In Defense of Germany
brianlux
Posts: 42,033
The country of Germany has been maligned elsewhere on AMT so I'm jotting a quick post in defense of that country. Yes, they have a shady past in parts of the 20th century, but Germany is a good example of how change for the better can happen. I have German friends in that country. I know people who have visited and lived there. Germany is a fine place- not perfect, but no place is perfect. Please don't judge Germany on its past.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Variously credited to Mark Twain or Edward Abbey.
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i want to see germany one day, but it is not going to be for another several years i am afraid...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Anyway, it's not as if Americans are in any position to take a moral standpoint.
Speaking as a German, I just say thank you.
:P
That is very nice to read and it happens not often.
I guess we left the past indeed behind although it is tought still in all classes. But that is good. You should be educated about and always reminded to that horrible past we made, to go on in better ways in the future.
We still have ignorant idiots around, in politics and elsewhere but for the rest it has become indeed a very pleasent country to live in.
I experience it as mostly tolerant, nearly peaceful, very aware about environmental problems and gifted with a pretty good as independent media in paper and on tv.
The public television is still different and my Spiegel is reallly good for info gathering.
But still.... we killed once millions of innocents, ANgela now may confuses the whole world,
so it is good to hear something positive about my brith country... as said, it does not happen often.. :P
...the world is come undone, I like to change it everyday but change don't come at once, it's a wave, building before it breaks.
yeah, if you go back in time far enough there are few countries that are innocent. Anyway, I don't know how to blame "Germany" because it is just a concept whereas "Germans" are a very tangible thing, and I certainly don't blame them for shit that happened 70 years ago.
Just for the record, I don't really have a problem with Germany today. I'm just not too concerned about offending ANYONE, and if I see a setup for a joke, I'll jump on it.
So, when I hear about a German accusing the USA of being a murderous, barbaric society, I can't help but laugh...really hard.
Some folks just need to lighten up.
The joke might have worked 60 years ago... but you'd still be offending the millions of Germans who were not murderous barbarians back then. Today it just makes not sense and besides, any time you single out and generalize a nation of people or ethnic group like that it just doesn't come across as a joke. To me it comes across as bias or prejudice. But that's just me- maybe others feel differently. In any case, I stand behind my statements:
"Germany is a good example of how change for the better can happen",
"Germany is a fine place- not perfect, but no place is perfect",
"Please don't judge Germany on its past".
And even though that statement was a generalization of all of America (and was not intended as a joke), I certainly wasn't offended. I just thought it was hilarious. And it was. And still is.
I wish I could say "I'm sorry some folks were offended," but the fact of the matter is I'm not sorry. I find a great deal of humor in the overly politically-correct "I'm so scared of offending anyone" world in which we live now. People take themselves (and everything else) so seriously these days. I just like to keep it light. And folks on this forum give me plenty to laugh at. For example:
Person 1: A German friend said that America is a brutal and murderous society.
Person 2: A GERMAN said that about AMERICA?
Person 1: Hey! :shock: That was offensive. You can't judge a whole society for the acts of a few.
Person 2:
Person 1: Stop it! Just stop it! :evil: You're OFFENDING people!
Person 2:
Person 1:
I'm sorry (not really), and maybe it's just that I don't really get offended by anything (I am a huge South Park fan after all), but this is all really, really, really, REALLY funny to me!
Why does being German preclude you from having an opinion on America's human rights violations? The Germans of Nazi Germany are not the Germans of 2011. I'm sorry, but I won't judge somebody for the actions of their ancestors. While they may have benefited from the crimes of past generations, they did not commit them. What you write off as humor is simply a way of avoiding a discussion by labeling the dissenting opinion as being unworthy of taking a position. Your comment wasn't a joke; it was plain bigotry.
Agreed, thank you blueandwhite.
I think it's you.......
i guess you could say some of those guys got a bad wrap.
I'm not sure where the bigotry accusations are coming from. That's just mean-spirited, and frankly, I'm offended.
I've encountered people that subscribe to bigotry and, in the words of Bob, it ain't me, babe.
I never "judged" the German people of today...I just found some humor in the fact that, especially considering their past, some of them were pointing fingers at the US. And there is humor there, folks...take it from someone who has a sense of humor.
Bennett13, I certainly do not mean to offend you. I found your post to contain slighting remarks towards Germans. Others here see it the same way. Maybe that was not your intention, but that's how it came across to me (and apparently others as well). In fact you continue (as in your most recent post) to show disrespect to a group of people. You say "I just found some humor in the fact that, especially considering their past, some of them were pointing fingers at the U.S." Who- the ghosts of Nazis? You don't see that your statements are offense to German people today?
This is becoming a rhetorical argument and seems to be going nowhere. I will stand by my defense of Germany and I will tell you I am sorry, I meant no offense to you but I'm calling it like I see it. I never make posts simply for the purpose of offending someone. Never.
So who is America to judge Germany?
Dude...I appreciate the apology, but I wasn't really offended. You call it as you see it and, as someone who does the same thing, I definitely can appreciate that. I really don't intend to offend anyone, but the truth hurts sometimes. So, if I call it as I see it, and someone is offended by it, so be it. The point I've been trying to make is that everyone is so uptight these days that they refuse to laugh at anything that might REMOTELY be considered "offensive" to any conceivable group of people, least of all themselves. That, in itself, is comical to me. No hard feelings to anyone here (German or otherwise).
I assume that's a joke. In poor taste, but some of the best jokes are. Now you've got the right idea!
