Responses To "Germany Still A Divided Nation"

Note - To everyone that responded with comments on the earlier post, "Germany Still A Divided Nation", I want to say thank you. All of you made some very good points, some of which I would like share in the main forum. This is mainly because they were so on target that they damn well bear repeating and deserve some further consideration.

From Mustang at Social Sense:

Speak with any West German and you get a sense of anger and frustration, not only about the lost jobs and depressed wages experienced when East Germany was reunified, but also about the socialist attitude ingrained in many east Germans. Gone was the work ethic that resulted in West Germany’s rise to an economic superpower.

Mustang is right. One in five Germans wish the wall was back up. With the best intentions, the West has spent fifteen years and over a trillion dollars to rebuild this nation, but a whole generation of socialist indoctrination has left the East with some lousy work attitudes. Lousy work attitudes lead to lousy work ethics, all of which lead to lousy production. They have become content to consume, with as little production as possible.

Europeans from Russia to Italy, from Belgium to Croatia will tell you that they prefer a nation where you can live comfortably and not have any individual civic responsibility. This attitude baffles me.

It baffles me too, but I will go out on a limb here and say, maybe, many are content to be serfs tied to the land of a manor, but in this day and age they just do not want to work for it. The early socialist revolutions were the peasant uprisings that threatened the manor and the feudalistic way of life. They wanted the spoils without having the authority over them.

When capitalism and mercantilism flourished, the same restless and lazy spirit existed in a certain sector of the population. They resented those that worked and were able to acquire things. They resented those that were willing to take risks to get what they wanted. And subsequently through Marxist revolutions, they set out to take those very things, from those that rightly owned them.

Even as late as the early 1900s workers seized factories from their owners. Why? Because they felt they were entitled to something for nothing. They soon realized that it takes a talented business mind to to run a business (and not a mob of restless and lazy workers), when the factories closed.

Europe (generally) is a socialist mess because those Europeans who valued hard work, had a strong work ethic, a spirit of individuality, a sense of greatness, who desired to realize their dreams no matter how vaulted they might have been, and those who refused to knuckle under to governmental domination, all migrated to the Americas. They became Americans. They tamed the west, they fought in two world wars and saved Europe from despots. They invented new technologies, made trips into outer space, saved lives through medical innovation, and developed post-industrial economies. These people made America a clear "winner."

This is a very good point. The very core of the fabric of Europe has traditionally been persecuted (for various reasons) and driven out of Europe, over the years. Whether it was for religious reasons or for economic ones, these people are the ones that have poured their minds, hearts, and souls into this country, after they were free to be whatever they wanted to be.

From G at In The Middle Of America:

The only reason Russia did anything of note under socialism is because they held a gun to the workers heads.

The Soviets were most productive when Stalin was in power. Threats and intimidation were the incentives to produce, instead of the usual rewards of hard work. That's because Stalin was in fact not a socialist leader of the mold that Marx and Lenin had dreamed. He was a despot in the mold of some of the worst monarchs, Europe had ever seen. The only noticeable difference was the crown.

From Jason at Liberty And Culture:

Character, for an individual, and culture, for a people, change very slowly. This is something Aristotle emphasized in his Ethics. Character isn’t the result of assenting to a syllogism. It is cultivated over an extended period with practice and thought.The East Germans still haven’t gotten it down. Self-reliance,independent thought, individual initiative – one must dedicate oneself to creating such a character.

This is similar to kids that live off of their parents for years after they reach adulthood. They do not possess the character necessary to achieve and obtain by themselves, because their parents never let them develop into independence and self-reliance. They bail them out of every mess, financial and otherwise.

As a result, they never learn to fare for themselves. And the clincher is, some parents do it because they are co-dependent. They want their kids dependent on them, because they want to feel needed and wanted. The sad thing is, when the parents die, the kids are lost and have no clue.

Government does the same thing, for the same reasons.

From Gindy at Gindy.Blogspot.Com:

And it has been proven time and again. One thing I always ask is name the country where socialism has worked? Yet there is always a segment of society that wants to embrace it. It will be a long time before Germany becomes less divided on the issue.

As G said in his comment earlier, it works when there is a gun to their heads. Otherwise, it has been proven time and time again that it doesn't. And Gindy is right, it will take years to pluck these erroneous thought patterns out and replace them with what is right.

From Shah at Global American Discourse :

NATO and EU expansion is critically important to the global security. Also, Eastern Europe has a great potential, as a market and a source of labor. The problem mentioned in this article is beyond Germany but whole Europe.

Shah, you are right when you say that Eastern Europe has a great potential. But unfortunately, potential does not always get the job done. But for years, this system consistently demonstrated to its citizens that if you work harder than the next guy, you will not be rewarded any more.

So, in essence, if you work that much harder to get the same thing as your lazy neighbor, you are stupid. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink. And you cannot sell the ideals of how much better a free market and hard work is than socialism, until you are blue in the face. The result is always the same.