I can understand why governments would push for something like this after 9/11, though it of course goes without saying that this is a totally unacceptable violation of someone’s basic rights. It also goes without saying that governments always want more control over their citizens, but what exactly are they so worried might happen, right now, in 2025 or the near future?
Honestly I’m not entirely convinced the Germans ARE motivated by guilt; it seems to me more that they’re not happy with the image they created among their (perceived) peers and are now trying to create a new image to be seen by. They want TO BE SEEN as having overcome their past and become better for it, but the idea that they’ve fundamentally changed is a joke. They committed atrocities in Namibia for example but have never paid reparations to the people there, and of course why should they? Other European countries rag on Germany for the holocaust, none of them give a damn about the atrocities committed against the Herero people.
They bend over backwards for Israel because they don’t want to be mocked as Nazis; they want to continue viewing themselves in the same lofty position they see other Western European countries in.
This. I always side eye people when they rag on Japan for not being publicly repentant about WW2 atrocities. I never hear Europeans tip toe and apologetic about Africa and especially not Asia. Americans are verbally repentant about slavery but not Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, … Native Americans are mostly ignored and native Hispanic may as well not exist. Afghanistan and Iraq are referred to mostly as a waste of time and money rather than as terrible atrocities committed by us. Zero concern or feelings of responsibility for latin American imperialism by the US. Presumption of practically any immigration Muslim men of being problematic but little to no concern for the imperialism of their homelands that made them want to leave
I get annoyed at leftist meetings where people get annoyed at immigrants and their children for being successful because they must have come from money for their family to immigratr to the anglosphere or Europe. What money are modern people thinking people from Afghanistan came here with. The families from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia that came in the 70s-80s. China didn’t really become wealthy until the last couple decades and most Chinese people in the US are from before the 90s. Insane poverty back then. Very interesting times in the west these days. Conservatives are crazy but leftist are starting to get a bit xenophobic and ignorantly presumptuous and blaming of immigrants in my opinion too. I’ll add that I don’t hear resentment about immigrants being successful from the former Yugoslavian states from back during the Yugoslav wars in the 90s
Are those people actually leftists? Because they sound like liberals, not socialists.
Not truly leftist but in times of frustration people look for a group to feel acknowledged so even if they’re not an ideologue, they’ll comingle and the not true leftist, opportunistic “leftist”, outnumber the ideological leftist. Has to be watched out for in caution of them hijacking organizations to drum up a populist anti-immigrants/racist movement that adopts some leftist terminology for marketing.
Corporate/imperialist Republicans courted evangelicals for votes but didn’t want to enact policy of evangelicals until evangelicals took over enough of the party positions. That’s a caution for socialist commingling with labor activist that are really just about their paycheck rather than being about labor. I’m all about labor unions but I know labor unions are filled with people happy to pull up ladders and scapegoat out groups
German philosophy professor: Guilt Pride: A German Vanity Project Conquering the World