The term ‘Schildbürgerstreich’ is used colloquially to describe ludicrous and misleading regulations or excesses of bureaucracy.
One example from abroad: The Chinese once decided to become the world's largest steel producer. In an unprecedented move by the central government, citizens were urged to hand in all their steel cooking pots and tools. Which they did - by force - China kept its word and made itself the largest steel producer. The consequences for the people were hunger, impoverishment, denunciation, persecution and the like.
Today's Green policy in Germany is often perceived as putting enormous resources into projects that ultimately lead to the downfall of their own people. For example, the ban on nuclear power plants and investments into "green energy", the plan to become car free one day.
Meanwhile cycle lanes are built in the middle of main roads, thereby endangering cyclists and slowing down traffic. As the money was being spent, elsewhere in Dresden the Carola Bridge - one main bridge - over the river collapsed, which is attributed to the fact that the city manager did not bother to have the bridge refurbished.
The federal government's migration policy is presented to people as if those in power think that if only enough foreigners are brought into the country, their demographic problem will be solved, instead of pursuing a conservative family policy, etc, etc.
My satire refers to the latest frequent statements by a German politician who says that German savers and current account holders are hoarding over two trillion euros on their books, and that taking just ten per cent of this sum could provide an enormous boost to infrastructure if the money could be accessed. Which is understood to be exactly what he intends to do.
My text was lost in translation, I guess, because I used a language that is no longer common today and the citizens of Schilda are only really understood immediately by us Germans who still know the old stories.
It was nevertheless fun writing it down and to spread some humor.
I did understand your points. There is an old moral tale told to children about a grasshopper that gamboled about all summer, while ants diligently toil and save up food in their pantry for the coming winter. In the winter the ants make do on their savings accumulated through hard work and discipline, but the grasshopper, starving, begs the ants for their savings.
It was this story of the grasshopper and the ant I referred to in my too terse reply (I am excessively verbose, and strive to be less so). Perhaps my agreement with your point wasn't able to be conveyed so briefly, given our differing cultures and stories we're told in our childhood.
The woe that Germany suffers due to policies of the Greens are not unknown to me, and that suffering has been terribly exacerbated by pressure from NATO, and from the USA directly, worst in the sabotage of the Nordstream II pipeline. I am apprised that German industry is fleeing for China and the US, where less expensive energy requisite to industrial production is available, and the influx of migrants I have heard referred to as 'Merkelmen' is also well understood, and today Americans deeply empathize because of our own influx of immigrants, seemingly a flow without end, nor any good end in mind of those that encourage and enable it.
The OP is very well written, and while I didn't address the obvious tongue in cheek and humor, an undercurrent of rancor remained palpable and obviously justly so, as Germany is already one of the most heavily taxed polities in the world. For some politician to seriously propose outright theft of ~10% of the funds of the most industrious and disciplined savers in such economic plight is absolutely intolerable, and the grasshopper in the children's tale well relates the value of such character.
I appreciated your post far more than I initially noted in my initial reply, because I have so taxed you with interminable rants so often in the past, to be still rewarded with your diligent reply after suffering through such walls of text to attain to understanding of my comments, I hoped to spare you such suffering and yet convey my appreciation in brief. It seems I am prone to either too little text, or too much, in my replies.
Like this one =p
Ah, thanks for the story from your childhood, I couldn't really make the connection. HaHa! A good story, very much to the point!
Everything you say is true about the Merkel men and the parallels that now exist in both our countries. Nothing good comes out of such actionism, which is completely unsuitable as a problem solver. The upside-down views are so obvious, so unmistakable, that it is hard to believe that one half of the people in the country seems to be completely struck with stupidity when they willingly saw up the branch they are sitting on. ... There seems to be a deeper desire for death behind this. I can't explain it any other way. In Germany, this is called the ‘unbearable lightness of being’.
The West, indoctrinated by a deep sense of guilt, does not seem to have realised that forgiveness of guilt is not a human act, but a divine act of turning to one's conscience.
The idea that today's blacks have to forgive today's whites and that the latter now have to collectively and submissively dispose of their order to have this act of revenge carried out on them is pure presumption and an overestimation of the possibilities of this idea. Rather, this is an expression of complete indiscipline as well as intellectual inertia and physical laziness. Nowhere in the Christian West is there any talk of anyone having a 'right' to take revenge. The reverse is true: someone who, out of pride/vanity, greed or wrath - to name just a few of the deadly sins - makes another the object of their sin is a rule breaker.
But since the devil is a great trickster, he twists the matter and turns the exception into a right and the right into an affront.
So the confused scream ‘I have a right to live myself out!’, meaning the lust to have sex with anyone and anywhere, just like getting wasted on drugs, ‘right to self-determination’ includes killing the unborn, and ‘right to work’, where women make themselves servants of the company or the state instead of living in union with their husbands and serve them, since that is the deal between the male and the female, that she is protected by him and being given material stability. While she gives him children and manages the social and household stuff.
