David Duke Arrested In Germany..

[monmouth]

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, white supremacist and Louisiana politician, was arrested and taken into custody in Cologne on Friday, prior to a planned speech to a right-wing extremist group, German police said Monday.

The statement by the Cologne police department said that Duke, 61, is "obliged to leave German territory without delay." In a message on his website, Duke said he had been released from jail and requested financial assistance from his followers to fight the deportation.

"To fight this case will cost a lot of money, time and effort," he wrote.

The arrest appears to be tied to Duke's expulsion from the Czech Republic in 2009, following his detention there on suspicion of denying the Holocaust, a crime in many European countries, including Germany. The Cologne police statement said that Duke "was not entitled to stay in Germany" because of a travel ban against him in another, unspecified European country.

Duke, a former neo-Nazi who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. presidency in 1988 and 1992, served a year in prison in 2003 and 2004 after pleading guilty to tax fraud and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from supporters to pay gambling debts.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/29/david-duke-arrested-in-germany_n_1119010.html

[WCGreen]

1. POS

[shraby]

3. Super POS

[Name removed]

57. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[joeybee12]

2. No, keep him there!

In prison...indefinitely!

No, better yet, make him tour Dachau, then Auschwitz, then Bergen-Belsen....

[Downwinder]

6. Then after he is through there extradite him to Treblinka.

[dembotoz]

4. better there than here

[Jack Rabbit]

5. The Germans can keep him

They should consider a way of saying "thank you" for the Marshall Plan.

[Ter]

7. On what grounds should he be imprisoned?

For his tainted political views? Sad to see so many DUers opposing democracy.

[SomethingFishy]

10. Um.. he's not in the United States, he's in Germany

where denial of the Holocaust is illegal. Where Neo-Nazi activity is illegal. Where espousing Nazi ideology is illegal.

Now I understand that many Americans don't get this. They think the first Amendment applies to the whole world. Well it doesn't. Had you been in Germany in the 40's you might have a different opinion of what "political views" means.

In 1941 the political view in Germany was Gay's, Gypsy's, Jews, and anyone else Hitler considered a lesser race were EXTERMINATED, they were shoved into GIANT FUCKING OVENS AND COOKED ALIVE. But hey, that was 70 years ago, why should anyone give a shit, let them start all over again. :eyes:

[Ter]

16. I know it's Germany

I also agree that anyone who wears or displays a Nazi swastika, openly says they are a Nazi, or says that any group should be exterminated should by all means go to jail for a very long time. David Duke doesn't do (nor has he been accused) of any of those things. He is a terrible man, crazy White Nationalist, but IMO jail is too much for that. I could agree with shipping him back to the US however.

[SomethingFishy]

21. He was there to speak to a "right wing extremist group"

So yes he does do "those things" and he was arrested for doing "those things".

Jail may be too much for him here. However when you are in a country where you can walk past Dachau or Auschwitz and see the ovens and showers every day, well I can imagine that they might have a different perspective than you do.

[Ter]

22. Prove he does those things with links to pictures of videos of him doing it

I have studied and monitored hate groups and him in particular for years. I have never seen any reports of him calling for extermination of any group or waving the Nazi flag. This is by no means a defense of his hatred or him. He shouldn't have a single follower.

[in_cog_ni_to]

25. A defender of David Duke?

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Pathetic.

[Ter]

26. Fail

I hate that man with a passion.

[Ter]

29. Also, to add:

Let's say a person has committed a string of robberies in the past. This guy has even been arrested for assault three times. Now let's say someone incorrectly accuses him of going 120 mph in a 60 mph speed zone. If I state that wasn't him, am I defending this man?

[SomethingFishy]

33. Well then let me ask you something...

If a man states that the White Race is the Only Pure Race, that the Holocaust never happened and that Jews secretly control the government, and then goes overseas to Germany speak to a right wing extremist group do you think he's going there to give a fucking lecture about speeding?

