EU rejects Communist symbol ban

[MrPrax]

The European Commission has rejected calls for a proposed Europe-wide ban on Nazi symbols to be extended to cover Communist Party symbols as well.

EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini said it would not be appropriate to include the red star and the hammer and sickle in a draft EU law on racism.

<snip>

In a letter to the European deputies, Mr Frattini said the Europe of today was united and free precisely because it had freed itself of the two great authoritarian regimes of the 20th Century - Nazism and communism.

They differed in their origin and fate, Mr Frattini added, but were similar in having slaughtered perfectly innocent people regarded as objective enemies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4248425.stm

[Blue_State_Elitist]

1. There is nothing in the theory of communism

that includes killing.

Killing based on race is a key part of nazism.

[Inland]

2. Well, sometime theory doesn't keep up with practice

and Communism had plenty of killing and just plain oppression.

[htuttle]

4. On that measure, Capitalism doesn't always come out so well, either

Heck, we could start banning all sorts of symbols that have become associated with killing and oppression over the ages.

Take the Christian Cross for example. There were millions killed and oppressed during the Inquisition and the Crusades under the banner of the Cross, even though those actions were the furthest from the message of Christ. Banning the hammer and sickle due to the likes of Stalin is analogous to suggesting that the Cross be banned because somebody once perverted it's message.

[Inland]

6. By THAT standard, the EU will have to ban its own symbols now or shortly.

All I am saying is that its tough to distinguish communism on the ground it doesn't call for killing "in theory". I know that the apologia for communism is that Stalin was an aberration, and he was, but it seems more in degree than in kind. Lenin too was a killer and there isn't a theorem in communism for the Berlin Wall, the Gulags, the smashing of the Kulaks, the Glorious Revolution--do I have to drag the Khmer Rouge into this? And all this blood from an ideology borne in the 1848 and not put into practice by a goverment until 1913.

[htuttle]

7. The EU?

We're on Earth, early 21st Century, right?

Just checking my space time coordinates.

[Itsthetruth]

5. Should The Dollar Sign Be Banned.

So has capitalism. Should we ban the dollar sign?

And many Marxists would say that the symbol of communism, was betrayed by Stalinism. The crimes of Stalin and his followers had nothing to due with genuine communism or socialism they would say.
Stalin like to pretend he was the authentic leader of genuine Marxism and the capitalists of course loved to recognize him as such.

Those who would like ban the old Marxist symbol have more in common with Nazism. The Nazis not only banned the symbol, they executed its followers by the hundreds of thousands.

[MrPrax]

9. I dunno about $ sign

but that 'eye'/pyramid thing...

What the hell is that anyway?

It is kinda creepy...at least a hammer and sickle has some observable meaning...

workers and farmers united...and that stuff

[yardwork]

3. This shows the danger of banning anything imo

Banning symbols just sends them underground, where people become devotees in secret. Better to have it out in the open. I'd rather have the Klan marching in my town, where the people yelling at them outnumber the marchers ten to one, than have the Klan meeting illegally and secretly and feeling like patriots.

[VegasWolf]

8. I don't know, bush's democracy has killed hundreds of thousands

too. The should probably ban the US flag too.

[Ellen Forradalom]

10. Two issues here

1) It's a draft law on racism. Racism was the foundation of Nazi ideology, but not Communism. While racism occured under Communism, and Communist regimes could be extraordinarily brutal, a proposed ban on the hammer and sickle shouldn't be included in a racism law.

2) There are active Communist parties in Europe today. They've gone a bit soft in their old age but they're still Communists, still call themselves such, and still wield some influence (take France for instance.)