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Sebastian N's avatar

Thomas, I mostly like your writing and analyses a lot, although I disagree with some of your foundational political views, but read you anyway to broaden my horizon. So first - thanks a lot for your work.

With this piece though, there are so many inaccuracies - I will need to take more time tomorrow to point some of them out. I admit I might be biased (as a left/green voter in Germany), but I will try to dive into the specific points deep enough to see where I am biased and where it might be you.

But for now: The CDU always made a coalition with the CSU (as the "Union"), as this is the general agreement of both parties. The Union was in power for over 16 years before the last three years of "Traffic Light Coalition" and, although providing some sort of stability, that came with a huge cost to innovation, making Germany completely dependent on Russian oil and gas, which led to the surge in energy prices after the invasion of Russia in Ukraine. The last three years have been a major overhaul of many parts of society and economy, and I agree that many of these policies have not been going as smoothly as many would have wished. However, the responsibility for the recent recession lies at least by a large part on the former Union-led governments.

Also, all energy providers say it would not be feasible nor economical to restart nuclear power plants or return to nuclear power - that train has long left the station. It might have been possible 3 years ago - I will dig into that. Union and FDP know that its not by now and are still claiming it is, but that is populistic.

As for freedom speech - I am curious for your article on that, as I find the recent outrage from the US very amusing. I feel free af to use my right to speak up in Germany, we have more freedom of the press than the US according to the WPFI, the only things you are not allowed to publicly express are personal insults and hate speech - which I agree with. I guess that is just a cultural difference between the US and Germany (and some other parts of Europe), but we value for many to feel safe expressing their opinion more than for few to express every crazy hateful thought they want to. What might be a problem is that the norms of what you can say or think might be shifting - with identity politicians and activists inciting rage over unpopular views (this is coming from all political extremes). I will read your next article with great interest.

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Chris's avatar

Tomas, can you please slow down that map of Germany so that I can actually look at what is going on? It refreshes every second and I can’t see what it’s actually showing me.

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