From my window I can see a lake, the largest in Bavaria, in which abundant fish are taken every day and have been for taken for 2000 years. Wherever I look I see deer blinds because in this region in order to keep your hunting license you are required, repeat required, to harvest a quota of deer a year and produce the skulls for proof.
I live in 150-year-old farmhouse with walls about a foot and a half thick. The structure, like all neighboring buildings conforms to a delightful Bavarian style which seems to add to the beauty of the landscape rather than detract from it.
None of these wonders come without cost. It is almost impossible to get a commercial fishing license for the lake, unless you have the right bloodlines because those licenses are handed down from generation to generation. To get a sportsman's license to fish you must get the equivalent of the PhD and ichthyology and pass practical and written tests which require you to know everything from anatomy to breeding habits etc. In effect, the fish stocks have been maintained by severely controlling accessibility to the fish. It works and it is fine for those who enjoy hereditary rights, but it is not a liberty that has been passed on to me.
Similarly, a hunting license is very difficult to obtain and requires a great deal of study. One must actively hunt almost year-round in order to retain the right which is exclusive in a geographical area. These regulations were put in place or at least extensively modified by Hermann Goering. It works but what about liberty?
The buildings in rural Bavaria are beautiful but they are subject to extremely strict zoning regulations. The effect works, tourists come here partly because of the architecture but I have no liberty to build a Cape Cod.
Moreover, the real estate is tightly controlled. Building lots are very expensive because they are rare with most of the area zoned for farming. The farmers are permitted to build houses for their children as they grow up and, when the town fathers decide, the city will buy a farm and subdivide it for sale as lots to build houses. But as a rule, the majority of those lots are designated for people who have lived in the town for many years, who are married, who have kids, and you have what is called in Germany, "vitamin B" (cronyism). These people receive their lots at a much reduced, subsidized price but they must live in the house for a period of time etc.
In other words what the state gives the state can regulate. They do this to preserve the countryside from the onrush of the population out of Munich. It works, but what about liberty?
I have a home still in Florida where there is white flight into gated communities much of the motivation for which is to shield the inhabitants from the press of population. These inhabitants submit themselves to draconian zoning housekeeping regulations by their community Association because they're willing to give up liberty in order to protect themselves from their neighbors. Although the in a different way, it is much the same as what is happening here in Bavaria-we are trading our liberties to protect us against the press of population.
In Germany it is almost impossible to own a handgun because the philosophy is that the government should protect us from our neighbor. Put another way, this society fears its neighbors more than its government, a surprising lesson to draw from history considering Germany's past.
In America, we believe that we should fear the government more than our neighbor so we, at least we conservatives, want the liberty of owning a gun. In highly populated areas in America where we most need the gun, we are least likely to be allowed the liberty.
In many ways, rural Germany is like rural America, there is enough space for decent living. The cities here are also civilized. Munich is one of the great cities in the world, relatively safe, with real trees, and all of the amenities without the brutality of New York or Chicago. But it only has a little over 1 million people.
No matter where I look, whether in Germany or at home, I see trade-offs between liberty and population density.
