The Inversion of Standards – When What Is Right Becomes a Crime

Imagine living in a world where you could be arrested for saying, “Don’t kill children.” Not because your words are wrong. Not because they incite hatred. But because - so they say - they might hurt the murderer’s feelings. Don’t imagine this as satire, not as a parable or a dark thought experiment. Imagine it as reality, as the state of our present. A present in which the moral compass has not only shifted but been turned completely upside down. What was once considered untouchable - the lives of the innocent, the child as a symbol of vulnerability - is now being relativized, talked to death, dissolved in political hairsplitting. Those who dare to speak out clearly, directly, without euphemisms against killing are quickly suspected of polarizing. Of “oversimplifying.” Of dividing. And suddenly, it’s no longer about the child who died - but about the feelings of the perpetrator that were hurt.

That’s how it now feels to be an investigative journalist: a border-crosser. And yet the truth remains: if no one investigates, if everyone sticks to polished agency copy that always plays it safe and never causes friction, then many will be caught completely off guard when the world begins to slip - and only then realize what others have long been risking their necks for. Investigative reporting is not a pose. It is self-defense against collective forgetting. We live in a time in which the perpetrator is stylized as a fragile figure, and the critic as the aggressor. In which a society that sees itself as enlightened applauds empathy for violence - as long as it comes in the right packaging. The pain of the victims is made invisible, buried beneath the weight of a sensitivity that cares not about justice, but about being right. It no longer matters what is true. What matters is how uncomfortable that truth sounds. And who is offended by it. What remains is a large part of society in a moral tailspin - in which what is right no longer counts, but who feels offended; in which the standard for decency is not the suffering of the weak, but the sensitivity of the strong; in which it is more dangerous to speak the truth than to stay silent.

It is time to push back. Not with rage, not with hatred, but with unmistakable clarity. With the ability to still distinguish between good and evil. With the courage not to be intimidated - neither by the language of power nor the power of language. Because when silence becomes more comfortable than speaking, the path to barbarism is already well underway. “Don’t kill children” must never become taboo. It must remain an imperative - human, ethical, non-negotiable. Those who can’t bear to hear it have no right to feel hurt. They have a duty to examine themselves. In an age that betrays itself, speaking the truth is not provocation - it is the last refuge of dignity. Or, as two men I deeply respect once put it - both of whom served the rule of law as good and conscientious investigators, and nearly broke because of it:

Robert Mahler (former state criminal investigator):
“They once told me: In certain areas, you shouldn’t take things so literally. When it’s about the average citizen, yes, but when it gets political, you can’t always stick too closely to the letter of the law.”

Stefan Sattler (former state criminal investigator):
“I asked myself whether I was still on the right planet. You name injustice, and in return, the public prosecutor’s office starts investigating you.”