The First Day of School, or Learning at Germany Camp

Today was the first day of "school" in Germany. We were introducted to the currently changing German political party system. We also learned about flexible voters, took a brief tourn of Berlin, and talked with a Free Democratic Party member of the Bundestag. Interestingly, he didn't sound all that much like a classic liberal, but he did say that the government needs to be doing a better of enforcing tax fairness. There are a number of wealthy Germans who are able to avoid paying taxes by earning their money outside the country. The FDP parliamentarian argued that the parties in Germany should adopt something similar to our direct primaries. Having primary elections would create new images of the parties as they would try to present the information several times to different groups of partisans.