In conservative media you will see columns like this one at Red State that bemoan limitations on free speech being openly practiced in Germany. These limitations act to the detriment of the increasingly popular conservative Alternative for Germany Party (AfD).
What most such don’t tell you is that Germany limits speech because we (the US and allies) required them to do so following the collapse of the Third Reich. Our concern then was forestalling any resurgence of the Nazi Party that had held sway under Hitler. So any depictions of Nazi regalia or symbols were banned, and the stating of nationalist positions were sanctioned.
Germans in particular but many European polities as well (e.g., Netherlands, France, etc.) have national agreements among all centrist and leftist parties that they will not join parliamentary coalitions with openly rightist parties. The effect is to require a right wing party to get an absolute majority to form a government, nearly impossible to do.
Since parliamentary systems tend to feature more than two parties, often four or more, the effect has been to freeze conservative parties out of government even when they might be the most popular party in the nation. A plurality of seats in parliament is insufficient if no other party will join yours in coalition.
This obviously has been a great boon to the left. The left therefore ends up in most European governing coalitions and has had undue influence on European government policies.
Yes, European political parties refuse to join coalitions containing openly conservative, anti-immigration parties. And yes, that makes their political system biased toward the left. But understand part of the guilt for establishing those policies had US collaboration and encouragement in those long-ago, post-World War II days.
We in the US tend to forget that substantial numbers of Norwegians, French, Dutch, Czechs and Poles actively and enthusiastically collaborated with the Nazis. We forget, but the Europeans have not forgotten. Those memories still bias their politics.
