German of the day: Totgesagte leben länger

That means those declared dead live longer, or there’s life in the old dog yet.

At least I hope so, in this case. There aren’t many political parties in Germany that dare to call for freedom of choice – or freedom itself.

Germany’s pro-business liberals risk death blow in regional vote – The Free Democratic Party has played a key role in German politics for most of the postwar era, but a poor result in a state vote on Sunday could mean its demise.

Germany’s pro-business Free Democrats, on the brink of political extinction, face a make-or-break state vote this Sunday that party leaders believe may well be their last chance to claw back relevance.

Leaders of the fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) — which was part of Germany’s previous, ill-fated coalition government under former Chancellor Olaf Scholz — have long pinned their hopes for a national revival on this Sunday’s election in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, traditionally one of the party’s strongholds.

German Of The Day: German Mut

Nope, that doesn’t mean German pooch or mongrel. That means German courage.

German Mut

And it takes quite a bit of German courage for a German political party to come out in support of economic-liberal policies and free choice in a country like Germany these days (in the end, most Germans want everything regulated for them and prefer equality and conformity to free choice). But that is what the FDP (FDP 2.0?) is trying to do. They’re still on the outside looking in after their ousting in 2013 but appear to be bouncing back, at least for the moment.

They are currently so courageous, in fact, that they must be high. Not only are the Free Democrats now proposing that marijuana be legalized, which isn’t all that original these days, they also think it’s time for Germany to introduce a flat tax. Good luck on that. That’ll be a real hard one to sell here, as elsewhere. Who’s going to “eat the rich” then?

“Die erste Reform, die wir unserem Land empfehlen, ist eine Reform der Mentalität.”