Red Tape Makes it Harder to Prevent Honor Killings

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The German government is too busy hunting down homeschooling families, taking the children, and putting the parents in jail.

You forgot about Christian ministers who criticize Islam. Lots of jail space for them.

German red tape and a lack of will

Never thought I'd live to see those words associated with Germans...

Don’t worry, they’ll paint you a pretty chalk outline and give your killer eight years max.

Sharia law: coming soon to a nation near you American pig! :D

Correction:

Sharia law: coming soon to a nation near you American infidel pig! :D

German red tape and a lack of will

On the other hand, you often see those words associated with Germans.

These thugs are being ably assisted by the Multi-culturalist within European Society. There was a German Family Court Judge who invoked the Koran and Muslim tradition to return a wife to her physically abusive husband, saying, you knew his society was like this before you got married.

Then there is this gem from a Norwegian Academic; "I will not blame Norwegian women for the rapes. But Norwegian women must understand that we live in a multi-cultural society and adapt themselves to it."—Professor Unni Wikan, Oslo, Norway, 09/06/2001.

Red Tape Makes it Harder to Prevent Honor Killings

While islam makes it easy to commit honor killings

The German government is too busy hunting down homeschooling families, taking the children, and putting the parents in jail.

Well you have no idea what could happen if we Germans would allow homeschooling. All Turks would "homeschool" their daughters in Madrasahs. They probably would not be able to read and write but at least they could recite the so called "Koran" then. Now those girls have the chance on free western education and information provided by the German states. This sparked a emancipation wave among Turkish women that has massive influence on their society in Germany and as an European export in Turkey.

This success is far more important to Germans who are in decisive positions than the "rights" of a few Christian fundamentalists (who are usually deeply influenced by evangelical groups from the US) who want to install a "homeschool"-system in our country. Those people are in numeral and religious aspects a completely irrelevant minority. A few hundred barraters in a nation of 82.000.000. Fact is that homeschooling was never allowed in Germany. The common duty to visit a accredited private or public school is quite old and no spechial heritage of the nazis as some dumb propaganda from America is sometimes alleging. It started with Martin Luther who called for obligatory public schools in 1524. The first relating laws were verbalized in the "Principia regulativa" of king Friedrich Wilhelm I., (1717), and confirmed through the "Generallandschulreglement" of Frederic the Great in 1763. The nazis simply adopted old right in their "Reichsschulpflichtgesetz". They never invented it. After the war the relating laws were pursued and expanded on residents in Germany with a non-German citizenship (US - soldiers in Germany are not affected because of the Status of Forces Agreement).

The "Schulpflicht", the duty to attend a accredited private or public school, is part of our way of live. Therefore it is not negotiable. Neither for Christian nor for Islamist fundamentalists. If someone is living in Germany he has to subordinate himself in a certain extend to our manners and culture. If someone does not want to do this he has the freedom to stay away.

Regards from Germany.

A.B.

If you are willing to make the state the primary educator of your children, and not the parents, you have already lost the fight.

I am offended that you put "rights" in quotation marks. The family is SUPERIOR to the state. The state does not ordinarily have the authority to force children into government "education" centers.

"The "Schulpflicht", the duty to attend a accredited private or public school, is part of our way of live. Therefore it is not negotiable"

If you cannot even stop honor killings, you are incapable of protecting your "way of life." Not all who homeschool are fundamentalist (we do, and we're Catholic). Modern secular schools are making the mess that is allowing the Muslims to gain a foothold in your country. Your country is trying very hard to make sure that nobody who would resist them is given the tools or the spine to do so.

If you are willing to make the state the primary educator of your children, and not the parents, you have already lost the fight.

Which fight?

I am offended that you put "rights" in quotation marks. The family is SUPERIOR to the state. The state does not ordinarily have the authority to force children into government "education" centers.

And the personal right on information and education of each kid is SUPERIOR to the right of the family to keep the control over its members.

If you cannot even stop honor killings, you are incapable of protecting your "way of life.

You have no idea. Are you Americans able to control every BS committed by your underdogs? To give you a example: Los Angeles riots

Modern secular schools are making the mess that is allowing the Muslims to gain a foothold in your country. Your country is trying very hard to make sure that nobody who would resist them is given the tools or the spine to do so.

