rense.com

Not So Free In Germany
By Joseph Quesnel
3-4-7

I will forgo the pleasure of drinking German lager and eating sauerkraut for the foreseeable future and I ask freedom lovers to consider joining me.
 
I am joining an international boycott of German goods because of that country's drift away from fundamental freedoms.
 
We in North America do not hear much much about Germany, as our media focuses on exotic hotspots, but I have noticed a discernible trend suggesting people should pay attention to the loss of freedoms in so-called advanced Western democracies, like Germany.
 
The most ominous example is the Busekros family. An online petition is calling for a boycott of German products due to their treatment.
 
The horrendous crime of this family, and others across Germany, is they chose to homeschool their children, a right taken for granted here. Homeschooling is illegal there, and authorities seem out for blood.
 
It took 15 German officers to take 15-year-old Melissa Busekros from her home, as the German government began cracking down on these nasty enemies of the state. By court order, school officials ordered the breakup of a family with five children, after the state asserted its belief that Christian homeschooling is a "parallel culture" that Germany can do without.
 
One child was even placed in a psychiatric ward and her parents denied the location.
 
Homeschooling parents in Germany have been imprisoned for teaching their children in a Christian lifestyle. The Home School Legal Defense Association estimates there are 40 other ongoing cases in Germany against homeschoolers.
 
Homeschoolers do not get much attention because they are a minority, but it is this minority that needs the most protection from a majority willing to deny their rights.
 
The essence of a free state is the existence of pluralistic civil society where different choices are permitted. The German authorities apparently do not respect the convictions of religious communities which believe family ought to be the first teacher, not the omnipotent state. My parents considered homeschooling me out of concerns over the expunging of Christianity from public schools. I'm glad we did not live in Germany.
 
What is frightening is that the law forbidding homeschooling was adopted
 
on the grounds that the state needed to take control over every aspect of life.
 
One German homeschool advocate said, "We are not far away from an intolerant dictatorship. Parental rights are more and more abolished. If you do not educate the way the state wants, the so-called Judenamt (youth welfare office) is quick to check out if they can take away the custody of your children."
 
If this was the only troubling sign from Germany, I would stop, but it is not. This attack on homeschooling comes on the heels of the conviction of Holocaust revisionist Ernst Zundel, who was sentenced to five years in prison for "denying the Holocaust," which is considered seditious in Germany.
 
Call me a fool, but ideas and thoughts should be challenged in the forum of open debate, not through criminal sanction. The Holocaust is one of the most documented events in history, so there is a reason Zundel is marginalized. Freedom is nothing if it does not protect the most vulnerable and reviled.
 
As for me, I will be throwing out my Kinder Surprise eggs and asking the German Embassy to help stop the harassment of German families.
 
http://mail2web.com/cgi-bin/redir.asp?lid=0&newsite=http://www.winnip
egsun.com/News/Columnists/Quesnel_Joseph/2007/03/03/3690101.html
 
 
Comment
Ted Twietmeyer
3-4-7
 
Here we go again - first it was Ernst Zundel and those like him...the new 'enemies' of the state. Now, it's the homeschoolers who are the enemies.
As someone whose grandparents came over from Germany early in the last century, I'm thoroughly ashamed of
the Nazi-like attitude sweeping Germany and the world in general. But I'm not surprised.  
The "state" of Europe, which considers Nazi-ism as a hate crime, has now adopted the same pathetic philosophy. Like governments world-wide, it's the classic "it's OK for me to do it, but not you." Perhaps the crux of this matter is that Nazi-ism reminds the German government of what it has turned into, not what it was before. No wonder they don't want to see any citizens doing it. But this is perhaps the ultimate in political hypocrisy. Someone once said, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." How true that is.
German scientists have probably had a monumental  influence on building the scientific foundations in both theory and advancement for the world of science, more than any other country. But when it comes to human rights, they are still living in the 1930's. We have all heard the phrases "The Third Reich" or "Thousand year Reich" countless times. Yet no one ever asks what became of the first and second Reich's - and why no one learned from their failures! Can the world's civilized people really be this stupid and breathe on their own? Apparently it is so. Could a new "Fourth Reich" rise up as the Third one did? If not, can one prove WHY not?
Hitler appears to be a vague if not forgotten memory for the German people. It reminds one of the life of Christ, and the terrifying supernatural events that took place everywhere the moment he was crucified. But in no time at all, those supernatural events became a fuzzy and forgotten memory. War soon returned as a way of life. In fact, it wasn't long after before the Dark Ages began.
Today we've entered the Dark Ages of human rights and freedoms. It's a slow, insidious process. But in the end the result will be death, disease and tyranny, all built with just one brick at a time - if we just sit by and do nothing.
Ted Twietmeyer
www.data4science.net


Disclaimer






MainPage
http://www.rense.com


This Site Served by TheHostPros