Fucking clueless. David Duke is a racist white supremacist piece of fucking shit. He's getting what he's had coming. You go ahead and defend him. And then tell anyone who disagrees with you how they are "failing". It's you who are failing.. epically, and for all to see.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

80. Quote:

"If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all." ~ Noam Chomsky

As much as I despise David Duke, I do believe in his right to freedom of speech.

[emcguffie]

49. Watch out.

Distinctions do upset some people.

But this argument is really a shame. Shouldn't have started. It's too bad people are so knee-jerk.

[Pacifist Patriot]

59. Bad analogy

If a person had a history of robbery and was subsequently picked up on suspicion of planning another robbery because he was associating with known thieves, and you were stating it wasn't him, then you might have something to argue.

I highly doubt David Dukes is speaking to a right-wing group about schnitzel recipes.

[SomethingFishy]

32. Then you are a really shitty "monitor"

http://www.nndb.com/people/210/000024138/

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Former KKK Grand Wizard

David Duke is probably America's most famous unapologetic racist and anti-Semite. "Our clear goal," he has said, "must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races. This goal must include freeing of the American media and government from subservient Jewish interests." He opposes integration, calls himself a "white nationalist", and his political perspectives are colored almost entirely by race.


http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/david-duke

Ideology: White Nationalist
David Duke is the most recognizable figure of the American radical right, a neo-Nazi, longtime Klan leader and now international spokesman for Holocaust denial who has nevertheless won election to Louisiana's House of Representatives and once was nearly elected governor. He is also known for his avid pursuit of women and, especially, money — so much so, in fact, that he finally went to prison in 2002 for using cash raised to support white supremacist causes to pay for his own gambling and home improvements. Since then, Duke has become an itinerant anti-Semitic salesman, traveling regularly to Europe to sell his books while his latest white supremacist organization, EURO, remains almost entirely inactive.

In His Own Words
"Racial idealism, or racialism, is the idea that a nation's greatest resource is the quality of its people. It means examining all questions of government on the basis of whether the proposed measure is good or bad for our race. … Neither Communism, Capitalism, nor any other materialistic doctrine can save our race; our only racial salvation lies in a White racial alliance uniting our people with the common cause of racial idealism."
— September 1970 article in The Racialist

Frankly as a Jew I cannot read anymore about this asshole to prove to you what a piece of shit he is. If you want to Defend David Duke as a bastion of the First Amendment go ahead. This Jew says Fuck You.

Ok one more link.. David Duke talking just like you. How poor David is persecuted by the anti-free speech zionists
.http://www.google.com/searchq=david+duke+hate+speech&hl=en&safe=off&gbv=2&prmd=imvnso&source=univ&tbm=vid&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=tJ3VToPgJYfciQKS7Ii_Dg&ved=0CCwQqwQ&biw=1274&bih=672

[Pacifist Patriot]

56. I was a bit surprised to read that claim.

Anyone who can spell and Google can easily find the connections. Even a half-assed monitor of hate groups would know the info cold.

[Pacifist Patriot]

55. Besides being notorious for wearing a Nazi uniform on the LSU campus?

He's publicly expressed his support for Ernst Zündel and was scheduled to speak to a right-wing group with ties to Nazi ideology.

The Germans know who and what he is.

[Art_from_Ark]

48. Just for clarification

Dachau is in Germany, but Auschwitz is in Poland.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

79. So, you think the suppression of free speech is okay anywhere in the world?

[devilgrrl]

85. Yes, especially in German since they what hate results in first hand

:popcorn:

[Fantastic Anarchist]

87. I'm virulently anti-racist and anti-fascist ...

... but I'm afraid I have to disagree. I don't believe in acting like, or using methods that are fundamentally fascist in nature in order to quell free speech just because I don't like what they have to say.

