't move to the back of the bus if you can resist the urge to claim blacks are people.

Fair trials without all that pesky social change! What could possibly go wrong?

[frubar]

>Very true. Well, except maybe for that one time when Germany became an open-air rape camp under the noses of police who did nothing for fear of being accused of racism.

What an awful example and has nothing, what so ever to do with the laws against being a Nazi. Do you honestly believe the US has never avoided reporting something for fear of being labeled? Really?

The other example you gave was covered by others in the thread. Spoiler: it's a lie.

[bloobloobloo]

> nothing, what so ever to do with the laws against being a Nazi

You are very poorly informed. The laws against "being a Nazi" are generic "no bad speech" laws. Nazism is just their most well-known application. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung

> Spoiler: it's a lie.

A lawyer went to prison, for statements she made, in court, in defense of her client. That's not supposed to happen. It's not a feature.

[pyroinferno]

Germany is a joke. The fact that it's even considered a country and not a US territory is beyond me.

If you have a US military base in your country you are objectively not a sovereign nation.