Welcome to Crazy Town: Freiburg im Breisgau, located in Germany’s Green-led Pseudo-Utopia of Baden-Württemberg, is Set to Outlaw Meat in Kindergartens and Public Schools
The more 'they' push, the harder we ought to push back
EDIT: I’ve dug a bit deeper into this issue, please check out the accompanying analysis:
Apologies for the somewhat reduced posting activity: it’s grant evaluation season, and I’m a bit busy contributing to this year’s Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (‘developing talents, advancing research’), which is run by the EU Commission’s Research Executive Agency.
Be that as it may, here small, if decidedly problematic, matter that came up in conversation earlier today, and it pertains to Germany in particular (but given that country’s important, I fear that this kind of lunacy will soon ‘go mainstream’, i.e., affect the rest of us, too).
No More Meat in Kindergartens and Public Schools
As reported by Germany’s leading tabloid as well as a number of local papers, meat will soon be banned in Freiburg im Breisgau. (The below is a translation is of a piece that appeared in the right-wing alternative online outlet Wochenblick, which is close to the Austrian Freedom Party, which has a quite extensive coverage of the issue; emphases in the original; note the editorial bias, but in this regard, I’m with the freedom to choose crowd).
Total Compulsory Paternalism: Freiburg [im Breisgau] Set to Ban Meat in Schools
Green paternalism is the natural enemy of self-determination, freedom, and personal responsibility of decisions made by responsible citizens. And wherever the Greens are in charge, they compulsively try to impose their ideas of lifestyle and consumer behaviour on people. This does not even stop at nutrition: Freiburg’s schools are to serve only vegetarian food from now on. Meat—although it is an essential part of a balanced diet for young people—will soon become a taboo.
Freiburg im Breisgau is not governed by a Green, but by the independent mayor Martin Horn. However, the Departments of Forestry and Waste Management, Youth, Schools, and Education are under the control of the Green Mayor Christine Buchheit. This also explains the compulsory paternalism [Bevormundungsdrang] with which the school board, according to a report in Bild, wants to enforce a meat-free diet in schools. On 18 Oct., the Freiburg City Council will vote on whether primary schools and day-care centres will, in future, offer meat-free meals for lunch.
Until now, it was established practice that parents could choose between meat, fish, or vegetarian dishes. This could have simply been left at that. However, since nothing is more hated than free choice by the Greens, a ban on meat is to be imposed from above in order to force people into their supposed happiness.
Forcing People to be ‘Happy’
City Hall spokesperson Sebastian Wolfrum justifies the motion by claiming that it is necessary because of rising prices. ‘Therefore, in order to keep the cost of school meals and its quality in line, measures must be taken’, he claimed. If only one dish is offered henceforth, he said, this will primarily reduce the administrative workload and the effort involved in serving meals, which will save costs. However, the city wants to ‘continue to offer a high-quality meals’, he continued. He did not mention that the adjusting screws that supposedly have to be turned ‘happen to lead’ to the implementation of a core part of the Green agenda.
A mother whose son plays football criticised the move: ‘Children need a balanced diet for their development, which includes, in my opinion, animal protein.’ By contrast, Jakob Wehner from the Association of German School and Daycare Cateres, declared in the best manner of someone who knows better [in oberlehrerhafter Manier]: ‘From a nutritional point of view, meat must not necessarily included in a [a child’s or adolescent’s] diet.’ According to vice-chairman [of what it isn’t said] Sebastian Kölsch, a survey of 1,030 participants allegedly showed ‘that, for the most part, they had nothing against vegetarian food’.
Abused Price Argument
What caused the commotion is something else, though: the cost increase from currently 3.90 € per meal to 4.40 €, which will rise to 4.80 € in 2024. This means that there is no other large city in Baden-Württemberg where school meals are more expensive. A mother, who is in favour of the exclusively vegetarian diet ‘because children can also eat meat at home’, is concerned that the price increase is too high for some families. The fact that children may just as well eat vegetarian food at home and that it is generally none of the state’s business what children (or adults) eat, apparently did not occur to her.
The city advances the typical Green killer argument that, since all children get the same food, there would be no quarrels or nuisances. As always, according to left-green thinking, the state is supposed to enforce equity to end perceived discrimination. The approval of the City Council should only be a formality.
Bottom Lines
How on earth did we move from ok’ing it that the state should be concerned with what goes on in anyone’s bedroom to this?
I mean, leaving aside the obvious partisan slant, there’s something else at play: it’s one thing to institute obligatory school education by ‘the state’, but why would we need to all eat the same?
I for one would rather see the City Council to address how to best make up for 2-3 lost years due to the insane and anti-scientific Covid policies. Instead, we get…this?
Finally, the more ‘the state’—esp. these absurd pseudo Bolsheviks (don’t get me wrong, I don’t doubt the Green’s ambition and ‘sincerity’, but I remain very wary of their ‘true’ intentions…)—encroaches on anyone’s liberties and freedoms, the more we lose what made our civilisation and culture what it used to be.
The more we consent to these maddening issues by not protesting, the more these ‘politicians’ will push us around.
For the Left everything that isn’t mandatory is forbidden.
All I can do is shake my head. You see, Freiburg is my home town; I was born there and spent much of my youth there, including quite a few summers after I was transplanted to the USA at the tender age of 7-1/2. I used to miss it very much, but the last few times I've been back, it seemed it was not the city I remembered. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it didn't feel like I was coming home anymore.