16 March 2006

Citizenship testing


Some Europeans are working on new ways to determine entry and citizenship. The Dutch are now making would-be immigrants take a test that covers issues like homosexuality and female nudity. Some Muslims are upset, but why should they be? The Dutch have every right to demand that people who want to enter their society accept their standards. In another development, the interior minister of the German state of Hesse wants people to take a test to get a passport. It was, I have to confess easy for me to name three German philosophers, a poem by Goethe (Faust, natch) , and a German Nobel Prize winner (Einstein). But the name of the doctor who discovered the cholera virus (Robert Koch), I had to look up to be sure. Hmm. Does that qualify me for a German passport?

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