The difference is that we can’t do so for political information in a democracy
I think I see where I failed to communicate. The laws that germany enacted are not about information. They are for (or rather against) instigating hate and violence against groups of people. Which I wouldn’t classify as ‘political information’. I do get that that is a slippery slope and that this tool needs to be used with a lot of caution and oversight. But I think it is a necessary tool especially because of this:
It is, however, reasonable for the majority to enact advertising protections that would benefit the dumb/manipulable minority.
A manipulable minority that acts on these calls to violence is enough to deeply damage a democracy.
Once again, the question is, “Are the majority of people too dumb or easily manipulated to be trusted with the system?” If so, then we should do away with the system altogether and have a government of philosopher-kings decide how resources should be distributed.
An important thing to remember is that a large enough minority can really disturb a democratic system. We are seeing this right now in germanies eastern states where the AfD has won about 30% of the votes making any coalition between the other parties very unfavourable. No-one currently knows what the coalition talks will resolve to. The majority did vote for democratic parties but that isn’t enough, it has to be an overhelming majority that votes for democratic parties.
Also: I’d argue that representative democracies are a lot more susceptible to this kind of flaw where parties have to resort to manipulation to get the votes of people. Other forms of democracy do not have that flaw as extensively. We do not necessarily have to get rid of democracy to fix or at least improve that flaw.
I do agree with that, that’s not what I’m arguing. What I’m saying that there is a difference between political information and calls to action. And I don’t think making that separation and acting on one but not the other is not harmful but rather helpful for democracy as it allows more people to participate, namely those that would otherwise have to fear calls for violence against them.
The point of this law is that having to deal with calls to violence towards a group will likely alter the behaviour of that group in a negative way as well as create direct risks for that group. There is a benefit towards more diversity to restrict some speech. I think this is a good tradeoff.
Nope that is basically what’s happening here, but it is not really the fault of the people that got elected. We elected a very diverse mix of parties and it is hard to make coalitions in this political climate. This has been the case for a long time but for a lot of the past decades it was enough for two parties to form a coalition for a majority. With the right-wing extremists getting this many votes this has changed towards three or even four parties being involved for majority talks. It’s just honestly a big mess leaving no-one satisfied which in turn only feeds the populists that paint the picture of germany as a failing state.
I’m not sure I’d say it is close to autocracies, it is more a plutocracy where the money gets you more political influence, similar to the times when voting rights depended on your wealth but less direct making everything looking more shady in the process. This just fuels suspicions and undermines trust in the institutions which is how you get at least minority support for parties that want to openly destroy the system.
I’m not a big fan of direct democracy on large scales mostly because I honestly don’t think I have the time and energy to have an informed opinion on everything that needs to be decided on in a functioning state. Which makes me assumes that that is probably true for at least a lot of other people too. I like the idea of randomly selected representatives that get compensated to pause their jobs for a period of a few years. It gets rid of some of the bad incentives the party systems have created with people focusing on political “careers” making themselves dependent on being popular.