In 1927, the Weimar Republic - the democratically elected government of Germany passed mandatory unemployment benefits for the needy. That's rather progressive for the time. So, what happened in the following six years to turn it all around?
Well, there was a bit of a mistake in that first constitution, they corrected without doubt the second time. There was nothing that prevented laws to be passed that would allow the constitution to be ignored. So it was never officially dissolved, the (you know who) just wrote laws to make ignoring it allowed. The second time the wording states human rights can never be abolished by any future act of legislation.
In 1930, Jazz performance was banned and so was modern art. Three years after unemployment was introduced. Three years before the 'republic' was no longer the government.
Art, Music, and Culture are both an indicator of the level of sophistication of a society; and a warning sign that when such are censored, other rights are likely to follow.
Let's look at the US Constitution. The BIll of Rights was added as an afterthought, the Constitution was ratified by all parties and I'll quote
"The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added:" the Bill of Rights, Amendments I-X, an afterthought luckily we followed through and passed.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or or the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
That's powerful. The final check on government is the citizens watching for slips, expressing their observations, using the press to carry this information to everyone and organize and assemble to have the matter redressed. Toss the freedom of expression, speech, and the press - this becomes a lot more difficult to accomplish.
Art, Music, and Culture.
