Does Germany dictate to its citizens what career they must follow? No, they absolutely do not. Like most of our public schools, there are different tracks after primary school that incorporate advanced or vocational emphases, and your grades matter but they doesn't prevent anyone from taking the exam for college. One woman we asked about--her husband is a professor (who can be women by the way!) and has many graduate students who did not go to Gymnasium. In any event, the topic of reforming this system is a live one among Germans, which is why you may have picked up complaints about this system. I can guarantee you that even those non-Gymnasium students are better educated than most U.S. _college_ graduates, let alone high school graduates. Conversations with everyday Europeans contrast markedly with conversations with Americans--they know basic geography and history, for instance.
Home schooling is not allowed--historically, universal education is a modern democratic demand and it was introduced as complusory everywhere that I know about, including the United States. Home school exceptions to this requirement in the U.S. have been carved out by the activism of zealous parents. The original requirement is based on the assumption that democracy is not possible unless everyone has a base level education, where previously access to education had been restricted by class, not merit. They do not pursue a Janet Reno-style repressive program at rooting out home schoolers, as you implied.
Do the accused have rights to representation and are the lawyers prosecuted for representing them? Yes to the first and no to the second. There are complaints on Neo-Nazi sites about lawyers being prosecuted for associating with their clients--perhaps this is what you are referring to? If true, it doesn't indicate general denial of due process any more than due process is completely lacking in our country because lawyers for accused terrorists get arrested for allegedly passing on information from their clients to those on the outside. An abuse of power is connected to an issue each government has a serious issue with that erodes the normal protections in particular cases. The exception to freedom of speech in Germany is endorsement of national socialism, something one might expect, however misguided, given their history.
They do cap their vitamin supplements for health safety reasons, as they limit things like bleach for environmental reasons. Hard to see this as the mark of dictatorship rather than different judgments about how to protect the public. If we are to judge them solely by WAPF standards, I'll take the certified raw milk availability and greater access to organic agriculture any day.
Living on a military base is living in a U.S. zone within a larger country--it skews your perception of the country, especially when every difference is interpreted by invidious contrast with one's own native way of life. The context in which you interact with people from a foreign culture really matters, or they will give you back what they think you want to hear or serve up distortions that reflect their own agendas. Get away from the military base and talk to a range of people that are not captive to that relationship and you may get a different view, but only if you don't flag every difference from the American way of life with the label "oppression."
Bill
--- In native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com, "slbooks4me" <beauty4ashesisaiah61@...> wrote:
>
> I don't think so bill. The moms were very serious about their childrens paths being chosen. And the officials on the military installation even confirmed the fining for mowing my lawn etc. on Sunday. Just because it does not fit with what you knew does not mean i do not know what we experienced there, nor what we were told officially and confirmed by German friends. You don't have to believe it if you don't want to that is fine. But please do not act like i have no idea how to tell the difference between someone yanking my chain or not. We can agree to disagree on our opinions of Germany that we are both basing on what we experienced while there. But i assure you i know the difference between the two. And when things like this came up that i found hard to believe i not only asked nationals i asked the US military officials who we were employed under to be sure i did not get in trouble for something as stupid as mowing.
>
> Julia
>
> --- In native-nutrition@yahoogroups.com, "Bill" <lynchwt@> wrote:
> >
> > East Germans had their career path set--that's why they were happy to be reunited, to get rid of it and go to the Western model. This description does not match the reality over there at all. I can only imagine that someone was having a little fun with you. They have more of an active democracy and practical freedom than over here. It's not the middle ages any more and no one fines you if you work on the sabbath. Some people might be conservative and set in their ways but others are extremely libertine. The laws are, on the whole, very much less confining than here. It just doesn't sound like a description of Germany at all.
> >
> > Bill
> >
>
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/native-nutrition/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/native-nutrition/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:native-nutrition-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:native-nutrition-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
native-nutrition-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
0 komentar:
Poskan Komentar