Neo-Nazis and Ban on "Defence of Fascism" in Italy

[Laika]

I found this news story on reddit and it raised some interesting questions:

Source: Italy uncovers plot to create new Nazi party

Police in Italy have foiled a plot by extremists to form a new Nazi party, seizing a hoard of weapons that included sniper rifles and swords.

Images released by investigators showed a cache of guns, body armour, knives and even a Wolverine-style claw weapon taken from raids up and down the country.

Officers in 16 towns and cities – from Sicily to the Alps – were involved in the two-year probe, which also found that the extremist group had links with like-minded people in the UK.

On Thursday police revealed they had disrupted a “huge and varied array of subjects, residents in different places, united by the same ideological fanaticism and willing to create an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic and antisemitic movement”.

Investigators did not say how many people joined the group or how many were arrested.

“Defence of fascism” and efforts to revive fascist parties are criminal offences in Italy.

The new party was called the Italian National Socialist Party of Workers and police showed off a range of Nazi paraphernalia, including swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler, seized during searches of 19 properties.

They also found a large number of weapons, including pistols, hunting rifles and crossbows.

The group had forged links with extremist groups abroad, including in Portugal, Britain and France, police said.

In July police found a huge stash of weapons including an air-to-air missile that they linked to far-right extremists while, in November, two men connected to another group of Nazi sympathisers were arrested on suspicion of planning to attack a mosque.

Do you think Neo-Nazis should be allowed to form a party in Italy? Or do you agree with the ban?

Thoughts and Comments Welcome.

 

[Stanyon]

From the pictures I saw the swords appeared to be of the decorative type (aka junk) and at least one of the rifles appeared to be a pellet gun, I may be wrong. I would love to see the police inventory list to be sure of what actually was confiscated. We've had "terror" cells here uncovered with tables of weapons including hand grenades, problem is that when the picture was taken one could clearly see the holes in the bottoms of the grenades, often sold as paperweights.

 

[Cooky]

I found this news story on reddit and it raised some interesting questions:

Source: Italy uncovers plot to create new Nazi party

Police in Italy have foiled a plot by extremists to form a new Nazi party, seizing a hoard of weapons that included sniper rifles and swords.

Images released by investigators showed a cache of guns, body armour, knives and even a Wolverine-style claw weapon taken from raids up and down the country.

Officers in 16 towns and cities – from Sicily to the Alps – were involved in the two-year probe, which also found that the extremist group had links with like-minded people in the UK.

On Thursday police revealed they had disrupted a “huge and varied array of subjects, residents in different places, united by the same ideological fanaticism and willing to create an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic and antisemitic movement”.

Investigators did not say how many people joined the group or how many were arrested.

“Defence of fascism” and efforts to revive fascist parties are criminal offences in Italy.

The new party was called the Italian National Socialist Party of Workers and police showed off a range of Nazi paraphernalia, including swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler, seized during searches of 19 properties.

They also found a large number of weapons, including pistols, hunting rifles and crossbows.

The group had forged links with extremist groups abroad, including in Portugal, Britain and France, police said.

In July police found a huge stash of weapons including an air-to-air missile that they linked to far-right extremists while, in November, two men connected to another group of Nazi sympathisers were arrested on suspicion of planning to attack a mosque.

Do you think Neo-Nazis should be allowed to form a party in Italy? Or do you agree with the ban?

Thoughts and Comments Welcome.

Just like I would want an Islamic, Sharia party banned, I would want these people banned. They're the same to me -destructive, and not constructive.

...But in America, we have freedom. Which includes ideologies.

 

[PureX]

It is not logical or reasonable to force or expect any institution based on a set of principals to accept into itself people who intend to act counter to those principals, even if those principals happens to include freedoms of speech, ideology, assemblage, and so on. So my answer is that only a society of fools would allow to fester within it's own midst people who actively intend to destroy the very ideals that society holds dear.

The key factor, however, is the active intent to destroy those social imperatives that the society seeks to embody. I don't think discussing alternative ideals should be banned, or punished. But when the discussion turns into actions that have not been adopted or sanctioned by society as whole, the stability of the society becomes threatened, and it's simply illogical for a society to tolerate that kind of internal threat.

 

[Altfish]

Just like I would want an Islamic, Sharia party banned, I would want these people banned. They're the same to me -destructive, and not constructive.

...But in America, we have freedom. Which includes ideologies.

Banning helps radicalise, those banned; it helps their recruitment and promotes their grievances

 

[PureX]

Banning helps radicalise, those banned; it helps their recruitment and promotes their grievances

Only when the banning has no real consequence attached to it. Or when the social status quo has failed a significant majority of the people within the society in question.

 

[Altfish]

Only when the banning has no real consequence attached to it. Or when the social status quo has failed a significant majority of the people within the society in question.

So tell me, when has a ban promoted a unity with those banned?

 

[PureX]

So tell me, when has a ban promoted a unity with those banned?

An effective ban eliminates that which you imagine being promoted. So that promotion cannot occur.

 

[Altfish]

An effective ban eliminates that which you imagine being promoted. So that promotion cannot occur.

So, you do not have an example?

