That means moral club. No, not the kind you join. The kind you wack folks with.

“The ugly German doesn’t wear a steel helmet anymore – he gives the world moral instruction. When a German captain goes to court in Italy the German public opinion (the “folk’s soul”) seethes. Even President Steinmeier disregards international law and grabs the moral club.”

To understand many of the odd views that Germans hold you must understand that Germany is a moral superpower, or at least that’s how Germans behave. Like liberals everywhere, German activists are forever calling on a higher legitimization to justify actions that undermine the rule of law – in this case in another country (how convenient). An activist captain who defied the Italian government’s ban and docked at Lampedusa with forty refugees on board has now become a German folk hero (for fifteen minutes at least).

It appears that when you’re a German moral superman, idealism gives you the morally superior superhero right to break the law for the greater good (sounds vaguely familiar). Just what that greater good is you decide yourself.

Oddly, in this particular case, the heroic types in the limelight never get around to suggesting that the refugees in question be shipped directly to Germany instead. Why doesn’t Germany just airlift them directly to Berlin and bypass Italy altogether? Turn your moral clubs into plowshares already, folks.

Wenn eine deutsche Kapitänin in Italien vor Gericht gestellt wird, beginnt die Volksseele zu kochen. Selbst Bundespräsident Steinmeier vergisst dann das Völkerrecht und greift zur Moralkeule.