Mandatory jail term for Nazi salute under new hate crime rules in Australia

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I am not mischaracterizing anything. I am asking you to give an example of what you're talking about.

Clearly you can't. You apparently don't understand what autism is.

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Sorry... which are you saying, that Israel's behavior forces people to make Nazi salutes when they otherwise wouldn't or that everyone who makes Nazi salutes is secretly an Israeli operative?

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You can burn a cross on a sidewalk in front of someone's house. That is not trespassing or vandalism or arson and is exactly how the KKK has gotten away with it in the past.

And yes, I do want them to be locked up for that. You are either okay with it or didn't even consider the possibility that a sidewalk is a public space.

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I think it should be legal to do exactly one free punch on anyone who does a nazi salute.

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There was a lot more going on in Germany leading up to WW2.

Neo-nazis don't have to deal with the Treaty of Versailles in 2025, for example.

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American fascism is unique because it solely exists to distract the working class from their exploitation by the ruling class.

In other words, it's cool to be a useful idiot because that's what makes rich people richer the fastest.

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It's crazy watching the left throw freedom of speech under the bus as soon as people start saying things they don't like.

Really makes me proud not to consider myself a liberal at this point. Ya'll are nuts.

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Question for everyone supporting this: do you think saying women can't think for themselves should be classified as hate speech?

Asking for a friend.

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No, I'm saying that Israel runs psyops.

You know what is actual violence? Punching people in the face. Everyone has the potential to become violent. That doesn't mean you can go around punching everyone in the face. Go ask the cops they'll help explain it to you if you need help understanding the concept.

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Go ask the cops they’ll help explain it to you if you need help understanding the concept.

...and the authoritarian emerges from their shell.

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That's a fair point. I didn't really post it thinking "this anecdote supports this law". I just think it's worth remembering the insidious manner in which these organisations encroach on society.

Obviously laws are intended to be policed through governmental force, but they're also a communication regarding what a society considers acceptable.

For example, if a society legislates that the age of consent is 16, then people being charged with statutory rape is only a small part of the impact of that law. In Australia we literally have police giving presentations in schools to ensure that teenagers are aware of the laws that exist to protect them, and how something that might seem innocent to a 15 year old (like sending your crush a photo of your boobs or something), can have dire consequences. In summary, the existence of the law is society standing together and sending a very clear message that some behaviors are unacceptable, a formalisation of social intolerance if you will.

Fascist organisations have been successfully recruiting, and it seems like they're gaining momentum. Sure some bar might be able to keep skin heads out, but "soft" social intolerance very obviously is inadequate.

The thing is, these groups don't start with hatred right off the bat. A normal kid might see a fascist organisation as some kind of boys club. Cool iconography, loyalty, camaraderie, whats not to like? The existence of this law will ensure that people are aware of the depravity of this ideology and reduce their ability to seduce recruits by deception.

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Because if you don't see the nazis, then it's OK that they're nazis

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I say two

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Actually I don't think so, because not only was it on a public stage, he also used racist dog whistles during his speech. If Musk had zeek-hailed like he did during that speech, in Australia, it's possible he would have gotten 12 months.

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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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Generally speaking, espousing/engaging in the support of many harmful beliefs traditionally held by Nazis, and generally fascists more broadly since Nazism is just a branch of fascism, such as:

Supporting the actions of the Nazi party historically (e.g. saying the Nazis were right to kill Jewish people, saying "Heil Hitler," or doing the Nazi salute in a clearly deliberate manner)
Supporting dictatorship, authoritarianism, or totalitarianism as a concept or goal
Belief in a so called "master race" or the subordination of other races for the benefit of another/the nation
Advocating for the imprisonment/killing of homosexual/transgender individuals (the exact category of people at risk here can change over time, since fascism just re-selects a new group of people to attack once the former has been exterminated/ostracized enough)
Religious nationalism by any denomination
Advocating to eliminate unions for the benefit of corporations/the state
Ultra-nationalist rhetoric
Advocating for an expansion of the police state
Views of immigrants as sub-human
etc.

Practically speaking, I think it would probably make the most sense to judge whether somebody is a "Nazi" legally, by requiring at least a few of these tenets to be met before any trial could take place to prevent false imprisonment and the like, but as these views are objectively harmful to society, I don't believe they should be allowed to flourish, full stop.

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.

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Okay, let's throw that out then, and look at this objectively. Social shunning or unemployment does not discourage something more than imprisonment, because not only does imprisonment do all of those things, it also restricts individual autonomy altogether, and is thus a more harsh punishment than just denying someone business or employment. Stating that businesses rejecting Nazis will somehow be more of a punishment than arresting them is quite irrational.

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, whereas ideally, the law doesn't care how much money you have, and if you break it, you go to jail. Obviously the wealthy are able to skirt many regulations using money, but there are many that they can't. If a billionaire stabs someone in broad daylight, they go to jail regardless.

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Yes, I agree that not using governmental force would be more legally tolerant — as you mentioned above:

(referencing your other comment for consolidation purposes)

I support social actions that prevent their views from being held and spread.

So what we've established is that:

You are intolerant of their views...
...and won't socially accept them...
...but if given the choice to force them to stop the behavior, you are no longer willing to not tolerate them, at that extent.

Your stance is categorically "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."

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?

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Do we really want to mandate jail time though? It seems like maybe fines would be effective?

Fines are generally not as effective as we'd like, because fines only affect the poor. If you're wealthy, a fine is nothing to you. If a working class person espousing Nazi ideology were to be fined, say, $10,000, that could possibly make them bankrupt. If Elon Musk was fined $10,000 every time he said something directly aligned with the Nazis, he'd still be a multi-billionaire.

Now, sure, we can adjust fines as a percent of income, for instance, which helps, but generally speaking, the loss of autonomy (imprisonment) discourages bad behavior more than the loss of money, thus it tends to be a better way to prevent given behaviors from occurring.

I’m not in favor of inventing more ways to fill up for-profit prisons [...]

I understand, and I agree to an extent, but I think if the problem is the for-profit prisons, we should focus on not having for-profit prisons, rather than not prosecuting what should be crimes just because the current prison system is quite bad.

[...] with non-violent offenders.

Nazis are inherently violent. They may not directly harm an individual, but the ideology revolves around harm coming to other groups. (e.g. how the Nazis killed Jewish people, advocated for the death of homosexuals, etc) When someone supports Nazism, they directly support an ideology that effectively mandates the death of many.

In the same way that I believe health insurance CEOs should be considered murderers when they deliberately implement bad algorithms that deny claims for the sake of shareholder profit, even though they didn't directly cause a death, I believe that people who support ideologies that can lead to the death of many should be treated maybe not as someone who has done a murder, but as someone who allowed the means for a murder to happen, knowingly, gladly, and deliberately.

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If you actually wanted to understand my point, you would have a long time ago. It's not that complicated.

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Mandatory jail term for Nazi salute under new hate crime rules in Australia