Might be the case in your country. Nevertheless this is not so in Germany. German schools are not secular. They provide religious education (not obligatory - Evangelical Christians have the alternative to stay away). Due to the fact that practically all German Christians are either catholic or Lutheran such is easy. The lessons are usually given by clergymen and/or teachers who received a special tutorial from the two churches. Furthermore there is the possibility to give the kids into accredited private schools that provide a special (religious) program (i.e. Evangelical, even Muslim or last but not least absolutely no religion) but also a basement of education. I have two of my sons on a private catholic school that is operated by Jesuites.

Nevertheless there is nobody who is able to dictate us how we should operate our education system. Therefore we will kick the a*ses of "home schoolers" now and in the future since we do not understand the value but are well aware of the dangers. Different countries different attitudes. Live with it.

Which fight?

If you deny the rights of Christians to educate their own children, because you are afraid of how some of your small Muslim population might educate their children. You have lost the fight. You are letting the Muslims dictate terms. If you don't think parents can take responsibility of the education of their own children, then you don't believe in a very basic freedom.

And the personal right on information and education of each kid is SUPERIOR to the right of the family to keep the control over its members.

That is the rational used in public schools to give the kids Planned Parenthood style sex ed. Frankly, modern Dewey-style education in the west no longer simply educates (when it was, home schooling was a trifle, allowed, but uncommon). If you grant the state a monopoly on what you call the dispensing of information, it will be abused. Perhaps you are the product of such a system, and cannot distinguish between a right and an abuse of a right. I have never meant to usethe U.S. as paradigm of perfection, only that we come closer to honoring the natural law on this one issue. Here, we have hordes of urban students whose bodies are in the schools and their minds are elsewhere. They are controlled by their peers in the gangs, school or no school. At very least you could prescribe a curriculum to the parents, and have them submit paperwork if you really want to as a first step. The CHristians you are jailing because you fear Muslims educating their children will probably cooperate for the most part (as the Amish do here). Evolution may not be taught to the state's liking, but that is not essential for citizenship. If your problem is really Muslims, you should come out and say it, instead of arresting Christians.

Are you Americans able to control every BS committed by your underdogs?

The article originally cited referred to red tape as the cause of the problems. The LA riots were different. However, I will glade cede that we have our own "red tape" problems. It is impossible to fire an incompetent teacher in New York state for instance.

Nevertheless this is not so in Germany. German schools are not secular.

My wife is Canadian, and the Catholic schools in Canada are completely dictated to by the state schools. Catholics (by papal teaching) are required to be the PRIMARY educators of children. The schools are to ASSIST the parents. Sometimes, you have a bad Catholic school system due to corruption/incompetence/social agendas at the hands of the local bishop/superintendent. (The Jesuits in partic ular have been known to have their own set of problems). Just as one has a right to use force to defend himself when the police cannot or will not do it, parents have the right/duty to educate their own children when the state/church school is not/wil not do it.

I'm not big on your vocational track system, though I will admit that in many ways German public education is probably better in most ways than U.S. That does not, and cannot take away the parents rights and responsibilities, which take precedence over the states. I certainly take St. Thomas Aquinas over Martin Luther and Kant on that one.

Nevertheless there is nobody who is able to dictate us how we should operate our education system.

Who is this "us" you are talking about? You are imprisoning otherwise excellent law-abiding citizens. Your laws can change. It is all negotiable. You have decided to come on An American polictical forum that is filled with home-schoolers and you are surprised that we think your anti-parent attitudes are wrong? It is you who will have to live with it.

If you deny the rights of Christians to educate their own children, because you are afraid of how some of your small Muslim population might educate their children. You have lost the fight. You are letting the Muslims dictate terms. If you don't think parents can take responsibility of the education of their own children, then you don't believe in a very basic freedom.

Well, we Germans are a nation of 82.000.000 people. 3.7% of our population are Muslim. That makes roundabout 2.700.000 Muslims in my country. Furthermore we deal with a few hundred homeschoolers from mainly small Christian sects. We do not let Muslims dictate terms but we have to admit that our interest into proper education of Muslim kids in Germany is much higher than into the wishes of a absolutely irrelevant minority. It is simply a balancing of interests.

That is the rational used in public schools to give the kids Planned Parenthood style sex ed.

