Comment by pluma | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pluma | Hacker News Reader

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No, but the relatively moderate notion of "criticising Islam" has provided an unfortunate opportunity for neo-nazis to present themselves in a more socially acceptable light. Just like "criticising the EU" did last year.

EDIT: Okay, seriously, what the fuck with the downvotes? The EU does have a nazi problem and the contemporary problems with the financial crisis and Islamists are very convenient vehicles for it. Ever heard of the demonstrations against Islam we had in Germany? The organizers are blatant neo-nazis. Heard of the interest groups like PEGIDA? Plenty of neo-nazis and even Holocaust denialists among their leadership.

Criticising Islam or the EU is perfectly valid and acceptable. Anything can and should be criticised. But don't be misled to believe that all these protests are orchestrated by liberalists and constitutionalists just because that's how they present themselves. The "Euro-sceptic" AfD we voted into parliaments have strong ties with other nazi organisations. Same with PEGIDA and its various offsprings.

I don't have the power to down vote. The Dresden marches have had at most, from what I've seen in the news 17 000 people - I don't think that is enough to say that the EU has a nazi problem. It might be considered that a single nazi is a problem, but in terms of nazis being a threat to the EU, 17 000 is not a problem. Somewhere in the region of 250 000 Brits declared themselves Jedi in the last census, if that puts it in perspective. The last video I saw of the marches showed a black guy up front: http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/dec/23/thousands... I guess that's open to interpretation. I think a problem the left have is that when they go around blanket labelling everyone racist they are as over-excitedly left as the neo-nazis are over-excitedly right. The left is seen as good, and so people on the left wanting to be more good keep jostling to be more left. The right is seen as bad and so there is a limit to how far right people will move before there is disapproval, that point easily identified as racism, but there doesn't seem to be this obvious limit on the left. It looks to me as though the left limit might be when the left start labelling everyone as racist.

Sure, but it's not just the Dresden marches. It's stuff like the AfD (which managed to con enough voters into believing they have no ulterior motives to make it past the 5% hurdle), the increasingly hostile sentiments towards asylum seekers, and the internal intelligence service's lackluster handling of the NSU murders, too. And that's just Germany.

I'm not seeing we're heading towards another beer hall putsch anytime soon (even if vocal left-wingers would have you believe that), but the various problems have made radical right-wing thinking more socially accepted than it had been a few years ago. And that's a bad thing.

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