Germany: No Scientology Ban

My position on the Scientology issue has always been very clear. I am a Scientology critic, for various reasons, but I am also critical of the exaggerations and abuses of anti-Scientologists. I even go as far as saying that as long as anti-Scientologists don’t police themselves out, they need to be opposed even more than Scientology itself.

One of the abuses I have been the most vocal of was anti-Scientologists encouragement and support of government discrimination towards Scientology. I also pointed out that Anonymous does not live up to its own creed that would lead them to actively protests against German discrimination just as they protest Scientology itself. Instead, they stupidly and actively supported this blatant abuse.

Scientology may be bad, but it is not as bad as anti-Scientologists make it out to be, and the discrepancy between observable facts and the claims made by anti-Scientologist fanatics eventually creates a cognitive dissonance that works against critics.

Now the German government itself supported my position with arguments that could have been lifted right out of my web site as Germany finally dropped its pursuit of a ban on Scientology after having had the CoS under observation for more than a decade (though that observation itself will continue):

Erhart Koerting, Berlin's top security official:

"The appraisal of the government at the moment is that (Scientology) is a lousy organization, but it is not an organization that we have to take a hammer to."

Brandenburg Minister of Interior Schonbohm:

"I consider someone a coward who believes seriously to be at risk because of 5,000 Scientologists". (Source)

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his counterparts from Germany's 16 states:

"There is not enough proof to justify opening proceedings for such a ban"

August Hanning, a Schaeuble deputy:

"Before we open preliminary proceedings (leading to a ban), we need concrete evidence of unconstitutional activity. "The security agencies are predominantly of the opinion that there is not sufficient evidence of this."

Where are all the claims of gross illegal abuses anti-Scientologists endlessly repeat on their web sites and protests? If only 1% of their wildest claims were true, the CoS would have been closed down for good long time ago already. Instead, very antagonist government agencies can find no evidence of such after more than ten years of close observation!

Now how's that for a cognitive dissonance?