Summary
Australia has enacted strict anti-hate crime laws, mandating jail sentences for public Nazi salutes and other hate-related offenses.
Punishments range from 12 months for lesser crimes to six years for terrorism-related hate offenses.
The legislation follows a rise in antisemitic attacks, including synagogue vandalism and a foiled bombing plot targeting Jewish Australians.
The law builds on state-level bans, with prior convictions for individuals performing Nazi salutes in public spaces, including at sporting events and courthouses.
Fucking finally. Good shit Australia. Doing better than most. Watch Elmo throw a hissie fit. Pathetic
I hope he tests the waters there and Australia follows through.
Don’t kid yourself. Australia is also an oligarchy where corporations get most of what they want passed within days/weeks, with little to no debate, while popular or inconsequential policies are given months or years of debate (so the murdoch/oligarch propaganda machine can distract the public and tell them how to think).
There is no chance in hell either major party would imprison an American dictators right hand man. They’re both corporate whores at heart, with little/no virtue.
Agreed.
I’m so sick of this absolutist free speech bullshit that wants to make room for terrorist ideologies to hide.
There is no free speech absolutism. Dare to criticize him or make fun of him and you are banned and ostracized. It’s a Nazi enablement pure and simple.
He’s a free speech absolutist- when it comes to his own speech.
Sending people to jail is a great way to make sure they don’t spend time embroiled in Nazi ideology on every level. Probably the best way to make sure someone never comes in contact with a single particle of Nazism, is to send them to prison.
(Can you tell I’m american?)
I sat on a jury recently and a large part of the case had to do with prison culture. It’s so incredibly sad how accurate this is.
My dad was a prison guard, I’ve thought about some of these dynamics a lot over the years.
Honestly what else is there to do? These people aren’t exactly going to change their minds, and letting them display hate in the name of free speech is only going to help them mobilize and elect more trumps in the world.
Well I say it elsewhere, but we need to really start to rethink carcerial justice as a solution to social problems. It doesn’t help, it just compounds the contradictions that lead to problems like crime, fascism in the first place.
I understand we can’t just snap our fingers to make it go away. But The first step is discussion.
Lets discuss freeing violent rapists.
No.
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Does imagining everyone that is locked behind bars as a violent rapist make you feel safe?
No, the vast majority never go to prison. I gave it as an example, i dont think you are pro rape. It’s just an example of incarcarating people in order to protect society. I believe that protecting people is the primary goal of incarceration. Better rehabilitation would obviously help this endeavour. I disagree completely with the idea of no incarceration as this would allow violence to flourish with no protection for those under threat.
Sorry I deleted that comment, I didn’t like my tone.
Personally I’m not a prison abolitionist. I’d like to see an end to it, ideally, but realistically that would be an amount of practical work beyond just simple reforms, the whole of society would have to be changed. I’m into that, which is why I don’t ideally dismiss it.
I treated it better elsewhere, here I just said “you can’t snap your fingers” but what I mean is prisons and police they actually are the answer to a lot of problems in society. I agree with you, I would like to see much more reform programs rather than the USA prison system that “needs” prisons, which isn’t to say every prison is a social necessity, more like there are political and economic incentive structures that make meaningful progressive change extremely difficult. But my father was a prison guard, and we don’t agree much on politics, especially when it comes to carcerial justice, but that man had seen some absolute monsterous behavior from people who are basically unreformable by any modern standard – and as much as I wish that wasn’t the case and I wish they had been given the opportunity for a better life where maybe they wouldn’t have lost every bit of their humanity, that doesn’t change reality.
However I do think that a society that proliferates carcerial justice the way that we do in the USA, which is all my experience is about, I dont know about Aussie prisons, is not one that is able to restore or even preserve the humanity of all its citizens. A society that makes monsters needs a place to put them; however a place to put monsters creates a demand for monstrousness that must be met. This is what I think it is possible and realistic to abolish.
Thanks for the response, I did take it personally but thanks for clarifying your position
I think we would agree that for profit prisons are an absolute atrocity. I harbour a lot of hate for certain types of criminals, but for profit prison is downright evil and corrupt right off the bat. Protecting the public must include rehabilitation or you’re just releasing monsters. I would separate violent and non violent, i would also throw every intervention at the problem and see what works, employ the success stories, end poverty fist and foremost. In my opininion, incarceration is necessary mostly because society has failed, in some caes it is however, unavoidable.
