4 ms·

That's most certainly not true for Germany, at least if we are talking about German definitions of conservatism. A lot of GOP members are more close to what in

by iSnow 6y ago

That's most certainly not true for Germany, at least if we are talking about German definitions of conservatism. A lot of GOP members are more close to what in the German political system would be seen as the extreme right, arguably bordering on the autocratic right. There is representation of the conservative voice both in media and the political system. There is repression, both informal and in the legal code, of Neonazi speech.

rayiner 6y ago
Don’t you guys have crosses on government buildings? https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/europe/bavaria-germany-crosses-public-buildings-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/europe/bavaria-germany-crosse... Didn’t Angela Merkel reject “multiculturalism?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/14/angela-merkel-multiculturalism-is-a-sham/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/14... Don’t you have religious education in public schools? https://www.dw.com/en/in-german-schools-opt-out-of-religion-at-your-own-risk/a-46806033 https://www.dw.com/en/in-german-schools-opt-out-of-religion-... Isn’t abortion still technically illegally in Germany? https://www.dw.com/en/activists-in-germany-demand-legalization-of-abortion/a-50613936 https://www.dw.com/en/activists-in-germany-demand-legalizati.... And as a practical matter, German abortion law would be unconstitutional for multiple reasons under our Roe v. Wade. Part of why the American GOP has gotten so wacky is that over the past 50 years American liberals have wiped social conservatism out of the public sphere in a way that doesn’t seem to be the case in Germany. In the US, saying what Merkel did that “multiculturalism is a failure” would get you branded a Nazi. Not even Trump would say that. Saying that abortion should generally be illegal after 12 weeks gets you lumped in with religious fundamentalists. This is due to two features of the American political system. First, our courts have taken it upon themselves to adjudicate social issues that are in Europe handled by the legislature. Second, our social conservatives are split into different parties along racial lines. The Democratic Party is a coalition, but white liberals firmly control the social platform. Biden has promised to appoint a Black women Justice. Statistically speaking half of Black women oppose same-sex marriage. Do you think there is any chance Biden will appoint a socially conservative Black woman? If the American political system was as meaningfully accommodating of social conservatism as the German one (and I think that would require getting our courts out of the business of being social moral arbiters) I think you’d see a lot more normalcy.
- iSnow 6y ago
  Oof, I won't go into details, but you got a couple of things wrong about Germany. First, the crosses on gov't buildings are specific to Bavaria. As the USA, Germany has a strong federal constitution which allows the states some lee-way. Furthermore the German Constitutional Court has ruled crosses in schools must be removed if parents object, a ruling that was partially overruled by the ECHR. Second, Merkel's remarks were rather specific to a form of living together without an overarching attempt at having and enforcing core values. She did not reject other cultures or beliefs. I doubt her position would be controversial in a country with the "e pluribus unum" as part of the brand identity, but I can't really say as I don't know the USA too well. IDK about the assessment that liberals destroyed social conservatism in the USA as it is again not my country. But from over here, it really seems like the GOP went into a tail-spin over the last decade, maybe even since Reagan. In Germany, due to our voting system, the conservative party is as much a coalition as the Democrats in the USA while the left is more splintered. I'd say if you wanted to have a less extremist conservative party, you'd need to get rid of the FPTP voting system: it would allow the GOP to jettison the right-wing extremists and seek a ruling coalition while fighting the Democrats for centrist voters/moderate conservatives. But if the liberals really forced the GOP into becoming a assembly of lunatics, hats off, they did a great job. I somehow doubt it, though...
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > First, the crosses on gov't buildings are specific to Bavaria. As the USA, Germany has a strong federal constitution which allows the states some lee-way. Furthermore the German Constitutional Court has ruled crosses in schools must be removed if parents object, a ruling that was partially overruled by the ECHR. That's true in theory, but the Supreme Court has taken upon itself to impose uniform standards for the whole nation. As I recall, the German Constitutional Court upheld the practice in general, reasoning that it was an expression of Germany's heritage as a Christian nation. It then balanced that principle against the potential burden on religious minorities, to fashion that compromise. In the United States, we're not allowed to acknowledge the country's heritage as a Christian country. More important, there is generally no balancing between the cultural expression of the majority and the interests of the minority. That's a huge difference between American and German constitutional law. In German constitutional law, there is a strong balancing of minority rights against the effect of certain things on the majority. In American constitutional law, almost zero weight is given to how recognizing a minority right (such as the right to be free from feeling excluded by seeing a cross in a school house) might affect the cultural expression oof the majority. > Second, Merkel's remarks were rather specific to a form of living together without an overarching attempt at having and enforcing core values. She did not reject other cultures or beliefs. I doubt her position would be controversial in a country with the "e pluribus unum" as part of the brand identity, but I can't really say as I don't know the USA too well. Merkel appears to be using the term according to its typical meaning. "Multiculturalism" means you have a country with people of different cultures living together, without an attempt to impose unifying core values. And rejecting multiculturalism in that sense is controversial. Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, was attacked as a racist recently for saying the same thing. He didn't "reject other cultures or belies." As far as I can tell, he and other American conservatives use the phrase to mean exactly the same thing as Merkel does. > In Germany, due to our voting system, the conservative party is as much a coalition as the Democrats in the USA while the left is more splintered. It's not just the voting system, it's the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has allowed social liberals to impose policies without any coalition building, and even without building public consensus. On abortion, for example, no state is allowed to make abortion illegal before viability (20-24 weeks). This is enormously unpopular in the US (under 30% support). And presumably it's unpopular in Germany, where there is a 12-week limit absent special circumstances. I'm just trying to paint for you a picture of why conservatives in the U.S. might be frustrated, by reference to how things are in Germany. Keep in mind, though, that Americans are much more conservative than Germans to begin with! Less than 10% of Germans pray daily. For Americans, it's 50%, similar to Turkey! Germany obviously makes political concessions to Christians and social conservatives. There is (opt-out) religious education in schools, abortion is limited mainly to the first trimester, and there are things like waiting periods and counseling. This is a really important point I'd appreciate your giving serious consideration to: How would CDU members feel, today, if the German Constitutional Court suddenly decided there could be no religious education in schools, that abortion had to be legal to 24 weeks, etc? How do you think people in Germany would have reacted to those things had they happened in the 1950s-1970s, like happened here? Take it a step further. The year after Obergefell legalized same-sex marriage in the US, the ECHR ruled there was no right to same-sex marriage in the European Convention on Human Rights. How do you think CDU members would have taken having the ECHR impose that on Germany? How do you think Poland or Italy would have taken that? As I recall, by the time Germany legalized same-sex marriage in 2017, 80% of Germans already supported it. How do you think Germans would have felt had the EHCR legalized same-sex marriage in Germany back in the 2000s when under 50% of people supported it? (I think Americans are probably 10 years behind Germany on that issue.) Heck, Angela Merkel voted against same-sex marriage in Germany after Trump ran on accepting it a year earlier. In the US that vote would have caused the press to go completely apoplectic.

