German Police Raid a Libertarian’s Home for the Crime of Calling Civil Servants “Parasites”
A new insane German speech crime investigation just dropped.
On September 29th of this year, a German man of libertarian persuasion known only by the pseudonym Damian N. tweeted the following:
No, anyone who is financed by the state pays no net taxes; they live off taxes: every civil servant, every politician, every employee in a state-owned enterprise, everyone who is subsidised and financed by the state. Not a single parasite pays any net taxes.
You can find the tweet here; as I write this, it has a grand total of 402 views and 10 likes.
No matter: yesterday morning, police acting on behalf of the Ulm public prosecutor’s office raided Damian’s home. He is suspected of the crime of inciting hatred (in violation of Section 130 of the German Criminal Code) for his rough remark about government “parasites”.
Apollo News reports:
“At almost exactly 6am, my doorbell rang. I went to the intercom and heard: ‘Police, please open the door, we have a search warrant,’” N. recounts.
“They then gave me a choice: ‘Either you unlock your cell phone and give us the PIN, and we’ll take the cell phone with us, or we’ll take everything.
“Under pressure, I naturally cooperated, unlocked my cell phone, and gave them the PIN,” he said. The officers then took Damian N. to the police station for identification procedures. “The whole programme,” said N.: “Weight, height, photos from many angles, and all the biometric data from my hands. I felt like a serious criminal.” The police also asked for a blood sample – “for your DNA,” as one officer is reported to have said. N. refused. “I thought I hadn’t heard right.”
The identification procedures – roughly comparable to a police booking in the United States – were likely illegal in this case. Damian N. further claims that the police produced no search warrant and provided no receipt for his confiscated phone, which would represent a further violation of the law. Before leaving, an officer instructed our suspected speech criminal to “think carefully about what you post in future”, because “you must realise that you are now under observation”.
This has all the hallmarks of another NGO-driven speech investigation. We have a low-visibility post containing a suggestive vocabulary item (“parasit“) that was likely uncovered via keyword search, a lazy attempt to find a distantly relevant criminal statute and then maximum police harassment and intimidation because, as in all these cases, the process is most of the punishment. They really, really like the 6am morning raids, and they also really like to confiscate phones. As the Lower Saxon prosecutor (and ‘online hate task force’ leader) Frank-Michael Laue told American reporters earlier this year: “It’s a kind of punishment if you lose your smartphone, it’s even worse than the fine you have to pay.”
Update: I should clarify that the statute in play here criminalises inciting hatred against “a national, racial, religious group or a group defined by their ethnic origin”. It’s very hard indeed to understand how saying anything at all about government employees could possibly run afoul of this statute.
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Are there extradition arrangements between UK and Germany. I think we need to know before posting our thoughts on this news item.
Several of my work colleagues refer to politicians as parasites and I agree on the basis that politics attracts a large number of good-for-nothing, useless at anything, bullshit-filled demagogues.
Thus the term “parasite” is entirely justified.
For politicians perhaps. But most public sector employees aren’t politicians and many have to do real work for their money, regardless of the salary being paid by the taxpayer.
Does that “good work” include the many in the civil service doing everything they can to hinder governments getting rid of migrants?
These officers are proving themselves to also be state parasites. Attempting to criminalise opinion.
I certainly consider most civil servants and many public sector employees to be parasitic, they are not serving the people, they don’t consider themselves public servants, they believe we are their servants.
Of course I realise this is in Germany, but it’s no stretch to think something similar could happen here!
Publishing opinions can oftentimes be a crime in Germany. But that’s because of the German criminal code the author of the text wasn’t criticizing as such. He just misrepresented it by summarizing its scope wrongly.
As an experiment, I suggest that you try the following: The next time there’s a rubbish collection in your place, go to the binmen and say something like “How dare you empty my bins to pretend that you’re working, useless tax-fed parasites that you are!” Even assuming the accusation was less obviously absurd, this would still be a grave insult to people who are perfectly rightly convinced that they’re working in an honest job. After all, you may be of the opinion that people simply shouldn’t be paid to empty rubbish bins but that’s not your decisions to make and the people who do empty them certainly have every right to do whatever work someone is willing to pay them for and you don’t have a right to abuse them for this.
What do you think the likelihood of this ever happening is?
”JUST IN: Germany’s ruling government has agreed that forced military conscription will now be possible “if needed.”
All men over 18 will be eligible for conscription.
If there are not enough “volunteers,” Germany can use a “random selection process” to draft soldiers.”
https://x.com/RMXnews/status/1988891988968489083
Germany is in the process of reintroducing some form of military conscription to broaden the pool of trained soldiers which could be used in an actual conflict and that’s the most recent proposal: Have all men over 18 examined to classify them according to fitness for military service (called Musterung) and call for volunteers. If not enough volunteers come forward, chose soldiers by the lot. That’s intended to get around the reason why conscription had to be suspended in Germany: Because of the miniscule size of the armed forces Germany is allowed to have according to the so-called “2 + 4 treaty” (German ‘unification’ treaty) only very few of the people who opted for military service were actually conscripted while all conscious objectors had to serve in some civil role for about a year. Someone sued against this on the grounds that this wasn’t just and fair for conscious objectors (lacking so-called Wehrgerechtigkeit). Selecting conscripts randomly is obviously ‘just’ in the sense that everybody has the same chance to be selected (or the same chance to escape). Nothing has been implemented so far as proposals are still being discussed. But it looks as if this is getting ready for implementation.… Read more »
With the multitude of “recent arrivals” fitting the eligibility profile, what likelihood of a fifth column emerging and receiving military training that could be used against the German state?