I appreciate your perspective and experience on the subject. Thank you.
I don’t know we do it, but I think addressing the root causes as to why people are drawn to hate groups or hateful beliefs would be better. Eliminating the symptom doesn’t solve the problem.
It’s a hell of a lot harder to join a hate group if you can’t identify any members to find out who to sign up with.
They can still easily identify each other online, social groups, clubs, etc. I would think that’s how most of these people get together anyway, and not from some rando on the street throwing up a nazi salute. Making the gesture illegal also doesn’t solve why people are this way. It doesn’t solve the problem. It just covers it up (imo).
I have no idea why you are so convinced that people are just as likely to join hate groups when they don’t know that they exist, but okay…
Because, as I said, they find each other online, in social settings, etc. Shit, the Aryan Brotherhood started as a prison gang. Banning the salute isn’t going to keep people from knowing about hate groups because that’s not how they find out about them to begin with.
I’m not arguing against banning hate speech, I’m just saying that that alone isn’t going to fix the problem. We also need to figure out why people are drawn to this stuff. Is it poverty? Lack of education? Lead in the drinking water?
Yes, no one is denying there are other ways to do it.
What you seem to be suggesting is that if you eliminate literally the most easy way to find who to sign up with when it comes to joining a hate group, it won’t make a difference.
What exactly do you think the point of public advertising is? Aesthetics?
I’mIn American prisons are white, black, Latin superiority gangs.
Trump puts tariffs on Australia…
And Musk to block Starlink from Australia.
gosh, how we let the weird kid gather so much power…
He’s gonna get starlink to burn insects like with a magnifying glass. Maybe the Jewish space lasers were Nazi space lasers all along.
They’re projecting like always.
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Wow I never thought about this but would not be surprised at the development. If you vertically integrate the company that controls the satellites, the company that launches them into orbit, the govt that oversees it all, etc, you could just send whatever up there, especially with hundreds of launches and satellites.
Good. This needs to be worldwide. They need to reeducate the people as to
A: Why the Nazis were bad beyond ‘they wanna kill people!’ Their utter disgust of science and technology, and how their social policies were actively fucking over their own people in addition to others. B: Just how incompetent the Nazis were, and were far from a hyperefficient machine. C: Just how bad they were at science and despite their demonization, West Germany was never fully denazified and how many former Nazi officers returned to work as politicians and military officers.
There is a plethora of books written before and during WW2 that showcased just how evil the Nazis were and how fucked their society was. They also need a review of Mein Kampf and how Hitler dictated it. Exactly like how Trump dictated the Art of the Deal to a writer and did not write it himself.
My suggestion of one book written during the Nazi Era is Education for Death by Gregor Ziemer. The society it showed was really, REALLY fucked. How anyone could think this was a paradise is beyond me. Most modern fascists, with their donut bodies and chinless faces would be the types considered feeble and probably sterilized as a ‘charity’.
I don’t see how mandatory jail time helps with “They need to reeducate the people”
People tend to get further radicalized in prison, not less.
If you want to Re-educate people you need to invest in education in the first place.
Once someone buys into Nazi rhetoric it can take decades to deprogram them. How do you suggest this to be done when it takes far shorter amount of time to spread their rhetoric?
Their point is that not only does jailing them not deprogram them or prevent them from spreading their rhetoric, it is more likely to have the opposite effect.
That is a poor point and allowing it to spread is the reality we are actually facing.
Case in point. Germany has been tightly controlling this for several decades. Is their society now overran by Nazi rhetoric? The answer is no.
Being German, unfortunately the answer to that is yes, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum, it’s because the media and politicians have been courting right wing ideologies over the past 20 years to an extent that things have become normalized that should have never been normalized, e.g. framing asylum seekers as „migrants“ and adopting dehumanizing language against them, which has led to us having AFD polling at 20% and CDU at 30%.
CDU has recently collaborated with the right wing extremist AFD to push through a proposal for an anti-migration bill that violates our constitution. There has been an uproar but CDU and AFD actually polled higher after this. Our country is in deep trouble and we’re moving into a very scary direction.
Thank you for that perspective. It is sad to see all that diligence being chipped away.
That example proves the first users point. The answer to the German question is that they spend a great deal of money on having an excellent education system, and spend a lot of time educating their youth with an honest, unflinching look at the history of Nazism and fascism.
I’m not even saying don’t throw people in jail, I’m simply saying it is pure idiocy to believe that will do anything at all to help the underlying problem.
