That is not saying that Germany is abusing the law, just that they have an ineffective implementation that shitty countries could use as an excuse to enact their own abusive practices.
Honestly, I’d rather deal with people abusing hate speech laws and punishing them for abuse than to not have legal protection from hate and discrimination.
The past 200+ years have shown that the founding fathers’ absolutism and interpretation of social matters in terms of speech alone is faulty. It didn’t take into consideration the failings of the people as a whole and allowed for genocide, slavery and civil war, and enabled the very same tyrannical government they sought to oppose.
And this is because it’s not a speech issue. It’s an intent issue, and society needs to be completely restructured to account for intent, which despite popular belief is actually pretty easy to determine.
Banning Nazis is the first step toward that necessary change. And if social and moral progress is to continue, it must.
Here’s the thing, I agree that hate speech is bad. But then I look at countries like China and think “I like having freedom of speech”.
How about when a republican gets in office, and he gets to define hate speech?