Another plan which was circulated was to extend the Bundeswehr to be little like French Foreign Legion: Recruit foreigners to serve in the army and reward them with German citizenship after X years of service. But considering that the German state has much more willing recruits than it could ever actually turn into soldiers due to the severe size restriction of the German armed forces, that wasn’t exactly an idea anyone was looking for.
What you are using as an an analogy is actually absurd. No one except a lunatic would criticise a person doing the job they get paid for properly. However my bin people often leave my bins 80 metres down from my house instead of where they picked them up outside my house. Basically because that is where the truck has stopped and they then empty it and just leave it where the truck is. Perhaps I might be justified in complaining about that. The reason I don’t complain is tactical. Often complaining achieves the opposite effect and the binmen would likely see me as some kind of troublemaker. But there are many many areas where government and authorities deserve criticism and the public often feel they are poisoned with contempt. eg On Immigration, on Net Zero, on Education Policy, and infact in a lot of areas. So we need to decide if criticism can include name calling (eg parasites) or not , because if government get their way no criticism will be allowed, and you might remember Rayners “Banter Police” where publicans were to monitor speech in their pub. You will be in a better position to tell us about… Read more »
This is not an analogy. It’s the exact same situation, just with the protective shield of the internet removed, that is, with the abuser being in personal contact with the abused and thus, possibly endangering himself instead of staying safely out of reach. Criticism is not the same as abuse. Complaining that bins are left 80m from the place where they’re supposed to reside is criticism. Claming that this would demonstrate that “all public sector workers” are lazy, workshy f***ers would be abuse. One could also call that “a negative value judgement of someone or some group of people.” Even if this were appropriate, it’s usually not a good tactic to accomplish anything and at times, it’s going to be a lot worse. The police may legally harm you when they deem that this is necessary and they can usually cover that up when they harmed you despite it wasn’t. Hence, calling policemen names is just stupid. Similar to putting your hand into a fire. It’s going to get burnt and everyone knew that this was going to happen, nothing to be learnt here. If I had been in charge of this police operation, I’d have stopped that on the… Read more »
So, my opinion is this: if there is freedom of speech – which invariably includes potentially offensive statements – then calling somebody a parasite cannot be unlawful.
It is just an opinion.
It may be factually incorrect, it may be unkind, but so what? There are people who think the earth is flat – that’s factually incorrect but we don’t arrest people for holding that opinion.
This kind of freedom of speech doesn’t exist in Germany and publishing a great many kinds of opinions is unlawful there. For instance, claiming that Auschwitz wasn’t an extermination but a slave labour camp will reliably cause you to be jailed in Germany (and a fair lot of other places in the world). Making factually wrong statements about other people is also not usually considered freedom of speech, eg, you may not publically claim that your neighbour is a convicted child molestor if he isn’t. Same goes for wrongly referring to someone as fraudster, as in the incriminated statement.
There’s a difference between expressing an opinion and asserting that something is factually true and someone’s desire to abuse public sector employees doesn’t beget a legal right to actually do so.
Yes but who is to decide whether some government official can be classed as a “parasite?” Surely that cannot be classed as a fact or not. It is an opinion.
We do actually have laws against slander and libel.
§130 STGB includes “a part of the people” (“Teile der Bevölkerung”). This certainly includes public sector employees which are a part of the people. A parasite is a kind of lifeform which sustains itself by causing harm to some host. Public sector employees obviously include policemen. And publically smearing policemen as parasites is – apart from being nonsense – certainly a very imprudent thing to do. Plus, for standards of the German police, this guy was very leniently treated, ie, there was no personal violence against him. Were I to call a German police officer a parasite, I’d expect to end up “falling down a staircase” because of a regrettable accident.
In brief and German: Selber schuld. Weniger schwer beleidigendes dummes Zeug posten.
Mistletoe is a parasite. I hope it’s not insulting to point that out.
“For you must also understand this, my people’s comrades: No leader can use more strength than his followers give him! What am I without you? What you do not give me, I can never use for your own benefit! If you refuse me your unanimous unity, what should I do?! I am a single man, I can possess the best will. The will is not worth more to you than your will is worth to me! And that brings us to the problem of freedom! Freedom, yes! Insofar as the interest of the national community gives the individual freedom, it is given! Where the freedom affects or even impairs the interests of the national community, the freedom of the individual ceases! Then the freedom of the national community takes the place of the freedom of the individual!”
A. H. (1937)
Hitler called Jewish people Schmarotzer (parasites) as he persecuted them.
A parasite is a lifeform which lives off another lifeform involuntarily. For example a tick bird even if the action is helpful. A refuse collector or civil servant lives off taxes on self employed taxpayers whether they agree or not. A taxpayer could pay a refuse collector to remove his rubbish voluntarily but this would not be parasitic. Civil servants working from home or not really while being paid more than self employed taxpayers should not be able to instruct other parasites to arrest non parasites.
…and little fleas have lesser fleas and so on ad infinitum.
This is simply wrong: Someone who works in a paid job lives from his work because if he wasn’t working, he wouldn’t get paid. How his employer acquired the money to pay him is of no concern for this.
I have used that term myself here in the UK to describe certain of the Political Class. Obviously Germany is way down the thought police path in advance of us.
So what you have here now with this “”Hate Speech” tyranny is governments desperate to enforce their absurd policies down our throats and not being able to stand any criticism, and their excuse for clamping down is “social cohesion”. Whatever happened to Rayners “Banter Police” nonsense whereby publicans were expected to monitor their customers chatter? Does anyone know if this actually went ahead?
I have to be honest, I do not care what happens in Germany. But I do care about what happens to British citizens when they have the audacity to comment on social media.folks wake up.
Sounds like Stasi is still operating …. they’ve just expanded their activities to the whole of Germany.
The fact of the matter is: it’s true