Some people need to be separated. This isn’t about censorship, it’s about group dynamics.
Let’s take it from both angles - just to avoid politics. A disruptive kid in a classroom affects every other kid. Get rid of that kid, and suddenly the whole classroom improves. Everyone can agree to that.
The other side - a company has a pro-union worker. Shitty company doesn’t like not controlling their workers, so they find a way to fire them.
Back to the Nazi, separate them from the rest of society. We don’t need them.
It depends upon whether Australian prisons are focused on rehabilitation or punishment.
facists are deadend for humanity
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Those were the exceptions. When it came to things like medical science with experiments on POWs and concentration camp prisoners they were so abysmal it wasn’t funny.
First, I despise the fucking Nazis and Communists. The disgusting human experiments that were conducted by the Germans and Japanese were gobbled up by the Allied medical professionals.
you can just call them fascists
They were useless scientifically and did not yield usable results. I will get you a paper proving it later.
I used to be a person that believed very strongly in freedom of speech and that anything which was categorized as a philosophy or belief shouldn’t be censored.
However, after seeing how hard fascism has taken hold in America, I’m beginning to change my mind.
Freedom of speech was created so citizens could feel safe criticising the government, not so they could spout hatred about people who were different to them. You can say whatever the fuck you want, up until it makes others unsafe, that doesn’t mean oh they say bad words and im offended, or i don’t like them promoting that candidate over the one i like that has christian* values. No, that means you words and actions intentionally incite hatred and violence.
All this hiding behind free speech shite thats been happening for a very long time has just given the shit cunts the courage to be shit cunts. And now because the US shat the bed and its been spreading the world, the rest of the world needs to sanitise.
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100% unregulated free speech would benefit the rich disproportionately. Is there no line for you? No nuance to how speech functions in our society?
time has just given the shit cunts the courage to be shit cunts
There’s something to be said for that, knowing they are shit cunts.
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targeting Jewish Australians.
There it is. I’ll bet criticizing Isreal is considered anti-semetic too. Meanwhile Aboriginals still don’t have rights.
You may want to quote some more of that bit, bud. It was a FOILED BOMBING PLOT targeting Jewish Australians.
How is Israel relevant?
But yes, native people always seem to get the shaft, no matter where you are. Again though, not relevant in this thread surely.
Good. I’m glad Australia drew a hard line.
A hard line angled up at about 45 degrees.
Send nazi pig Elon there on a one way flight.
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Yes that’s how corruption works
Now make it retroactive and with universal jurisdiction.
I know you’re joking, but we do not want retroactive laws
The funny thing is that the Nuremberg Trials were based on retroactive laws. Nothing the Nazis did was technically illegal, so they were prosecuted on the basis that their actions were decided to be crimes after the fact.
Nothing the Nazis did was technically illegal
What?
In WW2, the concentration camps and the Holocaust didn’t break any German or international laws. This is the first case where the charge of crimes against humanity was used.
Surely kidnapping and murder were illegal.
Nope. They were perfectly legal as they were ordered by the government.
The thing is this just makes it “cooler” among the Nazis because now it’s illegal. It plays right into their persecution complex. It also opens up a legal morass of trying to define a hand gesture in court. To me this seems like it’s fighting the symptoms and not the underlying problems.
A Nazi/Hitler salut was always illegal in Germany after WW 2 and courts figured it out what counts as a nazi salute and what not (it often comes down to context i guess).
The thing is this just makes it “cooler” among the Nazis because now it’s illegal.
Only until they are caught.
Then they become martyrs for their group.
It also opens up a legal morass of trying to define a hand gesture in court> It also opens up a legal morass of trying to define a hand gesture in court I feel like that part would just be the same way porn is treated, "I [the judge] know it when I see it]
Can Canada do this too?
I don’t think this behavior should be socially tolerated; however, I don’t think it’s a good idea to police it through the use of governmental force.
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[…] regulations are how we enforce social tolerance in a manner that isn’t just “I don’t like you, please stop, but also I won’t do anything to you if you keep doing it.” […]
I think a more forceful alternative could be being something like “I wont allow you into my place of business”. I think one could also encounter issues with finding employment, or one could lose their current employment. Social repercussions like that can be quite powerful imo. I think the type of tolerance that’s damaging is the complacent/quiet type where one simply lets them be without protest.
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[…] Truly, the “more forceful alternative.”
