Is Germany still a serious country? – Allah's Willing Executioners

One of the fundamental obligations of public service in a liberal democracy is the requirement to set aside one’s personal opinions and fulfil the programmes of elected executives. Elections determine policies and civil servants implement them. No democracy will long survive if its officials are free to substitute their personal preferences for the democratic mandate exercised by their leaders. Over a century ago, Prussian sociologist Max Weber identified this need for a dispassionate civil service if a legal, rational state were to thrive.
You may think that German governmental officials would be particularly attuned to this obligation, but unfortunately, not in the case of German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul. He was recently in Syria on a visit intended to clear the way for the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland. Instead, Wadephul was overcome by emotion by the ruins in Damascus, compared it to 1945 Germany, and pronounced through tears that it would be “barely possible …