German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has banned a major faction of the far-right “Reichsbürger” movement. Some leaders of the group, the “Kingdom of Germany,” have been arrested, including its self-declared king.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has banned the far-right group “Königreich Deutschland” (“Kingdom of Germany”), a faction within the so-called “Reichsbürger” (Reich Citizens) movement, accusing it of trying to establish a “counter-state” within Germany.
The ban came as police on Tuesday conducted raids on the properties of key members of the group in seven German states, making four arrests, including that of Peter Fitzek, the self-declared monarch of the “Kingdom.”
Security authorities believe Fitzek to have founded the group in 2012.
Now do AfD
They’re working on it right this very minute, as we speak.
It blows my mind that there’s anybody out there who would want a king.
I wouldn’t want my country to become a monarchy, but if I lived in England I would keep it for the sake of tourism, since they don’t have almost any political power anyway.
This group calls themselves Reichsbürger, and from my understanding it’s essentially equivalent to Sovereign Citizens in the US.
Installing a monarchy may be the stated goal, but it is not in itself the reason why people join this group. Rather it is about illegitimizing the current government so that they (supposedly) do not hold power over you.
There are various reasons why people would join a group like that, but a common one seems to be that they are running away from the consequences of their actions in one form or another. If the government is illegitimate, then the pain their society imposes (e.g. unpaid fines, mounting debt, etc) is also illegitimate.
The reason for the government’s illegitimacy is irrelevant. All that matters is that the state should be illegitimized in some way.
Sovereign citizens are supposedly individualistic and about freedom, “citizens of USSR” and Reichsbürger are a bit different.
Rather it is about illegitimizing the current government so that they (supposedly) do not hold power over you.
Would be a noble goal to bring obligations closer to something voluntarily taken and not just obedience.
There are various reasons why people would join a group like that, but a common one seems to be that they are running away from the consequences of their actions in one form or another. If the government is illegitimate, then the pain their society imposes (e.g. unpaid fines, mounting debt, etc) is also illegitimate.
Call a strong bad man (a politician in his own opinion) a bitch in presence of someone of his relatives, and the ensuing events will make you sympathize with them.
Would be a noble goal to bring obligations closer to something voluntarily taken and not just obedience.
It may be noble, but it is also a bit out of touch with reality.
When you participate in society (even if it is something as simple as buying groceries at the supermarket) then you have to follow the rules of that society that you participate in. We have decided together as a society, democratically, what those rules are.
You can’t then say “I’m not playing by the rules” and expect people to just accept that.
Edit: Fixed a typo
We have decided together as a society, democratically, what those rules are.
No we haven’t. If you opt out of a vote, you are still treated as if you have an obligation to obey its result. That’s not how “deciding together” works. When you put magical words where something well-proven should be, you get Putin.
You can’t then say “I’m not playing by the rules of society” and expect people to just accept that.
Some existing mechanism spitting out rules is not “the society”.
There’s such a thing as mandate, and there is such a thing as a source of a right, and so on.
None of the laws you can find are well-founded in these. Official mechanisms make laws outside of their mandate all the time, and nobody cares about sources of right, replacing that logic with a stick.
Which means that a legally literate person understands everything can be contested. Calling that “not playing by the rules” is an attack at the dignity of your equal, you peer, who is trying to dispute philosophy and law with you. They may be clumsy, but their right to contest statements in those is never in question.
I mean, the USA has that 9th amendment, all it says is that rights are transcendent and the constitution can only confirm them, it’s not a source of rights and rights are not limited by what’s said in the constitution.
This is just amazing. Because without accepting that rights are transcendent you encounter contradictions only resolvable by violence everywhere.
And this “rules of the society” thing you’ve said means just that somebody is more potent at violence than me. It’s a return to barbarism.
Well historically it is not a terrible system, it is very stable and tends to not self implode regularly like democracy does. You could argue that it leads to abuse of power but that happens equally under any system; if you look at monarchies historically they tried very very hard to avoid having rebellions in their hands and usually worked in the interest of the nation, as the interest of the nation was the interest of the monarch.
I don’t think monarchy is better than democracy or even desirable all the time, but democracy imo hinges on an educated population and when that fails democracy immediately starts to collapse into fascism which is not monarchic unlike what the popular idea of a king might suggest. So if a democratic nation seems headed towards anti democratic rule, it would seem to me that a better goal would be to install a monarchy instead of a fascist.
TLDR: Hard disagree on almost anything you just said
Well historically it is not a terrible system, it is very stable and tends to not self implode regularly like democracy does.
Yeah if you ignore for example wars of succession, because of incestuous family ties, arbitrary rule, repression and exploitation of its citizens, one could call it stable… Although the escalation and tyranny unfortunately are baked into the system.
if you look at monarchies historically they tried very very hard to avoid having rebellions in their hands and usually worked in the interest of the nation, as the interest of the nation was the interest of the monarch.
Have you ever read history books? Sure some rulers may have had that kind of view but theres also plenty of megalomaniacal, terribly violent and unjust rulers in those big ol books of history. And since it is an imposed rule of tyranny there’s really only violence to get rid of an unjust ruler, you know a neat thing about democracy? Violence is the last resort to getting rid of rulers because we can vote! Crazy right?
So if a democratic nation seems headed towards anti democratic rule, it would seem to me that a better goal would be to install a monarchy instead of a fascist.
In that case- what’s the fucking difference? Oh, to avoid an autocracy let’s install an autocracy with cherry flavor… Great?
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All of those happen in modern nations, doesn’t say much about the nature of monarchic rule rather more about the nature of power itself. Again I never said monarchic rule was preferable to democracy, I just said it is not as terrible as we like to paint it through our modern lens. Monarchy has a coherent political and ideological system, unlike fascism or other forms of totalitarian governments. There are very few, if any, examples of totalitarian monarchs. They had to balance their decisions between the interests of all groups in society.
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There’s plenty of democratically elected leaders that fill that same description. But yes your argument for violence is a good one, that is indeed how democracy solves the problem of violence when a ruler goes rouge. But once more, I never said monarchy is preferable to democracy, it’s just not inherently bad like most people think.
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The difference is that monarchs are hardly ever totalitarian rulers because the structure and source of royal power is different from dictators. Look, find one dictator/totalitarian ruler that doesn’t pretend that they run a democracy. Find one. Their entire basis for power is the creation and perpetuation of crises driven by propaganda and misinformation. A monarch doesn’t need that shit to justify their rule, and their job and lives are much much better if they simply let the people be and step in when shit gets out of hand. Otherwise their lives tend to be very short and violent.
The thing people like the least about monarchies other than the violence that you rightly mentioned is how hierarchy is baked into the system and social mobility is almost inexistent. But increasingly that’s becoming the case under democratic liberal rule, so it’s no wonder that people would start looking towards monarchies again since that at least has the benefit of the ruling class being able to implement long term plans that benefit the nation instead of the shit that happens in polarized democracies where there is no long term vision for the nation, and no plan to reach any goals except to keep things humming along by patching crisis after crisis with duct tape.
I think democracy is the best system in practice, but I don’t think monarchies are the worst form of government either. And a disfunctional democracy is worst than a monarchy imo.
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I thought Austria was the closest to any kingdom of Germany, except not for the last 100 years.