by iSnow 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

Don’t you guys have crosses on government buildings? https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/europe/bavaria-germany-crosses-public-buildings-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/europe/bavaria-germany-crosse... Didn’t Angela Merkel reject “multiculturalism?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/14/angela-merkel-multiculturalism-is-a-sham/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/14... Don’t you have religious education in public schools? https://www.dw.com/en/in-german-schools-opt-out-of-religion-at-your-own-risk/a-46806033 https://www.dw.com/en/in-german-schools-opt-out-of-religion-... Isn’t abortion still technically illegally in Germany? https://www.dw.com/en/activists-in-germany-demand-legalization-of-abortion/a-50613936 https://www.dw.com/en/activists-in-germany-demand-legalizati.... And as a practical matter, German abortion law would be unconstitutional for multiple reasons under our Roe v. Wade. Part of why the American GOP has gotten so wacky is that over the past 50 years American liberals have wiped social conservatism out of the public sphere in a way that doesn’t seem to be the case in Germany. In the US, saying what Merkel did that “multiculturalism is a failure” would get you branded a Nazi. Not even Trump would say that. Saying that abortion should generally be illegal after 12 weeks gets you lumped in with religious fundamentalists. This is due to two features of the American political system. First, our courts have taken it upon themselves to adjudicate social issues that are in Europe handled by the legislature. Second, our social conservatives are split into different parties along racial lines. The Democratic Party is a coalition, but white liberals firmly control the social platform. Biden has promised to appoint a Black women Justice. Statistically speaking half of Black women oppose same-sex marriage. Do you think there is any chance Biden will appoint a socially conservative Black woman? If the American political system was as meaningfully accommodating of social conservatism as the German one (and I think that would require getting our courts out of the business of being social moral arbiters) I think you’d see a lot more normalcy.

