"Former German citizens who between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945 were deprived of their citizenship on political, racial or religious grounds, and their descendants, shall on application have their citizenship restored. They shall be deemed never to have been deprived of their citizenship if they have established their domicile in Germany after 8 May 1945 and have not expressed a contrary intention."
So, if you were denaturalized, you aren't automatically a German citizen again, because that would obviously be insulting to those who were persecuted, fled Germany, and never wanted to have anything to do with Germany ever again.
If you apply for citizenship, it will be granted. If you live in Germany again, the reasoning above doesn't hold anymore, and you are spared the formality of a full application for citizenship.
I don't think it's very likely. Rather, it's more likely that UK citizens will have a fair degree of privilege with respect to mobility etc on the Continent vis-a-vis arbitrary foreigners.
The article is in fact loaded and a little misrepresentative, implying that somehow UK citizens won't have any rights to reside or work in the UK which is not fair.
I'm not a citizen of any European country and I've lived and worked in Europe without a whole lot of trouble.
Obviously, there's nuance to these issues, always lost in the fog of 'word wars'.
> implying that somehow UK citizens won't have any rights to reside or work in the UK which is not fair.
I'm assuming that one of those is a typo? But if you think EU citizens will be entirely safe and comfortable in the UK after a hypothetical Brexit, you've not been paying attention to the "hostile environment" and the deportation of actual Brits in the Windrush fiasco.
"But if you think EU citizens will be entirely safe and comfortable in the UK after a hypothetical Brexit, you've not been paying attention to the "hostile environment" and the deportation of actual Brits in the Windrush fiasco."
It's a little populist and inflammatory to suggest that the UK is a 'hostile environment' for EU citizens.
Literally millions of EU citizens and other naturalized immigrants from EU countries - and others around the world, live in UK, and they don't 'live in fear'.
There are obviously many ambiguities, and people caught up in immigration snafus.
Neither of these issues are new.
As treaties are realigned (and they have been forever and will continue to evolve), citizenship status will be adjust, but neither the UK or the EU are going to start mass deportations.
And to indicate an individual getting caught up in the system as evidence of much is not fair; have you considered the problems right now in Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy? Just to start the list?
Sadly, even the most modern nations have loopholes in their systems and outcomes are not always just, but overall, most modern nations have lawful, well regulated and reasonable policies, for the most part.
As a descendant of Danube Swabians who re-immigrated to their original village after 6 generations in Serbia, I can only say: Willkommen zurück!
However:
> We are no longer prisoners of a country whose politicians do not and will not, likely for a generation or more, reflect me in any shape or form.
Given her family's experience with Germany, I find it heartbreakingly naive that she obviously thinks that this will not be the case here, not now and not in 25 or 50 or 75 years.
The 'prisoners' part refers to how citizens are captive to their government, and if their government does something they truly do not agree with, they have no recourse and must go along with the law of the land.
With multiple citizenship you at least can emigrate somewhere and, while not as integrated as native citizens, at least will never be ejected as unwanted immigrants.
I understood that part. However, there is no guarantee that Germany will still accept dual citizenship in 50 years. There is no guarantee that Germany will not (again) become a dictatorship where people are interned in camps if the ruling class finds it politically useful. There is no guarantee that Germany will even allow you to leave the country in 50 years, even if you have dual citizenship.
This is all seems improbable, of course, even ridiculous. But I don't think anyone in Germany could've seriously imagined the situation of 1939-45 30 years earlier.
> "My children will now always have the right to study, work, live and love abroad. That can’t be taken away from them. I am incredibly proud I have given that to them. And now that I have the personal, individual right to do the same – a right that no politician can take away from me – I find my horizons widening too."
I share her happiness and enthusiasm, and commend her for acting on her beliefs. But this quote from the very end of the article is what many Brits believed to be the truth, up until Brexit. One important lesson here - nothing is forever. A wave of xenophobia and nationalism is sweeping the world and separatism is back in fashion. Freedom is under threat.
I know this is hard to belive for some people but you don't need to be a xenophobe/nastionalist to have voted for "leave". The insults really don't help anyone.
