Resistance

GERMAR RUDOLF, RESISTANCE IS OBLIGATORYfar as interpretations of the Basic Law are concerned and if not otherwiseindicated.The present trial takes place only because the prosecutor claims thata conflict of civil rights has occurred between my exercise of freedomof speech and science on one hand and the human dignity of a particulargroup of the populace on the other hand.Article 19, paragraph 2, of the German Basic Law determines that incase of such a conflict a balance has to be found between the differentcivil rights which may not undermine the essential content of the affectedcivil rights.Let us first turn to the right to freedom of science as determined byarticle 5, paragraph 3. As shown before, the essential content of scienceis that any hypothesis can be chosen freely and that the results of researchactivity may be determined only by verifiable evidence, but notby pressures exerted by external sources.Human dignity simply does NOT depend on where one seeks thetruth or where one thinks to have found it, but that one is allowed todoubt in the first place; next that one is permitted to seek the truth, andfinally to proclaim what one deems to have found. The will toward thetruth is the divine spark in us humans, is therefore an integral part of ourhuman dignity.After all the things I have stated so far it should also be clear thatthere can be no entitlement to certain research results, and most certainlynot a civil right. There are no exceptions to this, for anybody, as suchexceptions would contradict both the categorical imperative of a “universallaw” and the principle of equal treatment, which is itself a civilright included in the German Basic Law, isn’t it, Mr. Prosecutor?As an example of what the consequence would be, if the rules appliedin Germany regarding the National Socialist persecution of theJews were to be transformed into a universal law, I may bring up socalledcreationism. As is known, there is an increasingly strong movementamong fundamentalist Christians especially in the United Statesthat rejects the theory of evolution, and this not just because it contradictsbiblical claims. Deep down in their innermost feelings these individualsconsider their human dignity violated by the claim of modernbiology that we humans have descended from an ape-like creature. Thetheory of evolution is unconscionable for these Christians, and theyconsequently try to have books on this topic removed from libraries and123