 

[PureX]

So, you do not have an example?

We should allow for discussion, debate, contemplation, etc. of fascism as a social order. We should not allow actions intent on bringing it about, such as the dissemination of propaganda, creation and display of representative symbols, dogmas, or rituals, or the formation of clubs or secret societies based on fascist ideals or principals, etc.,. If we effectively ban the latter, there will be no means of promotion.

 

[LuisDantas]

Do you think Neo-Nazis should be allowed to form a party in Italy? Or do you agree with the ban?

Thoughts and Comments Welcome.

Allowed? Yes, I guess so. All-out banning encourages a martyr complex that ill serves anyone.

Prosecuting the heck out of their possession of illegal weapons, though, is fair and welcome game.

And they better expect no protection from the ridicule and despisal that they are so relentlessly pursuing.

 

[LuisDantas]

Only when the banning has no real consequence attached to it.

What are you calling "real consequence" here? It seems to me that clandestinity and martyr complex are real enough consequences. So is the extremism that comes with those.

Or when the social status quo has failed a significant majority of the people within the society in question.

Every society has "failed" a significant majority of its own people, even if it is only in not meeting the wildest, most unreasonable expectations of its own movers and shakers.

 

[LuisDantas]

An effective ban eliminates that which you imagine being promoted. So that promotion cannot occur.

Do you truly think that you can ban ideas?

 

[LuisDantas]

We should allow for discussion, debate, contemplation, etc. of fascism as a social order. We should not allow actions intent on bringing it about, such as the dissemination of propaganda, creation and display of representative symbols, dogmas, or rituals, or the formation of clubs or secret societies based on fascist ideals or principals, etc.,. If we effectively ban the latter, there will be no means of promotion.

Repeat after me:

"That just can't ever work".

Thanks.

 

[PureX]

What are you calling "real consequence" here? It seems to me that clandestinity and martyr complex are real enough consequences. So is the extremism that comes with those.

Only after the toxic ideology has become a recognized sub-culture that then offers the occasional sick mind an 'anti-hero' model to aggrandize and further enable it's sickness. These kinds of people never think this stuff up on their own.

Every society

has "failed" a significant majority of its own people, even if it is only in not meeting the wildest, most unreasonable expectations of its own movers and shakers.

I think you're letting the fact of occasional exceptions blind you to the more general and obvious course of reality.

 

[PureX]

Do you truly think that you can ban ideas?

We don't have to ban any ideas. We only have to ban the intentional 'call to action' of certain socially toxic ideas. It's not that hard.

 

[LuisDantas]

Only after the toxic ideology has become a recognized sub-culture that then offers the occasional sick mind an 'anti-hero' model to aggrandize and further enable it's sickness. These kinds of people never think this stuff up on their own.
I think you're letting the fact of occasional exceptions blind you to the more general and obvious course of reality.

Eh. Not a chance, pal.

I have seen how it happens (or fails to). You are promoting dangerous delusions.

 

[julianalexander745]

I don't think Neo-Nazis are or ever have been much of a threat.

 

[Left Coast]

I found this news story on reddit and it raised some interesting questions:

Source: Italy uncovers plot to create new Nazi party

Police in Italy have foiled a plot by extremists to form a new Nazi party, seizing a hoard of weapons that included sniper rifles and swords.

Images released by investigators showed a cache of guns, body armour, knives and even a Wolverine-style claw weapon taken from raids up and down the country.

Officers in 16 towns and cities – from Sicily to the Alps – were involved in the two-year probe, which also found that the extremist group had links with like-minded people in the UK.

On Thursday police revealed they had disrupted a “huge and varied array of subjects, residents in different places, united by the same ideological fanaticism and willing to create an openly pro-Nazi, xenophobic and antisemitic movement”.

Investigators did not say how many people joined the group or how many were arrested.

“Defence of fascism” and efforts to revive fascist parties are criminal offences in Italy.

The new party was called the Italian National Socialist Party of Workers and police showed off a range of Nazi paraphernalia, including swastikas and pictures of Adolf Hitler, seized during searches of 19 properties.

They also found a large number of weapons, including pistols, hunting rifles and crossbows.

The group had forged links with extremist groups abroad, including in Portugal, Britain and France, police said.

In July police found a huge stash of weapons including an air-to-air missile that they linked to far-right extremists while, in November, two men connected to another group of Nazi sympathisers were arrested on suspicion of planning to attack a mosque.

Do you think Neo-Nazis should be allowed to form a party in Italy? Or do you agree with the ban?

Thoughts and Comments Welcome.

If we value freedoms of speech and assembly, even crazy far-right lunatics must be allowed to organize. When they take action to harm others (e.g. through domestic terrorism like we see here in the US) then law enforcement needs to step in and prevent them from doing harm and/or bring them to justice.

 

[Altfish]

We should allow for discussion, debate, contemplation, etc. of fascism as a social order. We should not allow actions intent on bringing it about, such as the dissemination of propaganda, creation and display of representative symbols, dogmas, or rituals, or the formation of clubs or secret societies based on fascist ideals or principals, etc.,. If we effectively ban the latter, there will be no means of promotion.

That's what I said to begin with.