iSnow 6y ago
Oof, I won't go into details, but you got a couple of things wrong about Germany. First, the crosses on gov't buildings are specific to Bavaria. As the USA, Germany has a strong federal constitution which allows the states some lee-way. Furthermore the German Constitutional Court has ruled crosses in schools must be removed if parents object, a ruling that was partially overruled by the ECHR. Second, Merkel's remarks were rather specific to a form of living together without an overarching attempt at having and enforcing core values. She did not reject other cultures or beliefs. I doubt her position would be controversial in a country with the "e pluribus unum" as part of the brand identity, but I can't really say as I don't know the USA too well. IDK about the assessment that liberals destroyed social conservatism in the USA as it is again not my country. But from over here, it really seems like the GOP went into a tail-spin over the last decade, maybe even since Reagan. In Germany, due to our voting system, the conservative party is as much a coalition as the Democrats in the USA while the left is more splintered. I'd say if you wanted to have a less extremist conservative party, you'd need to get rid of the FPTP voting system: it would allow the GOP to jettison the right-wing extremists and seek a ruling coalition while fighting the Democrats for centrist voters/moderate conservatives. But if the liberals really forced the GOP into becoming a assembly of lunatics, hats off, they did a great job. I somehow doubt it, though...
- rayiner 6y ago
  > First, the crosses on gov't buildings are specific to Bavaria. As the USA, Germany has a strong federal constitution which allows the states some lee-way. Furthermore the German Constitutional Court has ruled crosses in schools must be removed if parents object, a ruling that was partially overruled by the ECHR. That's true in theory, but the Supreme Court has taken upon itself to impose uniform standards for the whole nation. As I recall, the German Constitutional Court upheld the practice in general, reasoning that it was an expression of Germany's heritage as a Christian nation. It then balanced that principle against the potential burden on religious minorities, to fashion that compromise. In the United States, we're not allowed to acknowledge the country's heritage as a Christian country. More important, there is generally no balancing between the cultural expression of the majority and the interests of the minority. That's a huge difference between American and German constitutional law. In German constitutional law, there is a strong balancing of minority rights against the effect of certain things on the majority. In American constitutional law, almost zero weight is given to how recognizing a minority right (such as the right to be free from feeling excluded by seeing a cross in a school house) might affect the cultural expression oof the majority. > Second, Merkel's remarks were rather specific to a form of living together without an overarching attempt at having and enforcing core values. She did not reject other cultures or beliefs. I doubt her position would be controversial in a country with the "e pluribus unum" as part of the brand identity, but I can't really say as I don't know the USA too well. Merkel appears to be using the term according to its typical meaning. "Multiculturalism" means you have a country with people of different cultures living together, without an attempt to impose unifying core values. And rejecting multiculturalism in that sense is controversial. Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, was attacked as a racist recently for saying the same thing. He didn't "reject other cultures or belies." As far as I can tell, he and other American conservatives use the phrase to mean exactly the same thing as Merkel does. > In Germany, due to our voting system, the conservative party is as much a coalition as the Democrats in the USA while the left is more splintered. It's not just the voting system, it's the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has allowed social liberals to impose policies without any coalition building, and even without building public consensus. On abortion, for example, no state is allowed to make abortion illegal before viability (20-24 weeks). This is enormously unpopular in the US (under 30% support). And presumably it's unpopular in Germany, where there is a 12-week limit absent special circumstances. I'm just trying to paint for you a picture of why conservatives in the U.S. might be frustrated, by reference to how things are in Germany. Keep in mind, though, that Americans are much more conservative than Germans to begin with! Less than 10% of Germans pray daily. For Americans, it's 50%, similar to Turkey! Germany obviously makes political concessions to Christians and social conservatives. There is (opt-out) religious education in schools, abortion is limited mainly to the first trimester, and there are things like waiting periods and counseling. This is a really important point I'd appreciate your giving serious consideration to: How would CDU members feel, today, if the German Constitutional Court suddenly decided there could be no religious education in schools, that abortion had to be legal to 24 weeks, etc? How do you think people in Germany would have reacted to those things had they happened in the 1950s-1970s, like happened here? Take it a step further. The year after Obergefell legalized same-sex marriage in the US, the ECHR ruled there was no right to same-sex marriage in the European Convention on Human Rights. How do you think CDU members would have taken having the ECHR impose that on Germany? How do you think Poland or Italy would have taken that? As I recall, by the time Germany legalized same-sex marriage in 2017, 80% of Germans already supported it. How do you think Germans would have felt had the EHCR legalized same-sex marriage in Germany back in the 2000s when under 50% of people supported it? (I think Americans are probably 10 years behind Germany on that issue.) Heck, Angela Merkel voted against same-sex marriage in Germany after Trump ran on accepting it a year earlier. In the US that vote would have caused the press to go completely apoplectic.