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My Germany: fitness studios and open borders

In fitness studios very clear principles apply. Similarly, in communities of owners. And what’s this got to do with the refugee policy of the Federal government? A lot, says our columnist Zhang Danhong.

That Fitness is my new passion
I told you in a different place. I pay a monthly fee to be allowed to in a large gym around the corner, alone or in groups of devices, or with a barbell sweating. The rooms and the equipment to be used as a so-called club goods from us members. Since only paid members have access, there is only a low level of rivalry among us. Unless it’s Saturday morning: As all want to quickly get rid of a couple of hundred calories to feast then with a clear Conscience. Because it is tight and the air stuffy. The quality of the club goods-use decreases with the increase of number of users. And the rivalry to each other.

DW-editor Zhang Danhong

This is not true, of course, my neighbor, Inka and me. We often go together to the gym and share the joys and sorrows with fat burning. Our children understand so well that in the meantime, the children’s beds in our homes or the space to have a dining table assumed the character of “club goods”. This practice of the open door is maintained between the other families in our house. Our owner community is like a miniature of the Schengen area.

Thus our harmonious stay together life is untroubled, we make sure that the “external borders” are secure. The two front doors, the door to the cellar and the garage door must always be closed. If a family without a consultation open with the other all the doors, and Strangers would, therefore, make our club goods available to get you in Trouble with all of them.

Germany has pipped the neighbors

That’s exactly what Germany, in the fall of 2015. In an act full of good intentions, the immigration controls have been abolished short-hand: hundreds of thousands of war and economic refugees, as well as many of the freeloaders (including dimensions in proven Criminals and terrorists) flocked. The Schengen agreement and the German right of asylum, were temporarily put out of force. That the neighbors are not speaking well to Germany, is understandable. The fury of the Austrians I got in the holiday to feel, even as a Chinese-born German. “If you were an island, you can so many invite, as you want. But the are said your not”, me, a hotel employee. I had to give it to her right.

Top Economist Hans-Werner Sinn

The humanitarian aspect, I’ll skip today and stay in the concept of club goods. According to Economist Hans-Werner Sinn, the state is not “a Club that manages collective goods” like infrastructure, public services, etc., This collective ownership is to the free Disposition and must therefore be protected. “Only if the fences are there, can exist in a peaceful, open, liberal society”,
the former ifo President recently said in a lecture.

Fences and freedom belong together

Fences and freedom are the two sides of the same coin. This applies to both our home community as well as for the state. Many proponents of the culture of welcome is not clear. Again and again we hear the saying: “An open society needs open borders.” Only semantically, the sentence would have a certain logic, but economically no, says Hans-Werner Sinn.

Top Jurist Udo Di Fabio

Fences in a figurative sense, not just a guarantor for a functioning market economy, they are also indispensable for a democracy. “There is also a modern and integration heater constitutional state needs effective border controls,” says me Udo Di Fabio in an Interview. This is not a relic of the 19th century. Century, but simply a function is a prerequisite for democracy, as the former constitutional judge. The Federal government is responsible for effective border control in the European concert.

A naive idea

The failure of the Federal government for quite a while and is now calling the European partners to support the consequences. “If you distribute the one Million refugees that we currently have, among the 28 member States, with its 500 million inhabitants, then this causes no problems at all”, said the other day the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, in an Interview. And before him, other German politicians are extreme in this sense.

The Problem does not lies only in the fact that some of the neighbors to be stubborn, but that many refugees do not distribute. You want to pull in the few metropolises and regions in Europe, which already have relatives or good job opportunities hope. This does not mean that we expect in our large cities only reinforced conflicts of cultural and religious type, but also on the declining quality of our club goods by more users. So in my gym on a Saturday morning.

Zhang Danhong was born in Beijing and lives since over 20 years in Germany.

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