This week, the Merkel coalition took up an unusual topic, and it's bound to get discussions going on with the general public. Deutsche Welle covered the bulk of the story, in English....if you wanted the general introduction.
German law, which goes back to 1949, and probably has even more references which date back to the 1800s....has an aspect which deals with 'seelische Abartigkeit', and 'schwashsinnig'. The words mean 'mental perversion' and 'mentally weak'.
In plain simple terms (my humble words).....it's a guy or gal who has serious flaws in their mental capacity, a probable lower IQ (less than 70), and in the American-south....might be regarded as a 'gomer' or 'beanbrain'.
The Merkel team is looking for some way to remove the terms 'mentally perverted' and 'weak in the mind' from the criminal code. They feel that this is a disability, and it's inhumane to put folks in jail for acts that they can't understand.
Generally, if you have an IQ in the 60 to 70 range....it means you are at best....a third-grade graduate. No one has numbers for Germans who fit into the schwashsinnig situation or the low IQ situation. If you asking me to take a guess....it's probably in the one percent range....so with 83-million in population, you are probably talking about 800,000 who fit into this situation. Most are not dangerous individuals or petty criminals. I used to frequent a German grocery that had a low IQ guy for the bottle recovery section, who was there to rack and stack returned bottles. It was a simple enough job that he could handle, and make a basic income.
Now for a bit of history. Toward the end of the 1800s, with science in full development....a couple of people felt qualified enough to say that the low IQ situation in Europe was becoming a problem. They wanted a transformation....this is where Eugenics (the faked-up science) started up. Over roughly two generations....Eugenics eventually went to the idea that you'd either castrate or sterilize the 'affected' individuals....or put them to 'sleep'.
After WW II....that practice went away, and I would suggest that whatever number or percentage of the public that was simple-minded in 1910....Germany is probably approaching in 2020.
As for the Merkel group and their discussion? There are only two outcomes that I can see. The first is where you isolate the individuals and put them into controlled circumstances, if you feel they are a threat to anyone, or the second idea....just invent new words out of thin air....that mean the same thing as before but in a nicer way.
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