I only meant more forceful than your only stated possibility:
I don’t like you, please stop, but also I won’t do anything to you if you keep doing it.
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[…] Especially when you consider that businesses look out for what will make them the most profit, not what’s socially right/wrong. If the Nazis had more money than the non-Nazis, then substantially less businesses would do anything to stop them […]
Hm. Your statement “If the Nazis had more money than the non-Nazis” is an important distinction; however, I think it also crucially depends on the distribution of nazis throughout the populace (assuming the society in question in governed by a majoritarian democratic system). The statement “If the Nazis had more money than the non-Nazis”, I think, infers the potential of monopolistic behavior in that ownership of the market becomes consolidated in the hands of those who are nazi-sympathetic. In this case, assuming the nazis were a minority of the populace, the government would step in as it must prevent monopolistic market behavior to ensure fair market competition [1]; however, if the nazis were a majority of the populace, I fear the argument is moot as they likely would be the ones creating the laws in the first place [2], assuming they had a monopoly on power (as if they didn’t, it’s plausible that the minority with a monopoly on power would revolt), and I think it would be plausible that they would create a market regulating body that is favorable to nazi-sympathetic entities.
References
- “Capitalism”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-08T16:40Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T22:13Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism.
- ¶1.
[…] The defining characteristics of capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, [competitive markets], price systems, recognition of property rights, self-interest, [economic freedom], work ethic, [consumer sovereignty], decentralized decision-making, profit motive, a financial infrastructure of money and investment that makes possible credit and debt, entrepreneurship, commodification, voluntary exchange, wage labor, production of commodities and services, and a strong emphasis on innovation and economic growth. […]
- ¶1.
- “Majoritarianism”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-01-15T01:23Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T22:19Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majoritarianism.
- ¶1.
Majoritarianism is a political philosophy or ideology with an agenda asserting that a majority, whether based on a religion, language, social class, or other category of the population, is entitled to a certain degree of primacy in society, and has the right to make decisions that affect the society. […]
- ¶1.
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- “Capitalism”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-08T16:40Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T22:13Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism.
[…] not only does imprisonment do [social shunning] […]
I don’t agree that this is necessarily true. For example, what of the case of a tyrannical government? Society may be accepting of a behavior, yet the behavior may be an imprisonable offense. Therefore something being an imprisonable offense doesn’t necessitate that it be a socially shunned behavior (by the majority).
Do we really want to mandate jail time though? It seems like maybe fines would be effective? I’m not in favor of inventing more ways to fill up for-profit prisons with non-violent offenders.
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Furthermore, and this is something you’ll probably see brought up a lot when using that talking point, there is a paradox of tolerance that cannot be avoided when it comes to issues like Nazism. Nazi rhetoric is inherently discriminatory and intolerant. If you allow it to flourish, it kills off all other forms of tolerance until only itself is left. If you don’t tolerate Nazi rhetoric, it doesn’t come to fruition and destroy other forms of tolerance.
Any ideology that actively preaches intolerance towards non-intolerant groups must not be tolerated, otherwise tolerance elsewhere is destroyed.
I would like to clarify that I am not advocating for tolerance. It’s quite the contrary. I am advocating for very vocal intolerance of these groups and their behaviors. It is simply my belief that governmental force is not a necessary means to this end, not to mention that it is incompatible with the ideas of liberalism [1], which I personally espouse.
References
- Title: “Liberalism”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-02T19:43Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T05:47Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.
- ¶1
[…] Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion.
- Policing speech is incompatible with the freedom of speech.
- ¶1
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[…] If your ideology allows Nazis to face no legal consequences for being Nazis, while you simultaneously state that you don’t believe they should be tolerated, then you hold mutually contradictory views. […]
I think you’ve made a fair point. I think, in this case, it depends on how you are defining freedom of speech [1.1]. Freedom of speech doesn’t negate one’s freedom of association [1.2]; it simply states that one should be free to express themselves without fear of censorship [2]. Censorship requires active suppression of speech [3[4]]; I argue that if one chooses to not associate with someone, they aren’t actively suppressing their speech. So, more to your point, allowing the nazis to express their opinions is an exercise of freedom speech. Being intolerable of nazis is an exercise of freedom of association (eg choosing to not associate with them) and freedom of speech (eg vocalizing one’s distaste of them).
All that being said, this makes me consider whether, philosophically, one’s political positions also apply to how one personally behaves. I think it could be said that one’s political philosophies derive from one’s personal morals.
