In the latest victory against right-wing extremism, police officers pull a 16 year-old girl out of chemistry class and advise her to stop posting Smurf-themed AfD-friendly content to TikTok I wrote in February about the plans of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) to combat “right-wing extremism,” by re-purposing the regulatory state to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of people with inconvenient opinions. She wants to use state resources to intimidate “those who mock the state,” and she
Europe
Reflections #7 The decline of civility In modern-day Britain, the decline in manners, standards and public behaviour is very difficult to ignore and it is difficult to ignore because it is all around us. The sad fact of the matter is that, in many respects, we are no longer a civil country.
Interview: Ryszard Legutko Liberal Democracy, Communism, and totalitarian temptations in free societies In my recent essay “Poland and the Demon in Democracy” I discussed the political turmoil happening in Poland through the lens of Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko’s 2016 book The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. After the essay
Why Olaf Scholz is not a "peace Chancellor," why Ukraine still stands a good chance of getting their cruise missiles, and why the entire debate surrounding Taurus is such a riddle The Taurus leak continues to dominate German headlines. It is an incredible embarrassment for the Luftwaffe, and for the Scholz government it is yet another in a long line of unwelcome crises. Some have ventured to characterise Olaf Scholz as the “peace Chancellor,” opposed to war-hawks like Emmanuel Macron, who
Bizarre hypervaccinator from Magdeburg receives 217 Covid jabs over 29 months, finally achieves antibody levels necessary to prevent infection I have a wild story for you today (h/t Sborg40). It is about some lunatic from Magdeburg who claims to have gotten himself vaccinated 217 times between 3 June 2021 and 7 November 2023, at a nominal cost to the German taxpayer of around 4000 Euros.1 Researchers say
The German energy transition threatens to be an unaffordable, unrealisable disaster, according to the government's own independent auditors The German Bundesrechnungshof, or the Federal Audit Office, is an independent government body charged by statue with overseeing the economic management of the Federal Republic. Last week, they published a devastating “Report … on the implementation of the energy transition” in Germany. Every one of its fifty-eight pages represents a brutal
The WHO Pandemic Agreement may be worrying, but it is also really stupid The WHO Pandemic Agreement has worried many, and justifiably so. Covid has taught us all to be wary of people who talk about pandemics, of people who plan for pandemics and above all of people peddling various snake oils and schemes to mitigate pandemics. The prospect of an international treaty