German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wants to further restrict the carrying of knives in public, to combat a perceived rise in knife crime. The opposition has criticized the plan as impractical.
The German government has promised tougher knife laws after the police reported a rise in the number of stabbings, especially near train stations — though the statistics remain controversial.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has called for the law to be changed so that only blades of 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) would be allowed to be carried in public, rather than the current 12 centimeters. An exception would be made for household knives in their original packaging. Switchblades would be banned altogether.
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The government pronouncement came after police statistics recorded a 5.6% year-on-year rise in cases of serious bodily harm involving a knife, with 8,951 incidents in 2023. The federal police, which is responsible for safety at Germany’s airports and major railway stations, also reported a significant increase in knife attacks in and around stations, with 430 in the first six months of this year.
Do you believe that Nazi Germany was justified in killing 11 million people? Because that’s the logical conclusion of your belief.
What I said is not a belief, it’s a fact. Who sets people’s rights and what rights they set are different things and the justifications are different. Understanding who and how sets the rights does not logically lead to what rights are set. The Nazis killing people was justified to them by a bag of reasons. I don’t think it was justified. But that doesn’t change the fact that the government sets those rights, that the Nazis were in government and they set the rights they felt justified. Understanding this might actually save lives by not letting the people who would kill get in government.
I know it doesn’t lead to any particular right being set, but your argument that rights are set by the government still leads to the conclusion that, because the Nazis were in power, they had the right to decide that Jews, gay people, other ethnicities, etc. no longer had a right to life. It would also lead to the belief that the Nazis had the right to protect those people if they wanted to. It would open the door to whatever oppression, discrimination, protection, liberty, and whatever else the ever-fickle government decided. Nobody would be right to resist it because “the government sets the rights, therefore it’s okay”.
OK, what I’m trying to communicate is that the door is already open. It always has been. The only thing that stands in the way of oppression coming through is the persistent, collective action of citizens who disagree via multiple avenues, not just voting. If a significant enough proportion of people want the government to kill some group and there’s insufficient pushback, the constitution won’t stop it. It just makes it so that a larger proportion of people is needed. If >2/3 want ban on gun ownership, the door is wide open. If 2/3 want to exterminate LGBTQ people, it’s just as open. Your chance of stopping any of it is to not let 2/3 want it.
You’re making a jump here that I have a hard time believing you’re making in good faith…
Saying “The government makes the laws and decides what rights people have” is just miles away from saying “the government is justified in making whatever laws it pleases.”
Yes: the Nazis were in power, and took away peoples rights. Me recognising that that’s how governments work does not mean I support the actions of that government or think they are morally justified in doing what they did… obviously.
But if the government can decide what rights there are, then anything they do is morally correct, no? Unless you’re going to hold the government to a higher moral standard than themselves, in which case the government doesn’t actually grant rights; it can only protect or violate them. If we have a higher moral standard than the law, then human rights do not come from the government, they are defined by whatever that higher standard is.
I think the Nazis were an insane and utterly contemptible political party that destroyed a struggling nation to slake their own thirst for power. But if the government decides what rights there are, then they can simply legislate out of existence the rights of anyone under their jurisdiction. Thus, anything the government does to them is justified.
You seem to be missing a key part here: I can disagree with the government. It also appears that you are confusing the concept of rights in a legal sense, and the moral sense.
If the government can decide what rights there are, then anything they do is morally correct?
Obviously not. The decisions of the government are based on what some majority wants (in a democracy, in an authoritarian state it doesn’t even need to be that). The fact that a majority of those in power decide something does not make it morally right. I don’t understand how that is a difficult concept to grasp?
Until relatively recently, same-sex marriages were not allowed. Gay people did not have the right to marry who they wanted. This was decided by the government. Me recognising that as historical fact does not mean I think it was morally justified to prevent people from marrying who they wanted.
Also today, we have laws granting or restricting peoples rights that the government is free to change. I do not think that the current state of our laws is the end-all-be-all of morality, and neither does my government, which is part of the reason why laws are constantly changing.