References
- Title: “Liberalism”. Publisher: Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-02T19:43Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T01:53Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.
- ¶1.
[…] Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, [freedom of speech], freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. […]
- Liberalism espouses freedom of speech.
- ¶1.
[…] Liberals espouse various and often mutually warring views depending on their understanding of these principles but generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, [freedom of assembly], and freedom of religion. […]
- Liberalism espouses freedom of association.
- ¶1.
- Title: “Freedom of speech”. Publisher: Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-03T14:50. Accessed: 2025-02-08T01:55Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech.
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. […]
- Word: “Censorship”. Publisher: Merriam-Webster. Accessed: 2025-02-08T01:56Z. URI: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorship.
- §“noun”
- §“noun”
- Word: “Censor”. Publisher: Merriam-Webster. Accessed: 2025-02-08T01:57Z. URI: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censoring.
- §“verb”
- §“verb”
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- Title: “Liberalism”. Publisher: Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-02T19:43Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T01:53Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.
[…] If your ideology allows Nazis to face no legal consequences for being Nazis, while you simultaneously state that you don’t believe they should be tolerated, then you hold mutually contradictory views. […]
This is a loaded statement — it depends on what you mean by “being Nazis”.
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[…] If you don’t support imprisoning people who hold these views that directly lead to the death of many innocent people, the taking over of people’s land/homes, the destruction of democratic systems, and the elimination of entire races of people from populations, then you are inherently tolerating their beliefs.
To me, it feels like you are conflating some things here: I draw a distinction between how I try to conduct myself (and, by extension, how I think society should conduct itself), and how I think a government should conduct itself. Any common overlap, while it may theoretically draw from the same core personal beliefs, is more of a coincidence in practice, imo. Yes, I think that society should not socially tolerate any of these behaviors, and I think that society should take an active position to socially oppose them; but I don’t believe that a government should take action unless the well-being of an individual is actively under threat.
I could be wrong in my interpretation, but all of your examples seem to simply a be a difference of opinion (no matter how abhorrent and unpalatable an opinion may be). I don’t believe that one should be legally punished for a difference of opinion. The only one that may have some legal ground, in my opinion, as I currently understand your examples, is
Supporting dictatorship, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism as a concept or goal
but that would depend on how you are defining “support”.
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[…] If saying they shouldn’t be stopped using the force of law isn’t tolerating the behavior more than saying we should stop them using the force of law, then I don’t know what is. […]
Yes, I agree that not using governmental force would be more legally tolerant — as you mentioned above:
Saying we shouldn’t police those behaviors is actively stating that you want to tolerate them, just via legal means rather than solely social ones.
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[…] I don’t think Nazis should be able to say the things that make them Nazis, and I’ll be mean to them about it and hope businesses shun them, but I won’t actually stop them from doing that. […]
I think this begs the question — is it certain that social intolerance wont prevent, or is likely to not prevent these ideologies from accelerating in adoption?
[…] So, what is your reasoning for why they should be shunned socially, but not legally? Why is it more beneficial to allow them to say specifically what they say, as opposed to preventing that by force?
It may depend on what you mean by “beneficial”, but, generally, I’m not necessarily arguing that not imprisoning those espousing nazi-rhetoric would be more “positive” than the alternative, I simply fear the risks of going the route of governmental force outweigh the benefits. I fear tyrannical overreach, and I think a liberal approach, while not perfect, may be the best means to stave off this outcome. But, at least we have experiments like Australia, which can be examined from a distance.
Philosophically, the question becomes rather uncomfortable for me to answer; I personally don’t feel that I can be certain that my views are moral, so I tend to prefer the option that ensures the largest amount of ideological freedom. I understand that the paradox of tolerance is a threat to that idea, and it should be resisted, but I’m simply not convinced that imprisonment is the best antidote.
[…] If you don’t think their views should be tolerated, you should support actions that prevent their views from being held and spread. […]
I support social actions that prevent their views from being held and spread.
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If I understand you correctly, you are saying that you think the current government (USA) is fascist. If so, would you mind describing exactly why you think that? Do note that I’m not disputing your claim — I’m simply curious what your rationale is.
- Title: “Liberalism”. Wikipedia. Published: 2025-02-02T19:43Z. Accessed: 2025-02-08T05:47Z. URI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism.
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[…] i still thoroughly disagree with you […]
Would you mind outlining why?
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