Well, Germany has anyway complete different sex morals than the US. Our kids receive sex education with 11 or 12 years since a long time. I remember that our teachers were not allowed to tell us anything about contraception but told us everything else in the beginning 80ties. Today they teach birth control too. So what? To me information has to be available if it is needed. In difference to the US the teenage pregnancy rate in Germany is much lower although I doubt that the basic sexual behavior is different. To my knowlege the average first sex of German kids happens with 16 or 17 years and is not triggered by sexual education.

It might be that most (Christian - BTW) Germans have a much more casual handling of sex than evangelical conservative Christians do, but it has to be said that the responsibility for sexual behavior is very well something that can be conveyed by a family. Sexual responsibility is different to sexual information. Therefore we have absolutely no reason to allow someone to deny his kids the information that we consider as important just because of his religious commitment. If his belief is worth something he/she should be able to get it across to his kids. If they identify themselves with the message they will adjust their personal behavior. You should simply understand that we Germans are not willing to let Muslims and/or evangelical Christians dictate our way of live. All of our kids get the basic information and it is their very own decision what they do with it. No matter if we talk about history, biology, literature or (obviously quite important to Muslims and fundamental Christians) sexual education.

If you grant the state a monopoly on what you call the dispensing of information, it will be abused.

The German state has no monopoly on information. Germans have the right to send their kids on private schools that stand for their own aims. Nevertheless those schools have to fit into some minimum standards. They have to provide real information and not only a religious program. That is all.

My wife is Canadian, and the Catholic schools in Canada are completely dictated to by the state schools. Catholics (by papal teaching) are required to be the PRIMARY educators of children. The schools are to ASSIST the parents.

Personally I see myself as the PRIMARY educator of my kids and I share your view completely that schools only should be allowed to ASSIST the parents in bringing up the children. The basic philosophy of live is something a school can not provide. Such takes loving parents. The sexual act i.e. can be explained by a teacher but it takes a loving mother or father to say something about the immemorial secret around it. Therefore - do not get me wrong: Schools are places of free information but no places of propaganda.

The thing is that we Germans want to have all of our kids to know some basic things. Therefore we need our schools. Nevertheless that does not strip the right of the parents to take influence on their children.

Thank you for your post. We have a very different understanding of what God-given rights (that the state is not allowed to trespass upon) are. With essential rights, there is no "balancing of interests." I don't particularly care whether the parents are evangelical, or Muslim or Hindu. If they are fit to breath free air, feed and clothe their own children, and otherwise raise them, they are fit to see to their own children's upbringing, including education on their own. I don't know how hard Germany makes it to be a certified private school. In many states here, Pennsylvania, for instance, (which is strong labor-union/homeschooling hostile), homeschooling is allowed, but each home school is registered as a private school.

If the schools are teaching sex ed, including birth control, that is completely against Catholic teaching. I am no evangelical, but if my line were still in Germany (my great-great-grandfather Gottlieb cames to America 120 years ago), I would have to take my children out of the country rather than have them instructed in sex education by those whose mission is to implant values different than mine, but apparently compatible with the German government. I am greatly saddened if the Jesuits are cooperating with this.

If you are willing to make a distinction between Muslims and Christians, why are you obliged to imprison evangelical Christian parents because of Muslims? If they are insignificant, they are no threat. Why not allow them to go their way as we allow the statistically insignificant Amish? I imagine you have more control in your schools with your Muslim population than we have in our inner city schools, but if some sections have critical mass, you may get your madrassas with the added burden of paying for it.

Since we disagree on whether an inviolable principle is involved (the parents' essential right to determine their own children's education, including evangelicals who want to instruct them at home), I see no resolution. It is not merely a balancing of interests, any more than Red Communist China has a right to coercively sterilize her own women after the birth of a child, regardless of the size of their population or their balancing of interest.

I wonder how many of the millions of Catholics would like to provide with a proper moral education Germany. If the country at large is okay with sex outside of marriage (teen pregnancy statistics are irrelevant. My mother was pregnant as a teen. She graduated at 18, got married, and had my older brother 13 months later at 19). What matters is out-of-wedlock sexual activity, pregnancy, abortion and divorce. Unfortunately, the U.S. has awful numbers in all these areas. Our way of life has already changed, in large part because of what has been taught in both the media and the classroom. Since Germany has the same permissive culture in this regard (with more abortifacient birth control [low-dose estrogen birth control pills often prevent implantation, causing a tiny micarriage]) and probably less marriage and divorce overall. If the Catholics in Germany are indifferent or accepting of this, there is little hope.