Not all people who voted remain want to exploit immigrants to keep wages down. But all people who want to exploit immigrants to keep wages down voted for remain.
> "I know this is hard to belive for some people but you don't need to be a xenophobe/nastionalist to have voted for "leave". The insults really don't help anyone."
You are absolutely right and I wasn't trying to equate the two. To be clear - I will not label leave voters as xenophobes or nationalists, and I don't dispute the legitimacy of voting "leave". My concrete point was: having a German passport is not necessarily a guarantee of all the freedoms she's seeking for herself and her children.
I have made friends with a German family that homeschooled their children. They had to escape Germany (early 2000s) because the German government was going to take their children from them.
They successfully applied for political asylum in the US.
Germany is hardly a bastion of freedom some may think.
Regarding the case of home schooling, the German position is that the state is required legally to ensure equal opportunity education for everyone. Parents therefore are legally required to send their kids to (public/approved/registered) schools.
While debatable, I‘d vote that‘s a good thing, as it ensures a minimum level of education for every kids.
A democratic society agrees on laws, that can be changed through a certain process. Germany decided that not only the parents are responsible for the education of the next generation, but also the government. Therefore the equivalent to the US child protective service has the right to enforce that law, just like in the US, where kids are separated from their parents if they break the child protection law. This has nothing to do with kidnapping.
From the US perspective, where the refugees fled to, it is exactly state sponsored kidnapping.
>Germany decided that not only the parents are responsible for the education of the next generation, but also the government.
Not long ago Germany "decided" to make other laws that were used against Jews, were these just laws? Do you support the laws in Brunei that allow certain people to be killed based on their sexual preferences?
These are not hypothetical situations, this is reality for people. A refugee family from modern Germany was granted asylum in the US based on US definition of freedom, not Germany's, which is historically horrific.
Yes, they could have, but they had to leave everything behind, and they just happen to have help from the government in the US. Not every country will help people.
And if you don't think Germany's recent past is horrific, I suggest you read about the holocaust and some recent wars. Not an exaggeration at all. Germany's WWII era leader is considered to be one of the worst in known history.
Germany's recent past was the wall coming down and beeing reunited. That was already 30 years ago.
Stop watching US shows about that time. Watch some footage from the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and think about what you can do to prevent totalitarian groups from gaining more ground, if you really want to be free.
On a side note: Germany took in almost one million refugees from the war zone in Syria in _one_ year. It is about 1.5 million in total. Have fun looking up the number for the US per year. From what I remember it has only 5 digits. So much about not helping people.
The US perspective matters only in the US. That is my point.
I'm also sure protecting children from the harmful actions of their parents has nothing to do with killing people.
Children should have someone on their side if things go wrong, and they can't hire someone. That is where child protection laws come in. See also Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
My point was simple, the family fled one country's laws that were oppressive to "them" to another country where they were not.
I think it's fair to argue that any country that has fewer restrictions on what you can do is more free than another. And any country that has more restrictions is less free.
If you prefer restrictions that are justified to protect for yourself and others, it doesn't mean you free (or the kids living there), it just means you willing to accept control from others.
Maybe you live in a totalitarian government yourself? And have gotten used to being "protected" by the government this way?
If you give parents absolute control over their kids on something as fundamental as education, the kids themselves live in a what you call a "totalitarian government". That is why the UN convention lists education as one of the basic rights for children.
I live in the US. And even though I don't agree with all the laws here, I respect them because that is what this society agreed too. Even though it makes this country, again according to your definition, a lot less free than Germany on plenty of issues. Except the right to homeschool.
Btw, I do prefer restrictions that are justified to protect myself and others. Like stop lights, or the right of way, or the fact that the people treating me at the hospital have to pass a medical exam to do that. By the law that is enforced by the government.
You can change that law in Germany if you want. You just have to convince enough people that your way is better. Good luck doing that. I won't support it, and I don't have to. That's the kind of freedom I like.
All I am saying is that kids have rights too. And it's society as a whole who defines those rights and provides government with the rights and means to ensure those rights are provided to the kids, even if this means to separate them from their parents.
