At least these three countries do not have right-wing extremists and authoritarians in government. I admit that we're not perfect, 13% support for right-wingers is 13% too much and our secret services are also plagued with scandals at the moment, but still: not remotely comparable with what is going on in HU/AT/IT/PL.
It is plain stupid and negligent to give biometrical data to the German government. Your argument about the prevalence of bad guys in parliament is devoid of any reasonable conclusion in either direction. And certainly not sufficient for a general case for laws of this kind, as it lacks even a minimal justification for implementing surveillance on this scale.
But you obviously don't see right-wing parties as a threat, since they would get access to that data too. Although I would admit that they probably wouldn't accomplish anything that a Seehofer could do as well.
> It is plain stupid and negligent to give biometrical data to the German government.
Really? Germany requires all citizens to have a biometric ID card. The ID cards were introduced separately in East and West Germany decades before reunification. What makes you think this is “stupid and negligent” when it’s been around for so long? I’d expect any social/political/legal bugs to have been solved by now.
> Germany requires all citizens to have a biometric ID card
Partially true for your picture, that is restricted to the ID itself. And that is a relatively recent addition. You can still get an ID with "imperfect" biometric photo, which you provide yourself. Biometric photo is defined by some rudimentary rules (you are not allowed to use a picture of the back of your head) that isn't comparable to fingerprints in any way.
> I’d expect any social/political/legal bugs to have been solved by now.
Fair. I suppose I expect important problems to be tested automatically by reality, but I don’t really know how Common Law systems handle that, and I’m completely unfamiliar with Civil Law systems.
Well, I doubt there are fundamental differences, but a lawyer might disagree. I believe any form of law system needs to reflect our intuitive fairness or it will fail at some point. It is of course imperfect, like any crafted law, but fundamental for the acceptance of the judiciary. If the law is applied with help of precedents or text doesn't matter that much in the end.
But besides the point, requiring every citizen to be able to ID himself with biometric data is the bug, not a solution to anything.
Something national socialists knew very well. Although technologically restricted, there are unmissable parallels to legislation like this. This is legislation crafted from fear and opportunism. Not a single problem will be solved.
Why not? The FPÖ (AT) is right-wing extremist. The Fidesz (HU) got suspended from the EVP for leaving the path of democracy. Salvini (IT) regularly uses right-wing talking points and incites hatred. PiS (PL) is under fire from the EU Commission which has sued the Polish government due to them dismantling the court system.
> Furthermore, Germany is and has been more authoritarian than any of those countries for a long time. In Germany you need to buy a license just to livestream online to more than 500 people (or needed?).
LOL, are you serious? I agree that this regulation is utter crap, but that is not authoritarian. We still have an independent court and police system - PL/HU have not.
> Germany's also the country where home-schooling is illegal and you can't take your kid out of school even for a couple of hours without permission from the principal (often a government employee).
Home schooling is illegal for very valid reasons. At least our kids (mostly) get vaccinated and don't get screwed out of their future by parents who think it's sane to keep them from anything outside and replace that with evangelical indoctrination.
First of all, extremism means that their politics falls outside of what society finds normal. Since you're talking about the ruling parties of multiple countries, that were democratically elected, then by definition they cannot be extremists.
>The Fidesz (HU) got suspended from the EVP for leaving the path of democracy.
They were suspended because of anti-immigration billboards that featured Juncker (a member of EPP himself):
>The decision was made partly in reaction to the outrage caused by the Hungarian government's recent anti-migration billboard campaign featuring Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, a senior member of the EPP.
And how is this bad? I call bs on the "regularly incites hatred" part.
>PiS (PL) is under fire from the EU Commission which has sued the Polish government due to them dismantling the court system.
The EU Commission is suing Poland because they introduced a law which lowers the retirement age of supreme court judges from 70 to 65.
>I agree that this regulation is utter crap, but that is not authoritarian.
Setting up rules that tell you how you must live your life is authoritarian. The government banning homeschooling and you needing permission from the government to take your kid out of school for the day are instances of authoritarianism. There are many of these small things that add up. I wouldn't consider any of these countries to be authoritarian, but some are more than others. Germany seems to love to regulate everything.
