Refugees Flee Tyranny of German Consensus

Interesting story in Times.... German family was granted amnesty in the US to escape state schools.

Excerpt:

Among European countries, Germany is nearly alone in requiring, and enforcing, attendance of children at an officially recognized school. The school can be private or religious, but it must be a school. Exceptions can be made for health reasons but not for principled objections.

But the Romeikes, who are devout Christians, said they wanted their children to learn in a different environment. Mr. Romeike (pronounced ro-MY-kuh), 38, a soft-spoken piano teacher whose young children greet strangers at the front door with a startlingly grown-up politeness, said the unruly behavior of students that was allowed by many teachers had kept his children from learning. The stories in German readers, in which devils, witches and disobedient children are often portrayed as heroes, set bad examples, he said.

“I don’t expect the school to teach about the Bible,” he said, but “part of education should be character-building.”

In Germany, he said, home-schoolers are seen as “fundamentalist religious nuts who don’t want their children to get to know what is going on in the world, who want to protect them from everything.”

“In fact,” he said, sitting on his sofa as his three older children wrote in workbooks at the dining table, “I want my children to learn the truth and to learn about what’s going on in the world so that they can deal with it.”

The reasoning behind the German law, cited by officials and in court cases, is to foster social integration, ensure exposure to people from different backgrounds and prevent what some call “parallel societies.”

“We have had this legal basis ever since the state was founded,” said Thomas Hilsenbeck, a spokesman for the Ministry for Culture, Youth and Sport in the Romeikes’ state, Baden-Württemberg. “This is broadly accepted among the general public.”

The family has been here for some time, having left Germany in 2008. But it was not until Jan. 26 that a federal immigration judge in Memphis granted them political asylum, ruling that they had a reasonable fear of persecution for their beliefs if they returned.

In a harshly worded decision, the judge, Lawrence O. Burman, denounced the German policy, calling it “utterly repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and expressed shock at the heavy fines and other penalties the government has levied on home-schooling parents, including taking custody of their children.

The soulless, sheep-like docility of Germans is remarkable. I heard that "broadly accepted among the general public" explanation over and over again, in a very condescending tone. Look, suppose we were talking about slavery, or genocide. The fact that is "broadly accepted" among those who favor tyranny is irrelevant. The fact that one of the tyrants would even say it is remarkable.

Now, I am NOT comparing public schools to slavery or genocide. My point is that "broadly accepted" is irrelevant to "right thing to do." Broadly accepted can't be the standard, in a civilized nation, of the set of the things citizens can be forced to do at gunpoint.

The YYM spent some time at German schools, and saw both chaos and teacher indifference up close. Sure, those things happen in the US also, quite possibly worse. But why would have to send your child there to be bored and corrupted by state-sponsored indoctrination?

Here's my question: will we need a new "German Wall," to prevent freedom-loving Germans from trying to flee the "tyranny of broadly accepted," and escape to the US?

(Nod to Anonyman)

UPDATE: One of KPC's smart and attractive readers, in comments, toward the Volokh Conspiracy's excoriation of the judge. And rightly so. While I agree that the decision of the judge is a bit silly, so are our immigration laws. Stupid law requires silly judges. And stupid law comes first, and is causal.