I also believe so firmly in the merit of my ideas that I know they can withstand the challenges and scrutiny of the bankrupt ideas of the Nazis and KKK and other assorted racists. I also think that these anti-hate laws encourage some to investigate racist and anti-progressive ideology, as well as, driving such movements more underground out of sight and under the radar of normal society's gaze - it also keeps their ideas incubated and uncontested within the broader hodgepodge of ideas in mainstream thought. That's the pragmatic look at it, besides just being on principle, against infringing on other peoples' basic human rights. German history is no justification to use such authoritarian tactics to avoid repeating a very atrocious past.

That's just my two cents. I hope people can see the merit in my argument without resorting to the knee-jerk response that is more convenient to their sensibilities.

Qualifier: I'm also, as much as it pains me to say, not opposed to using violence against those neo-Nazis that threaten me or my friends and family, as I've done in the past. I'm pro-peace but I'm not a pacifist.

Edit: clarity and grammar

[formercia]

11. German laws forbid his kind of Hate Speech

I'm just sorry they didn't throw him in the Lockup.

[jberryhill]

12. I believe Germany is a democracy

There are quite a few democratic countries which do not conform to the relatively broad, but oddly inconsistent, extent of the US approach to freedom of expression.

Stranger still, Europeans are much more politically informed.

Equating "democracy" and "US First Amendment" is an unexamined assumption behind your comment.

[newspeak]

61. germany saw their country destroyed

germany has already paid for listening to the hate-scapegoating BS and having it's country run into the ground by a bunch of psychopathic thugs. A humboldt professor who spoke to our class about his experience in germany. He wrote a book on altruism-how some people risked their lives and that of their families to protect others, while others were more than willing to turn people in and kill. I remember, he told the class that there were about twenty percent who went against hitler and about twenty percent who were hitler's thuggish zombies and the rest of the population were basically apathetic or afraid.

Nothing like having your children spying on you to report you, even when the german people were at their lowest in the war. Most of the germans don't want to see even a foothold of what they have already experienced.

[ngant17]

18. the US has routinely denied visas to leftwing vistors

from Latin America, for example. People who were victims of a fascist ideology that is favored by Duke.

Duke should be persona non-grata in every country of the world except the US, where it was only fate that he should be born here. Keep him quarantined here, there's plenty of RW hate-mongers who want to listen to his bile here, there is no need to spread his poison outside of our borders.

[Ter]

23. I agree with that

Limiting his travel outside of the US is fine with me.

[Skip Intro]

27. This bothers me as well. Thought crimes? Arrested for expression of one's beliefs? DU cheers?

Yeah, all pretty troubling, imho.

[SomethingFishy]

34. Let me ask you something... Have you known in your life

anyone who escaped the camps? Have you heard the stories from someone you loved, first hand, not in some documentary? About what they did? About the experiments? About what they did to the women? About the showers and the ovens? Have you been to Germany? Have you seen the camps? Do you even have an iota of a clue of what the Holocaust was about? David Duke went to Germany to deny the Holocaust and tell his little buddies how right Hitler was. Excuse the German people, they have these "thought crime" laws for a fucking reason, just because you can't see it or don't understand it does not mean they don't exist.

[devilgrrl]

46. I so hear you. It sucks when one can't go off on Jews, Gays and Blacks.

It's anti-freedom.

[Marrah_G]

52. It is Germany and not the US

They have a right to force someone to leave for espousing ideals that destroyed their country and murdered millions in the name of bigotry.

[oldhippie]

54. We are all for arresting people for thought crimes .....

.... as long as they are thoughts we don't like. Been that way throughout human history.

You can find that sentiment in almost any long thread on DU.

[Pacifist Patriot]

60. You won't find me cheering government suppression of speech in the U.S.

But I have no problem with Germany upholding their laws. I lived there when the end of WWII was closer than the election of Bill Clinton as president is to us now. It's very difficult to explain, but I completely understand why they don't want to skirt even close to the dangers of hate speech even today. They have clear laws against Nazism and holocaust denial. Duke is on public record for his support of both. It's not just thought crimes. He's already demonstrated through words and deeds he violates their statutes in this regard.

