Summary
Jacob Hersant, a self-described Nazi, was sentenced to one month in prison, becoming the first person in Australia jailed for performing an outlawed Nazi salute.
Convicted in Victoria for making the salute outside a courthouse in October, Hersant’s act followed new legislation banning the gesture.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet justified the sentence, citing Hersant’s intent to promote Nazi ideology publicly.
Hersant’s lawyer argued that his actions were nonviolent and claimed they were protected as political expression, stating plans to appeal the ruling on constitutional grounds.
Do it again 😉! Let’s rack that baby up to 20 to life!.. How many years did he get?
Good.
It was a mistake letting Nazis and others practice their terrorist views in public. Freedom of expression is not and never should be an absolute right.
Imagine being his lawyer and having to come up with an argument to defend him. Yeesh
It’s pretty absolutely bullshit to be jailed for wrongthink and a hand gesture. That’s some Winnie the Pooh shit.
Tolerance is a social contract. Those who deny it to others aren’t protected by it.
Do you just rape a girl because it’s intolerance when she tells you no?
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He’s not getting arrested for ‘wrongthink’.
He was arrested for being a terrorist.
I have a reason to post a Riker after what happened in the U.S. on Tuesday! Oh god, it’s better than therapy…
This dude looks so much like the Austrian neo-nazi Martin Sellner that it’s actually uncanny. I genuinely thought this was him. Maybe they are long lost brothers?
The pictured dude in the article is apparently
Tim Smartt, the lawyer for Jacob Hersant, arriving at court in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday
and not the shithead himself. But I don’t disagree
I don’t like Nazis for sure, but I also don’t like people being jailed for expressing their views and speech. So my thought would be to get like two or three hundred protesters together and all go to that courthouse and make that salute and make them arrest every one of them. If the court system wants to waste their own time and tons of taxpayer money, prosecuting people for free speech, then let them do so. Kind of like Iran using $2,000 drones to cost Israel $2 million missiles.
This is not the correct way to do this.
Because it works and shows the foolishness? Yeah.
What foolishness? Removing Nazis from civilized society?
No, trying to enforce unenforceable laws, if a bunch of people went and did this and made the state arrest and prosecute all of them, it would be an extreme burden to the taxpayers unless they just didn’t decide to prosecute the cases. The point would be to punish unenforceable laws economically. Here in the United States, a form of that would be to protest absolutely every traffic ticket that you ever receive on purpose. Even if you did wrong and you know it, The point is that it wastes their time and energy that they could be using for real issues on trivial shit.
“I don’t like Nazis” “We should get 300 people to give the Nazi salute outside a courthouse”. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. I say this with all the sincerity in my heart, you are a moron and you are part of the problem. You are contributing to the rise of alt-right and fascist leaders around the world. There is zero leeway in this argument, everything Nazi related is bad and none of it should be tolerated.
Yes, and I think that you should be one of the people who shows up outside the courthouse and does it. Not because you are a Nazi, but because they will arrest you and you’re making a point.
You’re a dipshit who doesn’t understand how the world works.
Oh what’s that? I’m being mean? This is what you’re going to do next?:
Asswipe.
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I’m sorry, since when was being a nazi in public in any way tolerable? We aren’t talking about “I don’t like cereal” here, the nazis were arguably one of the darkest times of our history. Trying to revive it is absolutely not acceptable.
Never give the government power that you would not want turned against you because governments change. I vehemently disagree with their cause, but I would also vehemently defend their right to express their opinion.
Nazi ideology is never an opinion. It’s a threat to human rights and democracy.
This is the right take, and the fact that these people aren’t seeing it is insane.
No, we’ve just seen enough at this point to understand that absolute freedom of speech/expression is a mistake.
Never expect what you know does not exist.
No, fuck off with your take. That is free speech taken to a literal extreme. Allowing free speech to this extent encourages fascist and Nazi movements to flourish. Nazis should feel uncomfortable or unable to express these views.
Eco warriors should worry about being imprisoned for going to demonstrations. These are the kinds of things that can happen when you give your government power to jail people they do not like.
Edit: What happens if Australia’s equivalent of Donald Trump gets in office and enact the policy mentioned above?
Not every country has such a paranoid view of their government as Americans do. Some systems function a bit better when the people want something done.
Wasn’t it Australia that I read about basically having concentration camps in 2020 for the pandemic? All I’m saying is that you do not question your government at your own peril.
They were not concentration camps, people arriving in Australia were asked to isolate for 2(or maybe 3) weeks.
At least look things up before giving political hot takes. And while you’re looking things up, try to understand what paradox of intolerance is.
concentration camps
Yeah, no.
Despite free speech supposedly legally allowing protests and demonstrations there is still a real risk of being imprisoned.
My point is even “free speech” is not total free speech in the United States for example. There are still compromises in free speech so we may preserve order. Allowing free speech to that extent lets these movements flourish.
I absolutely agree. But we as a society need to be very careful because we cross some divides at our own peril. Today it might be Nazis making a salute. Tomorrow it might be journalists writing oposing views.
Fascism is not an opinion, it’s a crime.
Who decides what is and is not a crime? Does a crime need a victim? It does the victim have to be physically harmed in a crime for it to be considered a crime.
Slippery slope is fallacious reasoning. Seems pretty easy to draw a line here, and being a fucking Nazi is beyond it.
Go ahead, go outside onto the streets, and proclaim “I want lots of people murdered. The more we murder, the better. We really should get started now, what are you waiting for” and see where that’s going to end, even in places like the US. Then realise that showing the Nazi salute expresses that exact same thing.
There’s no such thing as non-criminal fascism. Thus advocating for it is advocating for, condoning, approving etc. of crimes which is a crime literally everywhere, rightfully so.
The canaries are dying.
