The Great Illusion of the Emergency Decrees

It is yet another “illusion” to believe that one can “rehabilitate the nation,” shaken by worldview conflicts as it is, through police measures authorized by laws.

It is an illusion to believe that we can pay two-and-half billion in tribute each year and two-and-a-half billion more in interest payments, just as is the idea that one can find domestic political support for such an impossibility for very long. No, Mr. Reich Chancellor! For thirteen years a ghostly Pegasus has flown through the blessed realm of limitless illusions: that animal is called German domestic and foreign policy!

Mr. Reich Chancellor, you asked that critical judgments on the new proposed laws be withheld until their effects are clear and demonstrable. I do not understand how a government unsure of itself could say this. A statesman convinced of the correctness of his actions and who expects success can only hope that his opponents will criticize them prematurely so that he can refute them once those actions are successful. However, a government that has learned from past experience to be uncertain of its success will naturally prefer to ban any criticism. It realizes in advance that the failure of its promises will later prove critics justified. It will, therefore, prefer to prohibit farsighted men from speaking and writing about developments in order to keep the opposition from later referring back to its prophecies and thereby earning the nation’s respect.