What we stand for

The Basic Law as our foundation

We stand without reservation on the ground of the Grundgesetz, the German Basic Law, and of the free democratic basic order. That is not a sentence for the legal notice. It is the reason this site exists.

The Basic Law does not begin with the state. It begins with the human being:

It promises that before the law nobody counts for more than anyone else:

It protects what a person believes, and what they do not believe:

And it lays down whom this state belongs to and what binds it:

Human dignity. Equality. Freedom of belief. Freedom of expression and of the press. Democracy, the rule of law, the separation of powers. To us these are not technical terms. They are the ground we work on and the yardstick we accept for ourselves.

Freedom of opinion is not freedom from facts

Everyone may hold their own opinion. Nobody may invent their own facts. That is why we keep three things apart on every page. FACT: what can be checked? CONTEXT: what else do you need to know in order to place a figure or a statement correctly? OPINION: which different political assessments are legitimate on the basis of the same facts? This separation is the most important principle of this platform. It runs through our texts, our components and our database. Opinion here always carries a name.

No party. No camp.

We are neither right nor left. We are neither government nor opposition. We are neither for nor against any party. Parties are part of democracy; the Basic Law says so expressly:

That is exactly why we check them all alike. When a minister works with wrong figures, we look. When an opposition politician does the same, we look just as closely. When someone creates fear with claims taken out of context, we put the facts beside them, whatever direction they come from. When someone leaves out facts that do not suit them, we put them beside them, whatever direction they come from. That holds from the right as from the left, with the same sources, the same scale and the same tone. When authorities spend millions of euros and nothing comes of it, we want to know why. When politicians promise something and later do the opposite, we document it.

We have a position on method, not on outcome. Whether a statement is correct is decided by sources and data, not by our convictions and not by the party of the person who made it.

Not louder. More precise.

Germany needs political argument. Germany needs differing opinions. Germany needs a government and an opposition. Germany needs criticism. But Germany does not need manufactured permanent outrage.

Populism works through oversimplification, fear, enemy images and omitted context. We make these mechanisms visible. Not with counterpropaganda. With sources, data, documents, context and an argument you can follow.

Patriotism as we understand it

We are allowed to be proud of this country. We are allowed to like our culture, our language, our regions, our traditions and the people who built this country. We are allowed to want Germany to succeed. And at the same time we are allowed to name mistakes and demand change.

There is no contradiction in that. Those who love their country may look closely. Our patriotism is attachment, not exaltation. It excludes nobody, it places itself above nobody, and it holds this culture to be strong enough to keep developing. And when Germany does something well, we report it. Enlightenment must not only be negative.

What a position does not mean here

It does not mean that our fact checks and background pieces take positions on the substantive questions they examine. Not on taxes, not on migration, not on energy, not on pensions. Here only opinion pieces take positions; each carries its author’s name and a disclosure of their interests. A position does not mean that we give voting recommendations. It does not mean that a claim becomes false because we dislike it, or true because it fits our outlook. If at any point you have the impression that we are doing exactly that, write to us: info@mbgglobal.com. We will check it and correct it in public.