> While a court order in June 2018 required the Department of Health and Human Services to reunite more than 2,700 children in its custody with their parents, that number is only a "subset" of the overall separations, said Ann Maxwell, an inspector at the HHS inspector general’s office.
It makes me nervous. Public schools and attempts at mandatory attendance have been weaponized against ethnic and religious minorities in the US. I think it’s fair to say English only laws and corporal punishment for speaking languages other than English in Louisiana schools, along with laws of dubious constitutionality requiring kids to attend these schools, are partly why French will be functionally extinct in Louisiana soon.
There aren't many definitions of freedom that include state control of your children.
> I‘d vote that‘s a good thing, as it ensures a minimum level of education for every kids.
Whether that's good or bad depends on what that "minimum level of education" is. I know nothing of German schools, but in the US, public schools can (at least in some places) provide a "minimum level of education" that is much more "minimum" than it is "education". It also can be very unsafe.
It also depends on what the "education" is. Imagine that it's 1940 in Germany, or 1970 in East Germany. You have to send your children to public school so that they can receive their education. But the education in question is going to include a fair amount of indoctrination. When you can't opt your children out of being indoctrinated, it's pretty clear that you're not free.
Note well: I'm not claiming that current German education is indoctrination. What I am claiming is that totalitarian regimes make the same argument, and in their case, it is clear that mandatory public education is part of the totalitarian control. So the argument that this gives "opportunity to everyone" is at least suspect, because it may be the "opportunity" to be controlled and indoctrinated.
> What I am claiming is that totalitarian regimes make the same argument, and in their case, it is clear that mandatory public education is part of the totalitarian control.
I think the recent totalitarian regimes and their education clearly defines how this is not possible. Many of Nobel Prize-winners, army of scientists who raged against the regime or fled are from totalitarian countries.
But even if they didn't rebel, still they could have been a remarkable scientist or just a decent human being.
> There aren't many definitions of freedom that include state control of your children.
There are some: freedom from violence in the family, freedom from mistreatment, child labor, indoctrination, ...
Essentially this is about balancing the freedoms of the parents to raise their children according to their rules against the freedoms of the children to receive a certain kind of education. I am quite happy this is something I do not have to do, as I fear it’s a very delicate decision to make. And I doubt anyone involved takes such a decision lightly.
> When you can't opt your children out of being indoctrinated, it's pretty clear that you're not free.
True, but then indoctrination of your children might be the least of your problems.
> > When you can't opt your children out of being indoctrinated, it's pretty clear that you're not free.
> True, but then indoctrination of your children might be the least of your problems.
I have never been in such a position. However, I suspect that I would not regard that as the least of my problems. It would be closer to the worst of them.
Around the time that Donald Trump appeared to be a serious contender for the presidential race, I finished up my German dual citizenship application. When I was at the consulate, the person that I met with mentioned that they were absolutely swamped with applications for citizenship and proof of citizenship.
Anecdotally, I know two other people who are working on acquiring their Italian citizenship, one other who acquired their German (dual) citizenship (and moved to Europe), and several who are applying for citizenship in non-EU countries. I don't think the US and Britain (and those who would like to follow their lead) appreciate the energy and means of the people who they are pushing out. We all talk about immigration as the onslaught of poor people (degrading some cherished way of life or needing shelter from persecution etc.) without seeing the full picture. To be clear, I'm not saying that these immigrants are unimportant, just that there is a bigger picture. The person at the consulate said that they had _thousands_ of pending applications for citizenship documents. This is for one country (Germany).
Friends of friends in the Philippines are not interested in coming to the US any more. They want to go to Canada. Filipino immigrants run the US health care system. This relationship is genuinely helpful to the US. US needs more nurses, the Philippines trains them and sends them (not so good for the Philippines, but I'm not looking through that lens in this comment). Why cut off that labor force? Limiting supply (by telling immigrants that they are not welcome) causes real and direct harm to people who need to be taken care of in the US.