[LanternWaste]

64. Without additional qualifier, your statement implies consent

"You won't find me cheering government suppression of speech in the U.S...."


Without additional qualifier, your statement implies direct consent of yelling "Bomb!!!" on an airplane... I imagine everyone believes that no enumerated rights in America are without regulation. At least, I certainly hope that... :shrug:

[Pacifist Patriot]

71. Good heavens, I would hope that should go without saying.

Really?

[fascisthunter]

69. so, to you bigotry is fine and should be freely allowed...

...then why is it against the rules here on DU?

[Fantastic Anarchist]

82. Because ...

... proprietors can enforce the rules of their property. This is not a government website.

[Mass]

74. Have you ever looked at a visa application in the US?

[Fantastic Anarchist]

81. I agree.

It's disturbing to see how we're willing to act like fascists because we hate one particular fascist.

[bluestate10]

38. He was committed a crime under german law. nt

[devilgrrl]

45. When were you born? 2001?

Freedom to hate yeah!!!! :headbang:

:sarcasm:

[2banon]

47. Promulgating Neo-Nazi propaganda in Germany deserves imprisonment

Hate speech cloaked as political speech doesn't merit free speech. David Duke holds Hitler in very high regard, and given the history, i think it goes without saying, this isn't the case to defend free speech rights for the sake of democracy.

The well being of Humanity trumps democracy.

[Marrah_G]

51. This is Gemany and not the US

They have rules about hate speech especially when it pertains to the holocaust and genocide.

[Karenina]

53. Danke.

[LanternWaste]

63. "suspicion of denying the Holocaust"

"The arrest appears to be tied to Duke's expulsion from the Czech Republic in 2009, following his detention there on suspicion of denying the Holocaust, a crime in many European countries, including Germany."

First graf in the OP... :shrug:

Kinda thought everyone knew Holocaust Denial is illegal in Germany, regardless of what an American may or may not think of German jurisprudence...

[JVS]

73. Wouldn't he have to deny it within Germany for that to apply?

[fascisthunter]

68. because of their history and fear of this hate formenting into another monster

[tawadi]

86. Read

"Denying the Holocaust, a crime in many European countries, including Germany."

[eShirl]

8. yeah! go GERMANY!

[AlinPA]

9. I thought he was working with the teabaggers in the US.

[walerosco]

20. that was before he joined the OWS

he seems to be everywhere these days and supporrting just about every popular cause imaginable

[KamaAina]

13. Remember, this hate-filled slimeball received 43.5% of the vote for Senator and 39% for Governor.

In each case he received a majority of the white vote. :scared:

[MADem]

14. What a fucking idiot--as well as an asshole. He thought he could seig-heil his way around

Germany and no one would notice? Putz.

[Ian David]

15. Even Huffington Post fails to note that he is a REPUBLICAN.

David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, white supremacist and Louisiana {REPUBLICAN} politician, was arrested and taken into custody in Cologne on Friday, prior to a planned speech to a right-wing extremist group, German police said Monday.

...

Duke, a former neo-Nazi who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. presidency {AS A REPUBLICAN} in 1988 and 1992, served a year in prison in 2003 and 2004 after pleading guilty to tax fraud and stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from supporters to pay gambling debts.

[Ter]

24. You got 1988 wrong

He ran on the Populist Party line, with Bo Gritz as his running mate. Republicans from Reagan and Bush on down at the time told voters to vote for his opponent. He's too right-wing even for them.

[Ian David]

30. Ahh, thanks. n/t

[Karenina]

17. Ahhh, so THAT'S what those folks were doing here!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x9834929#9835202

[onethatcares]

19. maybe he was going to

tell the rightwing extremists that the hate he espouses is wrong, just plain wrong, and that he was going to begin

helping minorities in America and stop hating so much. After all, the article says he's a "former neo-nazi".


