Germans seeking political asylum in East Tennessee? Hooda thunkitt?
Not that long ago, historically speaking, Germany was divided into two nations, one a totalitarian state which routinely murdered people who sought to escape from the communist penal colony. During the first half of the 20th Century, Germany was defined by the totalitarian Nazi Party and its execrable leader, Adolph Hitler.
Today, the carnage of World War II is long past, and Germany once again is a united country. East Germany simply ceased to exist (but not before having a “going out of business sale”), and it was incorporated into what was then West Germany. For those of us who had been to East Germany and seen the communist repression up close, this was a wonderful time, a heady time in which we let ourselves believe that perhaps freedom had won.
Today, Germany (like so many other Western countries) is less free than it was when the Berlin Wall came down. In the United States, the Patriot Act gives federal agents powers that our colonial forbears could not have imagined would exist in a supposedly free country. Every day, we see examples of police brutality, of prosecutors knowingly presenting false information to gain wrongful convictions, and governments at all levels seizing private property wily nily.
However, there has been a most welcome development in East Tennessee, the arrival of the family of Uwe Romeike from Germany, seeking political asylum on our shores and living near Morristown. Why? German law forbids home schooling, and the Romeikes had accumulated thousands of dollars in fines and were in danger of having their children removed from their home altogether by authorities determined to make the family heel. (An immigration judge in Memphis granted the Romeikes asylum.)
No, there were no shouts of “Macht Schnell!” or the sound of the Gestapo rapping at the door, but nonetheless this was totalitarianism in action. Germany has a long tradition of oppressive statism, and home schooling is verboten in the land that wants us to believe it has purged itself of the goose stepping, stiff-arm salutes, and the mentality of “Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer!”
Other European countries are about as bad, as teachers unions and leftist governments have declared war on families (and especially Christian families) that believe they can educate their own children better than can the government schools. Such repressive — and they are repressive — policies are going to drive other families perhaps to the United States. Obviously, the leftist Obama administration sees this as a problem. Time reports:
The ruling is tricky politically for Washington and its allies in Europe, where several countries — including Spain and the Netherlands — allow homeschooling only under exceptional circumstances, such as when a child is extremely ill. That helps explain why in late February, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement formally appealed the Romeike ruling, which was issued by an immigration judge in Memphis, Tenn. His unprecedented decision has raised concerns that the already heavily backlogged immigration courts will be flooded with asylum petitions from homeschoolers in countries typically regarded as having nonrepressive governments.
The Romeikes did not take this action lightly. Uwe is a concert pianist, and to finance this move, he had to sell his Steinway piano, not an easy action for an accomplished musician. To me, this is reminiscent of the Jews in Nazi Germany selling their beloved instruments in order to finance their leaving the country. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
It does not surprise me at all to see Obama siding with the heirs of Nazism and try to send this family back to Germany, where the mother and father most likely will be arrested and at very least, the children will be taken from their parents. Obama is a lackey of the labor unions, including one of the most powerful unions in the country, the National Education Association, which favors making home schooling illegal altogether.
I admit to being prejudiced here. My wife and I home school our three adopted children. It began when our oldest son had spent four years in school and could not read. After my wife worked with him, he finally was able to make headway, and now is a fair reader. My other two children decided that they, too, would prefer to be educated at home.
All three of them are making progress, more progress than they were making when they were in school, and one of my sons is reading the literature of the Ancient Greeks, and comprehending well the material. (For the record, I am a graduate of the Baylor School of Chattanooga, and we did not read material that was as challenging as my 14-year-old son is reading now as a home schooler.)
Even though the teachers’ unions claim to be “protecting the children,” the only people they want to protect are themselves. When parents are able to take control of the education of their children, they also are taking power away from the teachers and their unions, and they don’t like that. Of course, they try to stuff the “we care more about your children than you do” rhetoric down our throats, but many of us are not buying it.
I sincerely hope that the Roemikes are able to defeat this effort by Obama and his henchmen to destroy their family. To be honest, I like the idea of a concert pianist living in East Tennessee, and I eagerly await the day when he plays “Rocky Top” at a performance! Until then, I hope that he and his legal allies can defeat the efforts of our government to deport him, his wife and his children back to the country that gave us Hitler.
—Dr. William Anderson
