The recent inquiry of a friend sparked a once strong fire of curiosity I had for international relations and the structure of foreign governments. My friend's question was on the German parliament and the role of the Angela Merkel. One the first topic, my friend queried what the difference was between the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. As for Merkel, he wondered when her term would be up. Now, I am obviously no expert either topic, but I did take a comparative politics class a few moons ago. I also keep fairly current on world events so I felt like I could give a semi-acceptable answer to his question, at least during the drunken state in which we found ourselves. After asking me his questions, I sat pondering on his inquiries; I was about 10 seconds behind him. The quiddity of his questions struck me as a bit odd. "These are basic questions," I thought, "How can you not know these things?".
I explained to my friend what little I know (that the Bundestag is the upper house of Parliament-- comparable to the Senate in the US, and that the Bundesrat is the lower house-- similar to the House. Also, that Merkel would have to call an election before November 2010 because she was elected 5 years before that date). After answering his questions, my curiosity got the best of me and I began to ask myself a bunch of questions that eventually led to a conversation on Germany's Basic Law (their constitution). I remembered it was very focused on personal rights and liberties (due to the Weimar Republic and Hitler's Third Reich), but I didn't remember much more. The conversation on Germany's Basic Law and the personal liberties it provides its citizens with lead to another, more meaningful talk, about the right to privacy.
It wasn't long ago that I read an article on in a recent TIME magazine about the new laws Germany was passing in regards to technology. I wonder what sort of impact the meshing of a strong belief in personal rights and liberties have on technology? In another article, a very recent NYT text, I read about Britain holding all emails and browsing history (among other web related exchanges of personal information) of its citizens. How is it that two countries that are geographically close to each other, have such [theoretically] opposite view points on this subject?
Where does the US stand? I am sure we're more on the Brit's side, but is that right? What impact does it have on our democracy, our right to privacy?
After discussing all of this, we were pretty hammered and decided it was time to go home to sleep off the alcohol and reconvene at a later date.