The damage of xenophobia and nationalism takes longer than one (US) political term to appear, but the cultural shift is hugely negative for the future. I believe that there are failure modes in globalization, and we are experiencing one now, but scrapping the whole idea is an overreaction. If you want to be part of the solution, find ways to tell people around the world that the US (or the UK) is better than what its politicians say and do.
This article reinforces my suspicion that the British, even the ones who
supported the Remain vote in the referendum, simply have no idea what the EU
is about. For the author, for example, it is a matter of "identity". For the
Remain campaign, the argument was that Brexit would be bad for business and
industry.
The British can just not comprehend the need for a united Europe in the modern
world, where European countries are beset on all sides by many times more
powerful rivals (Russia, China and now even the US is turning against us). To
think that the little nation-states of Europe can survive and prosper on their
own like they did back in the days of Napoleon and Queen Victoria ignores
reality for the warm fuzzy feeling of epic fantasy.
The EU's goal is to promote peace an the well-being of its people (Treaty of
the European Union, article 3, par. 1). The British either ignore this, or, if
they know it, they don't believe it. Therefore, the public conversation about
the EU revolves either around irrelevancies, like bendy bananas and fast-track
airport lanes, or around issues that most people cannot really connnect with,
like the benefits to industry (as if there is anyone left in the UK who
believes that what is good for industry is good for everyone).
No wonder the Leave side carried the referendum vote. Their message was simple
and to the point: "us versus them" (all of them - the EU, those krauts and
frogs and those PIGS countires, Poles, Romanians... everyone). You cannot
argue against nationalistic slogans and battle buses with "Brexit is bad for
business". Nor with "I want my kids to be able to travel to the EU cheaply and
without a visa". A powerful message is needed and it needs to make it clear to
everyone what awaits us if we divide up and withdraw each in our little
borders.
But, nobody has done that for the British- so, it's all identity, bendy
bananas and travel privileges.
>To think that the little nation-states of Europe can survive and prosper on their own... fantasy...
I'm a remainer but I think little nation states that are non EU like Switzerland or Singapore survive and prosper quite well.
I admit I don't know that much about the EU - I think of it mostly as an admin for free trade and travel between the countries mostly. Which I quite like.
One of the troubles with the 2016 leave/remain referendum was remain is clear enough but no one really knew what leave would consist of. When you clarify it none of the options are very popular for instance the polls on remain/May's deal are about 60:40 to remain. Even remain/no deal polls about 56-44 towards remain so to leave politicians will have to force it through against the wishes of the majority of the people and of their parliament. Which is kind of a mess.
> I admit I don't know that much about the EU - I think of it mostly as an admin for free trade and travel between the countries mostly. Which I quite like.
That has not been true since the Lisbon treaty. Now, it’s an EU-wide government supreme over the EU national governments. In key respects, the EU is even more powerful compared to the EU national governments than the US federal government is compared to the US state governments. For example, the federal government cannot pass laws then force the state governments to enforce them. The EU can.
If the EU stayed on its pre-Brexit track, all the stuff that renders US politics intractable would be coming to the EU faster than anyone would think. You’re already seeing it—for example, with Sweden and Finland having to strengthen gun control to accommodate the sensibilities of the rest of Europe.
The us federal government via Congress can certainly pass laws that supersede state laws. That's the purpose of the 9th amendment and the commerce Clause in the us Constitution.
Under the Supremacy Clause, the federal government can pass laws that preempt state laws. What it cannot do is coerce states into enforcing federal laws. (That's the whole premise behind sanctuary cities--states cannot be compelled to enforce federal immigration laws.) The EU can do both--it can pass laws that override national laws, and it can enforce member states to enforce EU laws, or to pass national laws to comply with EU directives.
Switzerland is surrounded by EU countries that have no appetite for war and are its trade partners and allies. The EU is basically its big, fluffy safety buffer.
Switzerland has its own safety buffer. Every grown up man has army duty and has weapons at home and they are surrounded by mountains.
Even Hitler didn't dare to invade Switzerland because of these very reasons, while annexing most of the rest of Europe and adding them to the Third Reich, or making them puppet states for Nazi Germany.
> This article reinforces my suspicion that the British, even the ones who supported the Remain vote in the referendum, simply have no idea what the EU is about.