The above named are not rights, never have been, but exceptions to the rules granted only under difficult circumstances, having a price tag. So that the norm was secured.
Your story reminded me on the male-female relationship - that grasshopper represents the crier for 'my rights!', while the ants represent disciplined working folks.
Chuckle :D
The unholy concatenation of the welfare state, feminism, and abortion has broken the building block of society, the family. It has occurred to me that it is the family unit to which suffrage applies, rather than individuals. I reckon the vote of the head of household of a family is the appropriate democratic input necessary to just governance of a society, because that vote represents consideration of the needs and felicity of all the members of the family, the children, the wife, and the husband, and derives from the economic strength or peril families face.
Neither a single man, nor a single woman, represent that fundamental necessity to healthy society that is a family, and when America was originally instituted that was how suffrage was availed, to mature family men with property that demonstrated responsibility necessary to functional society. Availing suffrage to every hobo and tramp breaks that responsibility for functional society, and children might as well be given the vote, because all the interests of the irresponsible and incapable will be assured when distributing suffrage beyond successful families. Then the lazy can vote themselves benefits taken from the savings of the diligent, just as you show is happening, and all the ills strong societies must avoid will quickly enable political pandering to empower the corrupt that hand out free stuff, which sober heads of household concerned for the future of their get would never permit in a million years.
I agree on all what you've said.
Such proposal could be formulated like this:
Only intact families should be entitled to vote democratically.
Which in addition
By ‘intact’ is meant:
Man and woman live together in a household with relatives (either their parents or children or siblings or other blood relatives). Or husband and wife alone, who already have adult children or cared for parents who have already died. In other words, they have fulfilled their intergenerational contract.
Verifying this qualification or form of community is easy because it can be proven by
This would protect all other data.
No morals included. Just facts.
All those who do not live with a family, who do not have employment or do not work in the family, who are too young to run their own household, who live on social welfare, who do not have citizenship, are excluded from the right to vote. They are thus relieved of the burden of having to make an intellectual effort on issues for which they lack practical experience and skill. At the same time, however, they are incentivised to make their participation possible if they marry, look after elderly parents, start a family and are debt-free.
We know, that this would outrage many people, don't we. We know that it will not be realized by the current zeitgeist.
It's not a ready proposal and certainly lacks things which I have not thought about.
LOL It sure would!
I hadn't thought much about the intergenerational aspect of family, because I dismissed the idea of actually restoring suffrage to it's most functional purpose and form, but you did and I appreciate that contribution to my understanding.
Some of your discussion reveals just how complex such undertaking would prove in the world today. Clearly before restoring suffrage more would have to be done to ensure the viability of families and reduce the pressures disrupting familial success.
I will have to disagree that freedom from debt would be necessary, doubt any means of dodging taxes such as barter would ever be superable, and also think social welfare payments are potentially an insuperable impediment.
Regarding debt, successful businesses use debt for sound business reasons. It is extremely rare that a successful business is able to become successful without using debt, perhaps even impossible. As soon as a business needs to grow, debt becomes an essential tool to fund expansion. It is almost unheard of that people purchase homes without borrowing money to do so, for example. Perhaps requiring that a family that has taken on debt is current on it's payments would suffice?
I find the economic evaluation of success to be very complex, and fraught with land mines that can contribute to making implementing such family suffrage even more difficult. I appreciate your mentioning these matters, though, because I wouldn't have thought about them if you hadn't.
Thanks!
That's right, as it stands at the moment, families with children are both a minority and do not have a good balance sheet. And the prospects to start a family in the first place are non-existent or barely incentivised.
On debt: You're absolutely right, when it comes to business, debt is more or less normal because you reinvest and the money never rests and is always in circulation. Which is a good thing.
I would separate company and private accounts here. According to this model, a family that has the right to vote as a household would not be checked for freedom from debt via business accounts (if so is such case) but via the private accounts of the individual members. Maybe that's not the right word, but what I mean by that is a kind of Schufa report that checks whether someone is creditworthy, for example. If you own a home, someone thought of you as worthy of credit, so that would not count as debt.
As I said, it's not a fully developed concept, but I can also imagine that people once started to think about elections and voting rights in the same way in the past. In the very first republics, for example. Yes, in order to eliminate the land mines, intelligent folks must work together and one day, if time is ready, release such new concept into the world. It never will be perfect but "good enough" is often good enough.
It may be that the reputation aspect is a nonsensical idea on my part - i.e. ‘freedom from debt’ or economic success - can be omitted altogether. Because it can be automatically assumed, for example, that families with several generations under one roof are already considered a success and other evidence is superfluous. The simpler, the better, is the motto, I guess.