But then again, I doubt it.

[Enthusiast]

28. David Duke = typical Republican.

Nearly every one is a racist.

[Nye Bevan]

35. Hmmmm. That explains why Herman Cain was leading the primary polls for several weeks (nt)

[Enthusiast]

44. It explains that they are ashamed of their racism.

They are racists.

[Hugabear]

67. Actually, it does. Racism has EVERYTHING to do with Cain's popularity

Think about it. The man has absolutely no government experience whatsoever. Remember how the rethugs mocked Obama for his "lack" of experience? Herman Cain makes Sarah Palin look like a seasoned vet.

Herman Cain is a rethug tool, someone they can prop up to "prove" their diversity and that they are not racist. It's no different than when a racist says "I have a black friend".

[fascisthunter]

70. you mean the man they are running to absolve the Tea Baggers from being bigots

why yes, it does... really slick of them.

[CanonRay]

31. Damn, they're not keeping him?

[bluestate10]

36. The germans should throw his ass in a cell with three sex starved men.

And throw curtains over the cell.

[Nye Bevan]

37. I hate to see posts where DUers advocate rape (nt).

[bluestate10]

41. Then have some intense nazi haters with scalpels hold him under house arrest. nt

[LanternWaste]

65. I hate fried liver.

I hate fried liver. So I rarely eat it... and when I do, I have no one but myself to blame.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

84. Yeah, there are some very disturbing posts in this thread.

[MrMickeysMom]

39. Five, Six, Seven, Eight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K08akOt2kuo

[spanone]

40. a turd in the punchbowl of humanity

[UTUSN]

42. K&R #38 for, oh. They don't want to keep him. n/t

[ZombieHorde]

43. I don't like arresting people for speech, but I understand why Germany would act this way. nt

[Pacifist Patriot]

58. I can see why they're a bit touchy when it comes to hate speech.

I wonder what they would do with Coulter and ilk.

[Blue Owl]

50. David Duke -- Deutschland Dipshit

n/t

[pampango]

62. Apparently he has been living in Austria for much of the past couple of years,

using it as a base for speaking engagements with right wing extremist groups around Europe.

"He is said to have been living off and on for the last two years in Austria, which he has used as a base for his regular speaking appearances before extremist gatherings in Europe, including in Germany."

According to Die Welt, Duke was trying to talk to a gathering of about 60 extremists. But police had advance knowledge of the event and conducted extensive identity checks on attendees in order to disrupt it.

German authorities did not immediately comment to media on the reasons they want Duke out of Germany, but the incident comes at a sensitive time for the German government.

Amid revelations of a neo-Nazi killing squad that operated in the country between 2000 and 2006, it is facing accusations that it hasn’t done enough to stem the threat of right-wing extremists."

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20111130-39201.html

[The Wizard]

66. If any country knows

what Nazis are capable of destroying it's Germany. He should be scrubbing the Aushwitz crematorium with a tooth brush.

[treestar]

72. I know this is Germany, but their laws are a bit on the dangerous side

Merely because we like this suppression of freedom of expression doesn't mean it isn't dangerous and that other types of expression could also be suppressed.

[Chipper Chat]

75. Calling Newt!

Here's your running mate.

[jwirr]

76. Good. He is nothing but a has been trouble maker. He is over there

because no one here is interested in him anymore. I want to keep up with this. I am hoping the Europeans have enough sense to ignore him.

[xocet]

77. Good for Germany!

David Duke: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/david-duke

[Fantastic Anarchist]

78. He's a loser ...

But I really don't like those anti-hate speech laws in Europe.

[and-justice-for-all]

83. Gut fur Deutschland!!!

The do not want that trash in their country and I applaud them for keeping it out. Cretins like David Duke do nothing but contribute to the downfall of society.