Erhm, no. Some might consider those who supported Brexit "idiots" but most of them have a pretty good idea what the EU is about. (Which, by the way, is Elitarian empire building -- like for instance the United States)
> The British can just not comprehend the need for a united Europe in the modern world, where European countries are beset on all sides by many times more powerful rivals
> (Russia, China and now even the US is turning against us).
"Big bad US" and "big bad Russia" is what Brussels and the media wants you to think. People living in constant fear are much easier to control.
Putin needs the rest of the world a lot more than the rest of the world needs Putin. Without the sale of oil and gas Russia is pretty much done. Also the EU can be glad that the US is still more or less an ally because our armies are FUBAR. If China, whom by the way is indeed one of the biggest threats of the West right now but seriously overlooked by Brussels, would go offensive we have pretty much nothing to defend us with. This also makes the point of having a EU at all null and void, by the way.
> To think that the little nation-states of Europe can survive and prosper on their own like they did back in the days of Napoleon and Queen Victoria ignores reality for the warm fuzzy feeling of epic fantasy.
There were no "little nation states" in the time of Napoleon. He conquered pretty much the whole continent of Europe, tried to invade Russia (big mistake) and finally met his Waterloo at Waterloo. Seems you don't know a lot about European history to begin with...
> The EU's goal is to promote peace an the well-being of its people (Treaty of the European Union, article 3, par. 1).
I'm getting a vibe you never read Orwell or never really understood what he was trying to say.
> Therefore, the public conversation about the EU revolves either around irrelevancies
Yeah, let's never mention the irrelevant facts that the EU is lead by a public drunk, and as such even a bigger disgrace than Trump, and most of the officials signing in to get the money that comes with it and then return home (There's video evidence of this, and yes it pissed officials off to no end that they got caught on tape doing this).
> Their message was simple and to the point: "us versus them"
Bullshit. Their message was simply: "We want our fucking country and our own destiny back"
> so, it's all identity, bendy bananas and travel privileges.
And the God given right to choose your own destiny as a free people.
Living in America, this is the same way I feel about my EU passport. It's more precious than anything I own or will ever own. Being able to leave the insanity here is such a lifeline, extremely similar to being able to leave the insanity in Britain. One can tell these two nations, America and Britain, share the same roots and they're both going to shit at the same time in similar ways.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] thread"Former German citizens who between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945 were deprived of their citizenship on political, racial or religious grounds, and their descendants, shall on application have their citizenship restored. They shall be deemed never to have been deprived of their citizenship if they have established their domicile in Germany after 8 May 1945 and have not expressed a contrary intention."
So, if you were denaturalized, you aren't automatically a German citizen again, because that would obviously be insulting to those who were persecuted, fled Germany, and never wanted to have anything to do with Germany ever again.
If you apply for citizenship, it will be granted. If you live in Germany again, the reasoning above doesn't hold anymore, and you are spared the formality of a full application for citizenship.
The article is in fact loaded and a little misrepresentative, implying that somehow UK citizens won't have any rights to reside or work in the UK which is not fair.
I'm not a citizen of any European country and I've lived and worked in Europe without a whole lot of trouble.
Obviously, there's nuance to these issues, always lost in the fog of 'word wars'.
I'm assuming that one of those is a typo? But if you think EU citizens will be entirely safe and comfortable in the UK after a hypothetical Brexit, you've not been paying attention to the "hostile environment" and the deportation of actual Brits in the Windrush fiasco.
It's a little populist and inflammatory to suggest that the UK is a 'hostile environment' for EU citizens.
Literally millions of EU citizens and other naturalized immigrants from EU countries - and others around the world, live in UK, and they don't 'live in fear'.
There are obviously many ambiguities, and people caught up in immigration snafus.
Neither of these issues are new.
As treaties are realigned (and they have been forever and will continue to evolve), citizenship status will be adjust, but neither the UK or the EU are going to start mass deportations.
And to indicate an individual getting caught up in the system as evidence of much is not fair; have you considered the problems right now in Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy? Just to start the list?
