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Steep rise in German left-wing crime reported, but no terror wave

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Steep rise in German left-wing crime reported, but no terror wave | Earth Times News

Criminal investigators recorded more than 4,700 cases of extreme left-wing crime in 2009, a rise of more than 50 per cent on the previous year. Violent leftist offences reached 1,100 cases, compared to 700 incidents in 2008.

De Maiziere said this resurgence in left-wing violence did not overshadow the higher, but stagnating rates of politically motivated right-wing crime. "Right-wing extremism has remained at a high level in 2009 and 2010, however these numbers are not rising further," de Maiziere said. Right-wing extremists were held responsible for 18,750 criminal offences in 2009, a drop of around 1,000 on the previous year.

Anyone have thoughts on this resurgent of extremist crimes in Germany? I'm actually surprised to read that there's been a rise in Left-Wing crime - often liberals portray their selves as peace-loving. Though I already knew about the issues of high Right-Wing crime stagnation.
 
Steep rise in German left-wing crime reported, but no terror wave | Earth Times News



Anyone have thoughts on this resurgent of extremist crimes in Germany? I'm actually surprised to read that there's been a rise in Left-Wing crime - often liberals portray their selves as peace-loving. Though I already knew about the issues of high Right-Wing crime stagnation.

Well, for starters, I would advise you stop using the word "liberal" as synonymous with "left wing". The Euopean left is decidedly illiberal in its politics, and the actual liberals are considered conservative there.
 
Well, for starters, I would advise you stop using the word "liberal" as synonymous with "left wing". The Euopean left is decidedly illiberal in its politics, and the actual liberals are considered conservative there.

Hmm - interesting, thanks for pointing that out.

I thought that the terms "left/right" were quite standard on a political scale - have a source so I can grasp this a little better (article or something?)
 
Well, for starters, I would advise you stop using the word "liberal" as synonymous with "left wing". The Euopean left is decidedly illiberal in its politics, and the actual liberals are considered conservative there.

Depends on the country. Liberals in Switzerland are pretty much center and often at odds with the more conservative parties.
 
Even more interesting - I have some reading to do on international politics before I form opinions.
 
Gardener is right, most of these leftists can't even be called "social liberals" (which are in close to the same political position as social democrats). Almost all of these people are communists or left-wing anarchists. Walk through any significant European city and you'll see anarchist and communist symbols on a lot of the graffiti as well as a lot of left-wing slogans. Germany tends to be pretty good at keeping the far right in check so I'm not surprised to here most of their politically motivated violence is coming from the left.
 
Gardener is right, most of these leftists can't even be called "social liberals" (which are in close to the same political position as social democrats). Almost all of these people are communists or left-wing anarchists. Walk through any significant European city and you'll see anarchist and communist symbols on a lot of the graffiti as well as a lot of left-wing slogans. Germany tends to be pretty good at keeping the far right in check so I'm not surprised to here most of their politically motivated violence is coming from the left.

I'm trying not to let the different terms for the ideologies confuse me.
In the article is states: "Right-wing extremists were held responsible for 18,750 criminal offences in 2009, a drop of around 1,000 on the previous year. " . . . .which is far more than left-wing crime rates.

So - are these "right wing" mentioned in this article the same as the "far right" that you're referring to?
 
Even more interesting - I have some reading to do on international politics before I form opinions.

Europe's political spectrum is very wide. Far-left are the anarcho-communist parties, left are the socialist parties, in the center we've got moderate liberals and moderate conservatives and the far-right here is the equivalent to your very conservative republicans and religious right parties.
 
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Europe's political spectrum is very wide. Far-left are the anarcho-communist parties, left are the socialist parties, in the center we've got moderate liberals and moderate conservatives and the far-right here is the equivalent to your republicans and religious right parties.

I think it's very telling that the far right is equivalent in the USA and Europe, but views considered "far left" in the USA are moderate/centrist in Europe.
 
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I think it's very telling that the far right in equivalent in the USA and Europe, but views considered "far left" in the USA are moderate/centrist in Europe.

Pretty much. It always makes me laugh when people call Obama a socialist. By Swiss standards he'd be a Liberal Radical, which is a center-right party.
 
I wouldn't trust such a vague system of trying to classify crimes. It fails to deal with either the severity of the crimes, and relies on an overly simplistic model. Islamic extremists for example, wouldn't fall into either the left or right wing parties of Europe in terms of political values.
 
