Fuck the AfD Voters…I’ve been destroying years of friendships, because it turns out they voted AfD. I’m sick and tired of these fuckers enabling these clowns. This is definitely not my Germany anymore.
The friendship purge hurts… it’s tough to see that people you knew for years are lost like that.
I also feel kind of helpless with the current political climate. I don’t get why people are so hateful and stupid otherwise they would see right through the BS Höcke et al are making up all the time >.<
It sucks, for sure. As an American, I went through this back in 2016, and in the years since - with another notable wave occurring after January 6th.
It’s frustrating, but I genuinely do feel a moral duty to aggressively shun and abuse fascists, no matter how long I’ve known them or how I’m related to them before I found out.
Just to be clear this was not in the US. Their weapons laws are way more restrictive then ours. Apparently he was brandishing it and approached police with it. Sounds like he is a moron.
That’s way longer. 20cm is the average blade length for chef’s knives. Over here in Germany, with way more liberal knife laws: Legal to own (duh) but also very much not legal to carry much less wield in public unless you have a good reason – like actually preparing food in public. You can transport that kind of thing without fanfare but transporting very much involves not having it at the ready.
Four months are still completely overkill, though. Impounding and maybe a week’s worth of fine (one day of disposable income == one day in prison here) if he was being stupid and careless but non-aggressive. Four months go way beyond “let this be a lesson” territory and very much into “the state is nuts and doesn’t make sense”. If you’re feeling poetic, how about some social hours in a charity store sorting donated fidget spinners.
That’s 20 cm including the hilt. Roughly 15 cm for the blade by itself. And about 1 cm thick. Most likely with no sharp edge to speak of, since it was a toy and I’m sure the dumbass police would have made a point of it if it had.
In other words, ‘wielding’ it in public is about as threatening as carrying a particularly stiff twig. Probably less, considering the size of the hilt.
In the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s West Germany was a poster-child for Denazification and democracy, and Nazi propaganda was and is illegal in Germany.
Even Scandinavian country Sweden, hailed for their liberal policies, had more Nazis than Germany.
But after reunification the weed began to grow back. AfD popularity is very much driven by the old Communist east Germany, which was also totalitarian.
Maybe it would have been better if East and West Germany hadn’t been reunified?
Absolutely horrifying to imagine the situation of women in Afghanistan right now and especially women like in this article. The Taliban are crazy monsters.
Not for simply having, but for brandishing said bladed device as the police approached. That's the law, in that city. As the officer said, “It is possible to find fidget toys that aren’t six-inch blades. It is possible not to walk down the street holding them out in front of you. With a bit more self-awareness, Bray could have avoided contact with us completely.” Bray brought this on himself, and could have avoided any contact with the police. He chose otherwise.
Brandish is a stretch nothing in that article noted an intent to intimidate others, it is simple possession of a tchotchke. Unless you count the author’s flavor text.
I'm just reading the article, as you were also able to do, and it says, "On 8 June, officers were made aware via CCTV of a man, Bray, walking down Queens Road, Nuneaton, with the sword in his hand. Bray approached officers with the blade visible, at which point he was arrested." Bold added for emphasis. If I were out in public in the UK, and if I happened to have a bladed implement, I'd keep it out of sight. Especially if there were police anywhere nearby. But hey, you can do as you please. Have a nice day!
To answer these questions, ECFR conducted an opinion poll of 19,566 people in 15 countries in the first half of May 2024 – the period prior to the European Parliament election. source
Jesus Christ they got 20,000 people to answer poll questions in two weeks?
. . . What was the methodology? Was it, like, at a football match everybody who agrees . . raise your hand? Was it “like if you agree” on Telegram? Agggh. Okay I’ll go look.
This report is based on a public opinion poll of adult populations (aged 18 and over) conducted in May 2024 in 15 countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine). The total number of respondents was 19,566.