Sadly, even the most modern nations have loopholes in their systems and outcomes are not always just, but overall, most modern nations have lawful, well regulated and reasonable policies, for the most part.
The intention was to make the system as unreasonable as possible in order to reduce overall immigration numbers.
> have you considered the problems right now in Germany, Poland, Greece, Italy?
Which problems are you referring to?
However:
> We are no longer prisoners of a country whose politicians do not and will not, likely for a generation or more, reflect me in any shape or form.
Given her family's experience with Germany, I find it heartbreakingly naive that she obviously thinks that this will not be the case here, not now and not in 25 or 50 or 75 years.
With multiple citizenship you at least can emigrate somewhere and, while not as integrated as native citizens, at least will never be ejected as unwanted immigrants.
This is all seems improbable, of course, even ridiculous. But I don't think anyone in Germany could've seriously imagined the situation of 1939-45 30 years earlier.
I share her happiness and enthusiasm, and commend her for acting on her beliefs. But this quote from the very end of the article is what many Brits believed to be the truth, up until Brexit. One important lesson here - nothing is forever. A wave of xenophobia and nationalism is sweeping the world and separatism is back in fashion. Freedom is under threat.
With Brexit, a "race to the bottom" and bonfire of EU work regulations is more likely.
You are absolutely right and I wasn't trying to equate the two. To be clear - I will not label leave voters as xenophobes or nationalists, and I don't dispute the legitimacy of voting "leave". My concrete point was: having a German passport is not necessarily a guarantee of all the freedoms she's seeking for herself and her children.
They successfully applied for political asylum in the US.
Germany is hardly a bastion of freedom some may think.
Regarding the case of home schooling, the German position is that the state is required legally to ensure equal opportunity education for everyone. Parents therefore are legally required to send their kids to (public/approved/registered) schools.
While debatable, I‘d vote that‘s a good thing, as it ensures a minimum level of education for every kids.
>Germany decided that not only the parents are responsible for the education of the next generation, but also the government.
Not long ago Germany "decided" to make other laws that were used against Jews, were these just laws? Do you support the laws in Brunei that allow certain people to be killed based on their sexual preferences?
These are not hypothetical situations, this is reality for people. A refugee family from modern Germany was granted asylum in the US based on US definition of freedom, not Germany's, which is historically horrific.
Calling any European state with “horrific” freedom is an exaggeration.
And if you don't think Germany's recent past is horrific, I suggest you read about the holocaust and some recent wars. Not an exaggeration at all. Germany's WWII era leader is considered to be one of the worst in known history.
Stop watching US shows about that time. Watch some footage from the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville and think about what you can do to prevent totalitarian groups from gaining more ground, if you really want to be free.
On a side note: Germany took in almost one million refugees from the war zone in Syria in _one_ year. It is about 1.5 million in total. Have fun looking up the number for the US per year. From what I remember it has only 5 digits. So much about not helping people.
The US perspective matters only in the US. That is my point.
I'm also sure protecting children from the harmful actions of their parents has nothing to do with killing people.
Children should have someone on their side if things go wrong, and they can't hire someone. That is where child protection laws come in. See also Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I think it's fair to argue that any country that has fewer restrictions on what you can do is more free than another. And any country that has more restrictions is less free.
If you prefer restrictions that are justified to protect for yourself and others, it doesn't mean you free (or the kids living there), it just means you willing to accept control from others.
Maybe you live in a totalitarian government yourself? And have gotten used to being "protected" by the government this way?
edit: clarification.
I live in the US. And even though I don't agree with all the laws here, I respect them because that is what this society agreed too. Even though it makes this country, again according to your definition, a lot less free than Germany on plenty of issues. Except the right to homeschool.
Btw, I do prefer restrictions that are justified to protect myself and others. Like stop lights, or the right of way, or the fact that the people treating me at the hospital have to pass a medical exam to do that. By the law that is enforced by the government.
You can change that law in Germany if you want. You just have to convince enough people that your way is better. Good luck doing that. I won't support it, and I don't have to. That's the kind of freedom I like.
It's less free for the children, who are human and have their own rights, and deserve to have those rights enforced.
