Post photo: Regulatory Office | © Alex Fox on Pixabay
Based on an experience that was shaped by decades of observation and personal experience, I now have to state the following; without question, this statement also shakes my own early convictions.
In a nutshell: a society can only be really tolerant if its judiciary and executive are explicitly not.
Our common laws, rules and principles have emerged over centuries and not only shape our free democratic basic order today, but are also the foundation on which our society stands and will continue to develop.
Democracy, federalism, Christianity and humanism are an integral part of our society: they shape our open society, which is fundamentally open to all people who not only recognize our values and customs, but also want to live them themselves. Our open society cannot exist with other ideals, values and customs, because then it would be a different society, maybe a similarly open one, but definitely a completely different one.
It is therefore imperative that everyone, whether long-established or people who have moved here, commit to our open society and its free democratic basic order and support it.
Our open society can tolerate those who think differently in our ranks, to a certain extent also rub against their ideas and concepts and maybe also adopt one or the other as good, because every society thrives on change, and utopia is by definition pure utopia and dead in its standstill from the start, but as soon as the above principles come under threat, our society as a whole must respond vigorously and effectively.
Dwight D. Eisenhower already warned in his inaugural address as US President that
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, First Inaugural Address” (January 20, 1953)
Peter Hahne called for the end of the fun society in 2004 in his widely acclaimed book “Schloss mit jolly”. Unfortunately, most of our fellow citizens probably saw this as the starting signal to shake all our foundations even more merrily than before.
It is precisely our laws, rules and principles that have made the success of our society possible in the first place and have made our country one of the few dream countries of many people from all over the world. And with further non-compliance, undermining or even abolition of the basis of our prosperity, we will slowly but surely abolish our entire open and hitherto successful society.
And this is exactly where my demand comes in, namely that our judiciary and executive have zero tolerance towards anyone who breaks our rules!
Since we have long since crossed the line of tolerability, we must force the legislature to make the judiciary and executive ruthless and unyielding in their duties. In addition, we can no longer be lenient with even the smallest violations of the rules, otherwise there will soon be no more capacity to get the whole thing under control.
No more funny! must finally not only become a generally formulated demand, but also be implemented and supported by everyone.
Rule violations as well as violations of law and order must be sanctioned as quickly as possible. The additional need for personnel and effort pays for itself very quickly and also frees up capacities that previously had to be used to limit or repair damage.
Requirements, whether of a mental, physical, technical or other nature, must be fully met again and must not continue to be sacrificed to a passing zeitgeist. A doctor with no ethos, a judge with no brains, or a teacher with no education is just as useless as a firefighter or police officer without arms and legs.
But even these corrections are no longer sufficient; we have to keep tightening the screws to avert the gradual disintegration of our open society.
Religious freedom is one of the freedoms that make up our society, but that does not mean that we have to protect or tolerate religions that reject an open society or our free democratic basic order and their values and rules.
Zero tolerance must even go so far that even a Christian church that refuses to cooperate with the state in the event of crimes committed within its ranks is effectively sanctioned. Even the violation of gender equality is not only to be punished, but the deficiency is also to be remedied.
Dual citizenship is not really possible and only makes half sense in the following cases, namely in the case of the Member States of the European Union, which are in the process of exchanging national for European citizenship, and historically with Israel, the USA and Canada.
In this case, zero tolerance must ensure that multiple citizenships are documented and, if possible, dissolved in the course of this, and that the opportunity is also taken to withdraw German citizenship in the case of criminal citizens with other citizenships.
The right to asylum is one of the general human rights and is not only recognized by us, but also enshrined in law. But even this has its necessary and generally recognized limitations, namely when the asylum-seeker is listed for criminal prosecution, which actually occurs for crimes of a non-political nature or for acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
In addition, zero tolerance must also apply immediately as soon as an asylum seeker becomes a criminal or rejects our free democratic basic order and its values and rules. Reception camps maintained by the United Nations would be entirely conceivable and desirable for this purpose.
Our open society is obviously still far too fragile to continue to be able to continue to counteract the erosion that has been triggered from within as well as from without.
If we don't act now and finally stand up for our values and convictions offensively and, above all, very sustainably, then our open society will not collapse from the outside but from within and fall back into times that no normal person really wants to have or even live through .
That's why we need to ask our judiciary and executive to practice zero tolerance, even if it can be very difficult, maybe extremely uncomfortable, for ourselves.
Barack Obama wrote about this in 2006:
"If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all."
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006: 68)
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
Nathan Hale, New York, City Hall Park
