Discussion
When I was in Saxony, Germany, last week, a car passed me carrying the bumper sticker, "Death penalty for sexual abuse of children".
I could not help but think that this was a rather specific bit of legislation to put on one's car, and I was surprised someone felt this one-liner was a constructive way to start a debate about an extremely complex topic.
Maybe it is a cultural difference, but in Denmark, political bumper stickers are extremely rare except on actual campaign vehicles.
These stickers are sold on online shops where German Nazis stock up. The now-deceased ‘village Nazi’ from Altenberg (Ost-Erzgebirge, Saxony) also had one of these on his rear windscreen. It doesn’t really stand out there.
@randahl There ist No Culture, believe me.
@randahl That's a code for the extreme right in Germany. They can't use openly anti-gay slogans so they use "child abuser" as a code for gay people. It's fairly common unfortunatey, not just in the East.
Bumper stickers flatten complicated questions into slogans. That works for rallying a crowd but it skips the actual thinking. The harder work is designing spaces where people reason through complexity together, hear each other out, and build something durable. That's what a citizen-driven constitutional process tries to do. Less bumper sticker, more genuine deliberation.
@randahl Bunker stickers are not that rare. A lot of people had anti-nuclear stickers on their cars. Stickers for solar, peace etc. were also common. Nowadays they are rarer. However, adding right wing shite is on the rise.
@prefec2 in Denmark, I do sometimes see religious signs on cars like a small cross or a fish with a cross inside. But since these logos have no words, they strike me as a lot less in-your-face and intrusive.
@randahl It's also a highly specific group of people doing this. The same people who are constantly telling they're not allow to speak freely anymore.
But also there are still lot of cars with 'fuck you Greta' stickers around. Now I wonder if these people actively support Israel now…
@randahl this slogan is a far right dog whistle in Germany, as most of them are in Saxony in my experience. So it's more an I'm a Nazi Statement (one of the fairly old school nineties skinhead variety) than I'm interested in any kind of debate.
@randahl In a UK context, this would be aimed at perpetrators who are also Muslim, asylum seekers or other darker-skinned migrants, not offenders in general.
It's a dog whistle for the far right: they promulgate the toxic myth that newcomers increase crime and are more likely to be sexual offenders and abusers of children. Which is nonsense.
@randahl that sticker is a code of, especially east German, extreme right wing.
It was to my knowledge established by the party NPD, which was never forbidden, because of lack of relevance, but their members partly merged into the AfD.
@randahl We've had one of those around here (in the very west of German) as well. Haven't seen it in a while, though. As such a demand is obviously against our constitution (which rules out death penalties), I wouldn't be surprised if it were classified as "Volksverhetzung" (incitement to hatred).
In rechten Kreisen ist das hier leider so.
Warum warst du in Sachsen?
@Gleisplan ich liebe in der Sächsische Schweiz zu wandern.
@randahl @Gleisplan Klettern besser da .
@randahl Dort ist es auch wunderschön. Das waren immer die Highlights in meiner Kindheit. Königstein. Kletterhütte. Bergsteigen. Und zum Eisessen nach Tschechien rüber.
@sternentau ich habe dieses Jahr Kuhstall, Großstein, und Katzstein besucht. Fotos kommt später. 🤗
@Gleisplan
@randahl political views on bumper stickers I don't see often as well.
Apart of that it may fit. Haven't you posted about the "Freundeskreis schwerer Kettenfahrzeuge Ost", with the T34 as well?
@randahl In the rest of Germany, too.
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