> While a court order in June 2018 required the Department of Health and Human Services to reunite more than 2,700 children in its custody with their parents, that number is only a "subset" of the overall separations, said Ann Maxwell, an inspector at the HHS inspector general’s office.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-07/number-of...
There aren't many definitions of freedom that include state control of your children.
> I‘d vote that‘s a good thing, as it ensures a minimum level of education for every kids.
Whether that's good or bad depends on what that "minimum level of education" is. I know nothing of German schools, but in the US, public schools can (at least in some places) provide a "minimum level of education" that is much more "minimum" than it is "education". It also can be very unsafe.
It also depends on what the "education" is. Imagine that it's 1940 in Germany, or 1970 in East Germany. You have to send your children to public school so that they can receive their education. But the education in question is going to include a fair amount of indoctrination. When you can't opt your children out of being indoctrinated, it's pretty clear that you're not free.
Note well: I'm not claiming that current German education is indoctrination. What I am claiming is that totalitarian regimes make the same argument, and in their case, it is clear that mandatory public education is part of the totalitarian control. So the argument that this gives "opportunity to everyone" is at least suspect, because it may be the "opportunity" to be controlled and indoctrinated.
I think the recent totalitarian regimes and their education clearly defines how this is not possible. Many of Nobel Prize-winners, army of scientists who raged against the regime or fled are from totalitarian countries.
But even if they didn't rebel, still they could have been a remarkable scientist or just a decent human being.
There are some: freedom from violence in the family, freedom from mistreatment, child labor, indoctrination, ...
Essentially this is about balancing the freedoms of the parents to raise their children according to their rules against the freedoms of the children to receive a certain kind of education. I am quite happy this is something I do not have to do, as I fear it’s a very delicate decision to make. And I doubt anyone involved takes such a decision lightly.
> When you can't opt your children out of being indoctrinated, it's pretty clear that you're not free.
True, but then indoctrination of your children might be the least of your problems.
> True, but then indoctrination of your children might be the least of your problems.
I have never been in such a position. However, I suspect that I would not regard that as the least of my problems. It would be closer to the worst of them.
Anecdotally, I know two other people who are working on acquiring their Italian citizenship, one other who acquired their German (dual) citizenship (and moved to Europe), and several who are applying for citizenship in non-EU countries. I don't think the US and Britain (and those who would like to follow their lead) appreciate the energy and means of the people who they are pushing out. We all talk about immigration as the onslaught of poor people (degrading some cherished way of life or needing shelter from persecution etc.) without seeing the full picture. To be clear, I'm not saying that these immigrants are unimportant, just that there is a bigger picture. The person at the consulate said that they had _thousands_ of pending applications for citizenship documents. This is for one country (Germany).
Friends of friends in the Philippines are not interested in coming to the US any more. They want to go to Canada. Filipino immigrants run the US health care system. This relationship is genuinely helpful to the US. US needs more nurses, the Philippines trains them and sends them (not so good for the Philippines, but I'm not looking through that lens in this comment). Why cut off that labor force? Limiting supply (by telling immigrants that they are not welcome) causes real and direct harm to people who need to be taken care of in the US.
The damage of xenophobia and nationalism takes longer than one (US) political term to appear, but the cultural shift is hugely negative for the future. I believe that there are failure modes in globalization, and we are experiencing one now, but scrapping the whole idea is an overreaction. If you want to be part of the solution, find ways to tell people around the world that the US (or the UK) is better than what its politicians say and do.
The British can just not comprehend the need for a united Europe in the modern world, where European countries are beset on all sides by many times more powerful rivals (Russia, China and now even the US is turning against us). To think that the little nation-states of Europe can survive and prosper on their own like they did back in the days of Napoleon and Queen Victoria ignores reality for the warm fuzzy feeling of epic fantasy.
The EU's goal is to promote peace an the well-being of its people (Treaty of the European Union, article 3, par. 1). The British either ignore this, or, if they know it, they don't believe it. Therefore, the public conversation about the EU revolves either around irrelevancies, like bendy bananas and fast-track airport lanes, or around issues that most people cannot really connnect with, like the benefits to industry (as if there is anyone left in the UK who believes that what is good for industry is good for everyone).
