Those Superior Germans
So those superior Germans that the liberals want us to emulate now are using the power of the state to push women into prostitution...yeah, you read right...
Telegraph | News | 'If you don't take a job as a prostitute, we can stop your benefits'
Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job ‫ including in the sex industry ‫ or lose her unemployment benefit.
So, I see two morals to this story. One, the division between economic and personal freedom is once again proven artificial. When the state controls the economy to that extent, it controls everything even women's bodies. Second, it's just one more thing to point to when liberals point to Europe and say, «But Germany doesn't support removing dictators» or «But Germany ratified the Kyoto Protocol.» Yeah, Germany also makes women work as hookers or lose the unemployment they're otherwise entitled to.
Just an aside, I can't imagine this not happening if prostitutes are legal employees. As employees, they'd certainly be entitled to benefits if fired. So, do you say to a fired prostitute, «we can make you take a job in a different brothel» but then say to the waitress «we won't make you work in one»? A strange country with a strange legal and economic system.
Pointer from the Volokh Conspiracy.
An update via Volokh indicates that the job offer was only to work as bar staff in the brothel and, though the law technically may require a woman to take a job as a prostitute German unemployment officials are backpedaling very quickly. I imagine there's a bit of damage control combined with a bit of hype, but the points that the German's aren't perfect and the state shouldn't control our livelihoods stand even if it's only a 'technical' possibility.
Also, a link from Volokh's article quadrupled my daily visits. Thanks guys!
From Xlrq lots more information on this. Apparently any scraps of truth were so twisted as to make the whole thing meaningless. Also, he apparently pronounced Alan Keyes an idiot about half a day before I did - obviously, I should have been reading his blog.
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7 comments
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7 comments
5 years ago
I posted about this on my blog, too. I can't find anything anywhere that says it's a hoax,
and yet I find it appalling. Here's how I concluded my post:
«The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds,
but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars.
As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in
the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.»
No wonder the German birth rate is dropping if their
bureaucrats cannot distinguish between brothels and bars.
5 years ago
So you bois are actually in favor of welfare?
5 years ago
No. I found the whole episode to be a pretty persuasive argument against it, raj.
5 years ago
It's not about backpedaling, the story was bogus from the start. What this idiot reporter did was take bits and pieces from one story and mix them with another. The closest thing to a kernel of truth was that one unemployed woman was inadvertently referred to a desk job at a place that turned out to be a bordello. She figured that out herself with a little Internet research, pointed that fact out to the unemployment agency, and they apologized for the error. End of non-story.
5 years ago
So, apparently you're saying German reporters aren't all that superior either?
5 years ago
Who said anything about German reporters? This story was cooked up by a British reporter, Clare Chapman. AFAIK, no German media, not even the tabloids, have run this phony story, which, if true, would have been front-page news across the country.
So I guess you can say that all German reporters are superior to ONE British reporter, at least when it comes to reporting on matters internal to Germany. Externally, all bets are off; I don't put it past the German press to report something equally silly about Great Britain, the U.S. or any other country apart from their own.
5 years ago
I just noticed the comment on something I hadn't thought about for almost three weeks after finding out that the story was at best questionable. If it was a British reporter, I'm not sure what all the noise about 'translation' was. Anyway, bottom line - Funny story wasn't right. Situation was technically possible but highly unlikely. The whole thing is just further proof of two important points. 1) Don't believe everything you hear and only half of what you read. 2) The mainstream media is obviously not so superior to average everyday people when it comes to fact checking.
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