Your way of life has already changed. The non-secularized Muslims make the opposite mistakes, practically making women's bodies to be evil, and having a fundamentally false conception of what God wants, and how men are to behave. That does not mean that modern secularism is going to wind up any better.

We have a very different understanding of what God-given rights (that the state is not allowed to trespass upon) are.

This is for sure true. If Americans refer to "God-given rights" they usually advert to the following term of their declaration of independence (which is a great document anyway): "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The thing is, that "certain unalienable rights" are not clearly defined. Is the individual right of the kid on unfiltered and free information not as important as the right of the family to take influence? Therefore - is the right on unfiltered and free information not also a "unalienable right"?

Nevertheless to me this is irrelevant anyway. You should not forget that I am no American and the declaration of independence is nothing more to me than a interesting source of good history and philosophy. As a European I have a different understanding of freedom and rights since I was formed in and through a different culture of course. First of all we Europeans usually understand our state as a representation of ourselves. That means that we normally do not have to be protected from it, since most of us trust into our public authorities. Furthermore most contemporary Europeans see the rights of the individual as those that are the most important ones while rights of groups (i.e. the family) are far less important. The "Kindesinteresse" (interest of the kid) is absolutely in the foreground. If the "Kindesinteresse" is congruent with the interests of the family then we have no problem. But if the interests of the family are much different to what we define as the "Kindesinteresse" the state intervenes in the interest of the kid. This is what happens in the moment in Germany. The state saves the children from being manipulated through their parents who restrict their access on free information because of the parental religious beliefs. To give you a example: Not that long ago I had a harsh discussion with a friend of my wife who refused to open her kids the access to books with Darwinist background (the respective book showed the development of elephants). I am unable to understand that -even if someone is a creationist- it should be forbidden to take a look on it and to talk about it. Sooner or later her kids will get into contact with the teachings of Darwin and then they are going to come into real deep doubts if they understand that their mother suppressed some basic and crucial information. It is not funny to wake up in Disneyland. Therefore the right on information is completely unalienable to me. This is something "God-given" to most of us Europeans. Nevertheless information is one thing, the interpretation is something completely different. This is the point where the mother (in this case) is needed. She has not only the right but the duty to get her good belief across to her children but she has no reason to keep the kids completely uninformed. Such is contraproductive and against the basic "Kindesinteresse".

If the schools are teaching sex ed, including birth control, that is completely against Catholic teaching. I am greatly saddened if the Jesuits are cooperating with this.

The thing is that they teach it but they also conciliate the teaching with the Catholic philosophy of marital life. Marriage in Catholicism is a godly institution and a holy sacrament. Therefore sex outside the marriage is simply not allowed. My boys (I have 3 sons) have been taught that but they also know (according to their age) about the biological essentials. This is no antagonism. My kids simply get the full information. They also get the full information about the different theories about the Genesis together with my personal point of view in this question. Where is the problem? What they do with this intellectual basement in their personal lives is their very own decision. The thing is that they will have enough knowledge some day to reach their very own reasonable arbitration.

I wonder how many of the millions of Catholics would like to provide with a proper moral education Germany. If the country at large is okay with sex outside of marriage

The situation in Germany in this respect is not that different to the situation in the US. We have indeed the problem that large parts of our population lack a proper ethic background. The thing is that this was not triggered by schools or education but through female emancipation and the therewith connected decay of traditional family structures. You can believe me that high divorce rates and mothers who do not care for their children are a much bigger problem in our society than sexual education.

If you are willing to make a distinction between Muslims and Christians, why are you obliged to imprison evangelical Christian parents because of Muslims? If they are insignificant, they are no threat.

The thing is that we would generate a precedence. Since we have to treat all of our citizens equal of course we would indeed open the door to madrassas because of a few insignificant people. Of course some evangelical eccentrics are no threat but they would open the way to a strange Muslim parallel society that we can not tolerate. Therefore there will be no homeschooling.

Since we disagree on whether an inviolable principle is involved (the parents' essential right to determine their own children's education, including evangelicals who want to instruct them at home), I see no resolution.

It might be that there is no resolution, but it is indeed interesting to learn about a different opinion that has its intellectual background.

:)