No wonder the Leave side carried the referendum vote. Their message was simple and to the point: "us versus them" (all of them - the EU, those krauts and frogs and those PIGS countires, Poles, Romanians... everyone). You cannot argue against nationalistic slogans and battle buses with "Brexit is bad for business". Nor with "I want my kids to be able to travel to the EU cheaply and without a visa". A powerful message is needed and it needs to make it clear to everyone what awaits us if we divide up and withdraw each in our little borders.
But, nobody has done that for the British- so, it's all identity, bendy bananas and travel privileges.
I'm a remainer but I think little nation states that are non EU like Switzerland or Singapore survive and prosper quite well.
I admit I don't know that much about the EU - I think of it mostly as an admin for free trade and travel between the countries mostly. Which I quite like.
One of the troubles with the 2016 leave/remain referendum was remain is clear enough but no one really knew what leave would consist of. When you clarify it none of the options are very popular for instance the polls on remain/May's deal are about 60:40 to remain. Even remain/no deal polls about 56-44 towards remain so to leave politicians will have to force it through against the wishes of the majority of the people and of their parliament. Which is kind of a mess.
That has not been true since the Lisbon treaty. Now, it’s an EU-wide government supreme over the EU national governments. In key respects, the EU is even more powerful compared to the EU national governments than the US federal government is compared to the US state governments. For example, the federal government cannot pass laws then force the state governments to enforce them. The EU can.
If the EU stayed on its pre-Brexit track, all the stuff that renders US politics intractable would be coming to the EU faster than anyone would think. You’re already seeing it—for example, with Sweden and Finland having to strengthen gun control to accommodate the sensibilities of the rest of Europe.
But it cannot force the states, specifically, to enforce them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_...
I don't know enough about Singapore.
Even Hitler didn't dare to invade Switzerland because of these very reasons, while annexing most of the rest of Europe and adding them to the Third Reich, or making them puppet states for Nazi Germany.
Erhm, no. Some might consider those who supported Brexit "idiots" but most of them have a pretty good idea what the EU is about. (Which, by the way, is Elitarian empire building -- like for instance the United States)
> The British can just not comprehend the need for a united Europe in the modern world, where European countries are beset on all sides by many times more powerful rivals > (Russia, China and now even the US is turning against us).
"Big bad US" and "big bad Russia" is what Brussels and the media wants you to think. People living in constant fear are much easier to control.
Putin needs the rest of the world a lot more than the rest of the world needs Putin. Without the sale of oil and gas Russia is pretty much done. Also the EU can be glad that the US is still more or less an ally because our armies are FUBAR. If China, whom by the way is indeed one of the biggest threats of the West right now but seriously overlooked by Brussels, would go offensive we have pretty much nothing to defend us with. This also makes the point of having a EU at all null and void, by the way.
> To think that the little nation-states of Europe can survive and prosper on their own like they did back in the days of Napoleon and Queen Victoria ignores reality for the warm fuzzy feeling of epic fantasy.
There were no "little nation states" in the time of Napoleon. He conquered pretty much the whole continent of Europe, tried to invade Russia (big mistake) and finally met his Waterloo at Waterloo. Seems you don't know a lot about European history to begin with...
> The EU's goal is to promote peace an the well-being of its people (Treaty of the European Union, article 3, par. 1).
I'm getting a vibe you never read Orwell or never really understood what he was trying to say.
> Therefore, the public conversation about the EU revolves either around irrelevancies
Yeah, let's never mention the irrelevant facts that the EU is lead by a public drunk, and as such even a bigger disgrace than Trump, and most of the officials signing in to get the money that comes with it and then return home (There's video evidence of this, and yes it pissed officials off to no end that they got caught on tape doing this).
> Their message was simple and to the point: "us versus them"
Bullshit. Their message was simply: "We want our fucking country and our own destiny back"
> so, it's all identity, bendy bananas and travel privileges.
And the God given right to choose your own destiny as a free people.
QED.