# Lessons from the Stasi

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Posted by Rick [Rick] on November 10, 1999 at 00:00:06 {AAJB0ph6mY7mY4XD8K2cFMFBt36Xyc}:

I'm watching with horrified fascination the Discovery Channel's episode called Big Brother.

Right now they're covering the Stasi. This was the German secret police organization in Germany some time back, before citizens had enough of them and they were stopped.

Picture this: The Stasi kept records on every citizen in Germany with one out of 7 German citizens serving the Stasi as informants.

The Stasi realized how destructive to their reputation it would be if the world discovered their activities in record-keeping, so they spent months in underground vaults shredding the evidence.

These underground vaults were the size of small cities. During the Stasi's ordering of the records of the German people shredded, they were interrupted when the Stasi were shutdown. You know how many records they were not able to shred?

125 MILES OF FILE CABINETS IN CITY-SIZED UNDERGROUND VAULTS, containing every "banality" down to a person's personal body odor, sexual practices and personal masturbation practices, what they said bad against whom, what they ate and the dates they got sick and threw-up, very banality one could imagine. These were painstakingly recorded in over 125 miles of file cabinets in underground vaults that made the U.S. Pentagon's underground vaults look like little storage sheds by comparison!

The lessons learned? That privacy is precious, so the German people learned painfully. That the Stasi must never again rear their ugly heads in the form of any organization, and that the tendency to be like the Stasi is a cancer amongst humankind that must be kept from spreading.

I was shocked and horried at the coverage of the Stasi, their informants, and before the biggest mass-shredding in history, the thousands of miles of file cabinets containing every embarassing detail of every German citizen. It's a horrific testament to what imperfection can cause people to resort to, and all in the name of "the greater good of the people."

May we root out anything that remotely resembles Stasi-like practices in the organization that we believe has a mission to preach the Good News of Christ's return, to herald the glad tidings of peace and security the kingdom will bring.

Rick

Follow Ups:

- *Lessons from the Stasi WorldlyWitness 18:32:31 11/10/99 (1)
  - **Lessons from the Stasi AMEN TO THAT!!! 12:21:39 11/12/99 (0)
- *Lessons from the Stasi Lobo 10:45:00 11/10/99 (0)
- *Lessons from the Stasi N.H. 07:09:39 11/10/99 (0)
- *Lessons from the Stasi Kent 02:11:22 11/10/99 (10)
  - **Lessons from the Stasi Bibleman 06:14:24 11/10/99 (9)
    - ***Lessons from the Stasi Kent 07:20:21 11/10/99 (4)
      - ****Lessons from the Stasi Bibleman 10:43:03 11/10/99 (0)
      - ****Lessons from the Stasi Rick 09:48:32 11/10/99 (2)
        - *****Lessons from the Stasi Bibleman 10:47:26 11/10/99 (1)
          - ******Lessons from the Stasi Quotes 11:44:22 11/10/99 (0)
    - ***Lessons from the Stasi 5GJW 06:49:58 11/10/99 (3)
      - ****Lessons from the Stasi Farkel 12:57:56 11/10/99 (0)
      - ****Lessons from the Stasi Kent 07:28:30 11/10/99 (1)
        - *****Lessons from the Stasi Bibleman 10:57:47 11/10/99 (0)

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