The poll was conducted online by Datapraxis and YouGov in the Czech Republic (9-16 May, 1,071 respondents), France (9-20 May, 1,502), Germany (9-17 May, 2,026), Great Britain (9-13 May, 2,082), Greece (1-16 May, 1,093), Italy (9-17 May, 1,036), Poland (9-23 May, 1,550), Portugal (9-20 May, 1,070), the Netherlands (9-15 May, 1,014), Spain (9-17 May, 1,508), Sweden (9-23 May, 1,026), and Switzerland (2-15 May, 1,079). It was conducted online by Datapraxis and Alpha Research in Bulgaria (9-23 May, 1,000), and online by Datapraxis and Norstat in Estonia (6-21 May, 1,009). In all these countries the sample was nationally representative of basic demographics and past votes.
In Ukraine, the poll was conducted by Datapraxis and Rating Group (7-12 May, 1,500) via telephone interviews (CATI) with respondents selected using randomly generated telephone numbers. The data was then weighted to basic demographics. Fully accounting for the population changes due to the war is difficult, but adjustments have been made to account for the territory under Russian occupation. This, combined with the probability-based sampling approach, strengthens the level of representativeness of the survey and generally reflects the attitudes of Ukrainian public opinion in wartime conditions.
Some of the questions were not asked in Great Britain and Switzerland. The questionnaire in Ukraine included several questions that were not asked elsewhere. Overall, the graphs in this paper display data for all the countries in which the respective question was asked.
Which - says who did it, but except for “online” or in the case of Ukraine “random telephone numbers”, it doesn’t describe the Method of the . . y’know, the Ology. So. “online”. Like, click on an Ad at stormfront.com, or -?
Thanks for posting the table, much more informative than the article.
IDK if I have a browser problem? But that table was not visible to me reading the article.
Yeah, it’s just that polls are notorious for saying something grand, and then when you dig into it it’s always some bizarre, unbelievable process with a minuscule percentage of the population.
As we see, the article doesn’t say how they did it.
If we broadly take the population of Europe and Ukraine to be 788 million people total, this survey of 20,000 people would be 0.002% of the population.
I don’t think that’s statistically significant. By, well, a lot.
It is, population size has essentially no effect on statistical significance of a sample (other than amplifying it as you start to sample most of the population). 20,000 people is massive and will give you sub 1% confidence ranges. The difficulty is ensuring you have a representative sample (no one does) and correcting for the biases you do have in your sample.
Do you really think the huge polling industry is unaware of basic statistics and your dividing the sample size by the population would come as a revaltion to them?
The image in the article shows the entire thing being 20cm and the actual ‘blade’ portion of the toy being around 13cm long. a little longer than the blade on a pretty standard multi tool like a Leatherman.
Is this seriously what the police were actually concerned about, I understand that it’s different in the UK vs the US, but this is definitely overkill. This thing would need to be pinched between your thumb and index finger like a cigarette to be wielded and is arguably less dangerous than a fork.
Negotiations can mean many things.
The only acceptable outcome is that Ukraine gets all its territories back including Crimea.
Then we can negotiate on maybe lifting some of the sanctions. There will probably also be negotiations on reparation for Ukraine.
Even in case of a total Russian defeat, there will probably be negotiations regarding many issues.
MASTER SWORD = 22 cm or 8.6 inches including handle and holster.
We also have very strict knife regulation here (Denmark), but I think if it is a first time offense, he would have gotten off with a fine, since it’s obviously a toy.
Seems like a perfect place for role playing games! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warwickshire#/media/File:Kenilworth_Castle_(cropped).jpg
Most youths who are involved in crime carry a knife for protection. This means that if the police want to arrest one of them, for whatever reason, they can because they will likely find a knife on them.
We (Denmark) have 0.9 homicides per 100,000 capita, UK has 1.1 USA has 6.3.
Of course there are other factors, but overall regulation definitely and very evidently helps. en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_countries_by_intention…
theguardian.com
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