Yeah, George Carlin and a few other could pull off that sort of joke- but you always knew where George was coming from. I mean no offense, but you guys are no George Carlins. And I'm basically half German, so show a little respect would ya?
you would think so wouldnt you? but what is the lesson to be learned?
i would like to think the people,of not just germany, but others countries, would never again follow their leaders so blindly. but history has shown us that genocide didnt end when WW2 did.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I have quite a bit of German blood running through my veins as well. Irish too, which is why every St. Patrick's day, I get drunk, punch out my relatives, and puke all over myself.
Damn....I did it again, didn't I? Maybe this is why my wife is always telling me I need "sensitivity training." Of course, I always said if I were ever forced into sensitivity training, my main goal would be to see how long it took for me to make the instructor cry.
Well, bennett13,ok... I gotta admit... that was funny!
I believe you didn't mean any harm and I'd rather make friends here (or anywhere, for that matter) than enemies. We have a differece of style with timing our humor that's all. No harm done. See you 'round the forum.
B.
I say "native peoples" in quotation marks due to the fact that there were no humans native to the Americas. We all evolved in the "Old World" with some migrating to the Americas about 10,000 years ago.
BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of police officers carried out raids across much of Germany on Wednesday against suspected far-right extremists who allegedly sought to overthrow the government in an armed coup. Officials said 25 people were detained.
Federal prosecutors said some 3,000 officers conducted searches at 130 sites in 11 of Germany's 16 states. While police raids against the far right are not uncommonin the country — still sensitive to its grim Nazi past — the scale of the operation was unusual.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann described the raids as an “anti-terrorism operation,” adding that the suspects may have planned an armed attack on institutions of the state.
Germany's top security official said the group was “driven by violent coup fantasies and conspiracy ideologies.”
Prosecutors said the suspects were linked to the so-called Reich Citizens movement, whose adherents reject Germany’s postwar constitution and have called for bringing down the government.
Officers detained 22 German citizens on suspicion of "membership in a terrorist organization," prosecutors said. Three other people, including a Russian citizen, were held on suspicion of supporting the organization, they said. Another 27 people were under investigation.
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German media outlet Der Spiegel reported the searched locations included the barracks of Germany's special forces unit KSK in the southwestern town of Calw. The unit received scrutiny in the past over alleged far-right involvement by some soldiers.
Federal prosecutors declined to confirm or deny that the barracks was searched.
Along with detentions in Germany, prosecutors said one person was detained in the Austrian town of Kitzbuehel and another in the Italian city of Perugia.
Prosecutors said those detained are alleged to have last year formed a “terrorist organization with the goal of overturning the existing state order in Germany and replace it with their own form of state, which was already in the course of being founded.”
The suspects were aware their aim could only be achieved by military means and with force, prosecutors said.
Some of the group's members had made “concrete preparations” to storm Germany's federal parliament with a small armed group, according to prosecutors. “The details (of this plan) still need to be investigated” to determine whether any of the suspects can be charged with treason, they said.
The group is alleged to have believed in a “conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology,” according to the statement. Prosecutors added that members of the group also believe Germany is ruled by a so-called “deep state;” similar baseless claims about the United States were made by former President Donald Trump.
Prosecutors identified the suspected ringleaders as Heinrich XIII P. R. and Ruediger v. P., in line with German privacy rules. Der Spiegel reported that the former was a well-known 71-year-old member of a minor German noble family, while the latter was a 69-year-old former paratrooper.
Federal prosecutors said Heinrich XIII P. R., whom the group planned to install as Germany's new leader, had contacted Russian officials with the aim of negotiating a new order in the country once the German government was overthrown. He was allegedly assisted in this by a Russian woman, Vitalia B.
“According to current investigations there is no indication however that the persons contacted responded positively to his request,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors identified another individual detained by police Wednesday as Birgit M.-W. Der Spiegel reported she is a judge and former lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany party.
The party, known by its German acronym AfD, has increasingly come under scrutiny by German security services due to its ties with extremists.
AfD's co-leaders, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel, condemned the reported plans, which they said they had only learned of through the media.
“We have full confidence in the authorities involved and demand a swift and comprehensive investigation,” they said in a statement.
Prosecutors said that apart from a council of leaders, or Rat, the group had tasked several members with the formation of an armed wing. Led by Ruediger v. P., they planned to obtain weapons and conduct firearms training.
Wednesday's raids showed that “we know how to defend ourselves with full force against the enemies of democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.
“The investigation offers an insight into the depths of the terrorist threat within the Reich Citizens milieu," Faeser said. “Only the further investigation will provide a clear picture of how far the coup plans had come.”
Sara Nanni, a Green party lawmaker, suggested the group may not have been very capable.
“More details keep coming to light that raise doubts about whether these people were even clever enough to plan and carry out such a coup," Nanni said in a post on the social network Mastodon. "The fact is: no matter how crude their ideas are and how hopeless their plans, even the attempt is dangerous!”
Officials have repeatedly warned that far-right extremists pose the biggest threat to Germany's domestic security. This threat was highlighted by the killing of a regional politician and the deadly attack on a synagogue in 2019. A year later, far-right extremists taking part in a protest against the country’s pandemic restrictions tried and failed to storm the Bundestag building in Berlin.
Faeser announced earlier this year that the government planned to disarm about 1,500 suspected extremists and to tighten background checks for those wanting to acquire guns as part of a broader crackdown on the far right.
Germany's chief federal prosecutor planned to make a statement on the case later Wednesday.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14