Far left in Europe would be actual anarchists or true communists

Far right in Europe typically are ultranationalists, fascists or neo Nazi's

The ultranationalists and neo nazi's typically are quite close in ideology as being groups that very ethno centric in viewing thier nation state

Neither the far right or the far left in Europe are equivalent to the Democrats or Republicans in the US. The US political system tends to prevent such extremists from getting much political support (or at least enough to get elected)
 
I'm trying not to let the different terms for the ideologies confuse me.
In the article is states: "Right-wing extremists were held responsible for 18,750 criminal offences in 2009, a drop of around 1,000 on the previous year. " . . . .which is far more than left-wing crime rates.

So - are these "right wing" mentioned in this article the same as the "far right" that you're referring to?

Think of it like this, in most of Europe both Democrats and Republicans would be considered right wing because they are statists.

Their spectrum, generally goes from left wing(less/no state control) to right wing(more/complete state control).
 
Think of it like this, in most of Europe both Democrats and Republicans would be considered right wing because they are statists.

Their spectrum, generally goes from left wing(less/no state control) to right wing(more/complete state control).

Excluding of course the traditional communists
 
I spend a few weeks a year at a home I have in Germany, for reasons only I need to know. I believe when I talked with the assistant police chief during my last visit, we had the most horrible crime committed in the village of Bad ??????????. Someone broke into a dentist office and stole a tank of ether.

The world is falling apart.

I guess what I am saying...is, compared to the US, where even in our smallest towns we have people killing one another, nothing that is happening in Germany, whether from the left or right, even compares.

We Americans....we love killing.
 
Overall if I had to guess the majority of crimes committed by the far left in Germany would have been property crimes of the petty vandalism variety

Only when it comes to G8 meeting and the like to the truely violent far left anarchists come out to play. And sometimes they are actually the Police playing dress up
 
State, althougth not many left in Western Europe

There are still a good number of them in a few countries (though they did take a big hit after the Soviet Union fell). In Italy the communist parties there only got kicked out of Parliament in 2008 (and they could possibly return) while the French Communist Party still makes it into parliament (though they've dropped from a high of about 20% in the 70s to about 3-5% today). There are a few other countries with communist parties in parliament and quite a few more with socialist (as opposed to social democratic) which are just a little right of the communists.

I'd categorize them as right wing, they still espouse the state as primary controller.

The problem with this is if you use this terminology you're just going to confuse people used to traditional left-right views. Nobody in Europe views state communists as right wing or in the same statist category as far right fascist parties. It also fails to explain parties behavior in politics. Conservative Liberal parties (aka libertarians in American terminology) are more likely to ally with far right parties than state (or even anacho) communist ones while social liberals (close to the American version of liberal) are the opposite. Fascists are (a little) less statist than communists and both conservative and social liberals are way less statist than both, so under a left=anti-statist, right=pro-statist scheme both should prefer (slightly) fascists and both should really prefer anarcho communists, but this is not how they behave.
 
The problem with this is if you use this terminology you're just going to confuse people used to traditional left-right views. Nobody in Europe views state communists as right wing or in the same statist category as far right fascist parties. It also fails to explain parties behavior in politics. Conservative Liberal parties (aka libertarians in American terminology) are more likely to ally with far right parties than state (or even anacho) communist ones while social liberals (close to the American version of liberal) are the opposite. Fascists are (a little) less statist than communists and both conservative and social liberals are way less statist than both, so under a left=anti-statist, right=pro-statist scheme both should prefer (slightly) fascists and both should really prefer anarcho communists, but this is not how they behave.

In that case, you create a Y axis which is based on economic theory.

Mutual aid---Competition.
 
There is a definition issue most of the posters trying to explain the difference in the European and US political scale.. it aint an European vs US difference.. it is a World vs US difference. US democrats would be a right wing party in any country on the planet or at best a center-right party and the Republicans would be a far right party.

And the term liberal outside the US means the definition of the word, which is not the US definition. Sadly the Aussies some what and the Brits are following suit in bastardising the word Liberal to mean left wing communists.

As for the "steep rise" in German left-wing criime.. compared to right wing crime it is nothing still. Also many people blame the right and companies for the financial crisis so it is only natural that the radicals on the left start to act up.
 
There is a definition issue most of the posters trying to explain the difference in the European and US political scale.. it aint an European vs US difference.. it is a World vs US difference.
Actually no, it's really European vs. US difference.
US democrats would be a right wing party in any country on the planet or at best a center-right party and the Republicans would be a far right party.
In North-Korea? In Iran? In Sudan? lol wut?
 
Actually no, it's really European vs. US difference.

Wrong. Name a democratic country and a the main stream right wing party, and they have far more in common with the Democrats than the Republicans.

In North-Korea? In Iran? In Sudan? lol wut?

Okay any other democratic country on the planet.. thought that was implied but guess not for some.
 
So the best way for me to grasp all the differences is to look at party ideology, leaning - and compare.
 
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