The bitter balance of Corona: The state can take away the freedom of the Germans as long as it calms them down with money
Politicians and the media made many mistakes during the pandemic. Citizens were deprived of more freedoms than absolutely necessary. The unvaccinated were stigmatized. Today, politicians and the media refuse to work through the errors.
Former German Minister of Health Jens Spahn went down in the annals of the pandemic with one sentence: „In a few months we will probably have to forgive each other a lot.“ What was intended as a plea for self-critical reflection is understood quite differently by politicians and the media in Germany: as amnesty for the mistakes made and as a call for amnesia. Three years after the beginning of the epidemic, the willingness to learn from mistakes is limited.
It’s winter again, the number of Covid cases is rising again, but the „killer variant“ prophesied by today’s Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is not in sight. This communication, which tends towards hysteria, is the cardinal error of German pandemic policy.
The communication was also a result of the strange way in which politics was made – with video conferences between the chancellor and the prime minister. The participants passed on their statements to the media so that the negotiations could be followed practically live. This promoted shop window speeches and maximum demands.
It was not easy for deliberative voices to be heard. The rounds, which lasted well into the night, also caused administrative confusion. The Easter lockdown concocted by Angela Merkel and her Chancellor Helge Braun and quickly discarded is the best example of the mixture of chaos and incompetence.
The long school closures remain a shame
The fact that the federal and state governments were unable to establish a rational decision-making process during the two-year, critical phase of disease control is a sign of the failure of German politics. Self-expression triumphed over expertise.
The price was paid by the people – especially children and young people. Schools were closed on 126 days by mid-2021. If you also take the alternating lessons into account, it was more than 320 days. That is, there is no other way to put it, a shame. The needs of young people were unimportant; a plausible risk assessment did not take place.
The hardness was also useless. Although Switzerland refrained from lockdowns or school closures after the initial phase of Corona and kept ski areas and gastronomy open to Merkel’s chagrin, it does not have a higher mortality rate than Germany.
After all, Lauterbach pulled himself together to make the most smug admission that, in retrospect, the daycare closures were not necessary. But with the little word „in retrospect“ he gives absolution to himself and all advocates of the hard line. The minister suggests that the state of knowledge at the time did not allow any other decision. This is demonstrably wrong.
As the example of Switzerland shows, very different conclusions could be reached early on. In Germany, however, the federal and state governments did not want this. They should therefore at least give an account of what they have learned from it. Mistakes are inevitable in an extreme situation; however, the stubborn refusal to deal with them lays the groundwork for the next failure.
Politics is in the bad company of the media. As in the 2015 migration crisis, they tended to follow the government line uncritically. The public broadcasters in particular were spreading horror scenarios and begging for rigorous measures in the comments. Scientists and politicians who advocated a less restrictive approach have endured scorn and ridicule.
The media uncritically spread assumptions disguised as objective science: including the claim that vaccinated people are not contagious. All this happened under the motto „Follow the science“. Scientific belief has seldom been more naïve and at the same time more militant. With alleged science, shameless politics was made. This should be a warning on how to deal with climate change, but the media will probably ignore this lesson too.
The facts, which were already available at the time, were not examined impartially, but one made oneself the assistant of the official line, which stigmatized the unvaccinated. Instead of functioning as a corrective, much of the media acted as loudspeakers for the executive branch.
The media cannot complain if they are accused of „vaccination lies“ today
Feverish attacks of Corona court reporting could also be observed in the Swiss media. The German colleagues had, however, gained relevant experience after they had glorified the welcome culture a few years earlier and thus experienced a fiasco: even back then, conformism instead of the ability to accept criticism. They haven’t learned anything from it. The media should not be surprised if they are accused of „vaccination lies“ today.
Hysterical communication included stirring up emotions with unrealistic maximum demands. All members of vulnerable groups – primarily the elderly and people with a serious previous illness – should be protected. This culminated in the sentence that every life is worth the same and must be preserved at all costs.
If this were the case, the next lockdown would now be inevitable. The RS virus is currently rampant, and the children’s wards in many hospitals are overloaded. Babies and small children are particularly susceptible, and deaths occur. If the assertion that every life in the vulnerable groups must be protected were to hold up, restrictions on freedom would again be unavoidable.
Of course, politics does not impose a lockdown. Every reasonable weighing of goods speaks against even closing the day-care centers. However, the fact that people refused to assess the risks just as rationally during Corona shows how selfishly an aging society sets its priorities. Older people are much more important than young people. That is not the basis for a sustainable policy.
The resolutions were not evidence-based enough, but rather driven by the moods and fears of those involved – above all by Merkel and Braun. Together with amateurish decision-making processes, this led to German politicians not only acting in panic mode in the case of the Easter lockdown.
One of the vital protective mechanisms of the human brain is that it forgets and represses. The Germans have already forgotten the bureaucratic madness they were sometimes subjected to.
Who remembers the rule that in counties with a high incidence it was forbidden to move more than 15 kilometers from one’s home? Who remembers that a few months ago, the Social Democrats and the Greens wanted to enforce compulsory vaccination?
One only has to imagine what would have happened if the two governing parties had enforced compulsory vaccination. Society would have been deeply divided; the authorities would have had to whip up an expensive surveillance apparatus at lightning speed; countless vaccination refusers would have been criminalized. Democracy would have been damaged.
And what is all this for? Even without mandatory vaccinations, Germany can get through autumn and winter well.
There are rightly complaints that lateral thinkers practice an extreme and sometimes extremist form of denial of reality. But all the politicians, right up to the chancellor, who called for vaccinations to be mandatory, took a position that was no less extreme. Center extremism is more dangerous than fringe extremism because only the center has the power to legislate its sentiments. The Germans should not forget that.
The citizen is degraded to a pauper
Even without compulsory vaccination, the German corona rules are among the strictest in Europe. At the same time, the German Covid aid was the most generous. The state can obviously take away the freedom of Germans as long as it pays them generously.
The real problem, which goes beyond pandemic policy, lies in this understanding of the state. The state usurps services of general interest, which would actually be the task of every capable citizen. Self-responsibility and freedom are not very popular. The caring paternalism of the citizens by the state can be counted on with great approval not only in Corona times.
This way of thinking also shapes the language of politics. Help for people who cannot earn their own living is declared as „citizen’s benefit“. It is therefore not an exception limited to emergencies, but a kind of normal case, which naturally degrades the citizen to the supplicant and recipient of alms.
The word “citizen money” becomes a veritable definition of the relationship between the state and the individual: it is the essence of the citizen to allow himself to be endured.
So it’s no wonder that companies and private individuals are receiving extensive support even during the energy crisis. The aid packages are again among the largest in the world. Politicians have not learned much from Corona, only that this time the grants are not associated with any restrictions on freedom. But the evil spirit is the same. In the long run, democracy is so perverted. It degenerates into a bazaar where citizens and the state exchange allegiance for money.