re: #172 Decatur Deb

In decades past, I thought that it was sad that their unique history made it necessary to limit the right of free expression in FRG. We could exercise free speech but they couldn’t, because they were somehow culturally and behaviorally “different”.

The German government regularly made this argument with the US State Department in the 1990s and 2000s when State would condemn Germany for its treatment of Scientology. As far as the German government is concerned, Scientology is not a religion but a group with an ideology inimical to democracy and needs to be carefully watched.

Because we have a 1st Amendment, we can’t do similar “spying on” organizations which declare themselves to be religious; there has to be a criminal reason for going after a church.

I’m personally convinced that the reason the NXIVM trafficking case was relatively “easy” was because Keith Raniere never claimed to be a church but an “executive success” quasi-MLM. Had he done so, it would have been (IMHO) more difficult to go after him.

tl;dr: the US and Germany have different ways of approaching extremist groups and Germany does not make a distinction based on religion, which has brought it into conflict with the US in the past.