Senate The European Politics Thread

No. Why do you struggle so much with politics?

The centre-left are failing the needs of the white working class. And to have a one ideology state would make Europe or anywhere else like America, which is terrible. Utterly awful. Wouldn't wish it on any country, even the pretend ones like Belgium.

Arguing for unified right and left parties means voters have choices (which when you have a Thatcherite running on the laughably notional progressive ticket, would seem nice no?) and a vibrant democracy. Having minor party centrists come in and advocate for a third way is also great, because it distils the choice without the heated pissing contest of ideology.

As far as France is concerned, the socialists are a bit of a joke but they are less vulnerable than Fillon on their right flank. And Macron would also have to deal with the liberalism v populism fight.

None of what I've said is incompatible with any other part of what I've said.

 

Les Republicains have more or less embraced elements of the far right (ish) to combat the rise of Le Pen. They've become quite hard line on immigration and on Europe.

 

And that's a massive failure of parties on both sides, especially the conservatives, in our systems. I think even our Labour parties did this to cripple the conservative vote to great success for a time too.

Ideological preference goes around. Go to the lefties to get some good social policy and a treasury in tatters. Go to the right to get deregulation happening to kickstart the economy and repay foreign debt. Rinse, repeat.

Pandering to fascists is bad mkay.

 

Fillon is a little friendly to the Kremlin, too.

 

I'm not sure I'm ok with this instinctive anti-Russian sentiment. We took a proud superpower made humble and instead of being gracious in victory and respectful as new allies, we - mostly the Yanks - were poor winners and rubbed Russia's nose in it.

I'm not sure what else Russia could or should have done in response.

 

I mean, how else do you properly house-train a puppy?

 

Vote Thatcherite and refuse to acknowledge it?

 

The reason I brought up russia support earlier (with regards to parties like Parti de Gauche/Die Linke/etc) was not because I want to be enemies with Russia but because I felt it's a tactic used by anti-colonialists on the leff to simply support people who are anti-west.

 

Bill Browder in his book, Red Notice, more or less said just that. The rushed and failed liberalisation process more or less allowed the rise of Putin; if the West was more controlled and respectful of ordinary Russians, United Russia would never been able to grow in power.

Highly recommend his book, though. Very good insight to Putin's inner circle and how dissidents are "dealt" with.

 

Sure, and that's a fair observation. It's just going around at the moment as if contact with Russia is itself a naughty thing.

 

I agree, but this has made Russia dangerous.

Germany was treated horribly after WW1. I'm not saying that the threat is of the same magnitude and I don't think it's too late to be fairer in our dealings with Russia but I think it's worth doing so with caution. As if handling a dog that your idiot, psychopath cousin has whipped and beaten for some time.

 

But if the center-left is failing the white working class, then the alternative (if given the choice) is for them to go to more left-wing parties...parties whose policies you just criticized.

 

Does that not point the finger back at us though for failing to properly manage the relationship with Russia? Like, the situation was avoidable and remains manageable...

 

Yep.

 

No. Not at all.

We - me and others - criticised the Socialist party in France because they're quite frankly, very, very silly. This is again, not incompatible.

I can probably help more if you explain what is confusing you, including any underlying assumptions.

 

Sounded to me like you were saying you don't like the European left's policies (or were you specifically talking only about France's Socialists?) but you also criticized the center-left for not being left-wing enough to appeal to the white working class.

So what, if we had just avoided NATO expansion in the 90's and let the Balkans burn...relations with Russia today would be fine? I'm a little skeptical that these slights are really the reason behind our new Cold War...albeit one that's probably about to end what with Trump being POTUS.

 

I specifically spoke of the French socialist party. I mean, the taxes, the 35hr work week, the banlieues remaining poor poverty traps for migrants... this is all France.

I'm honestly not sure how you're not seeing that?

 

The last Socialist President, before Hollande, was Mitterrand. And he came very close to economically destroying France - before he started to embrace free markets.

 

Never mind, scratch that then. I take it this means you consider the rest of the European left to be better than that of France?

 

The Scandinavian Left most certainly are, along with the Germans but others are in a worse position than the French. See Britain, Spain and Greece.

 

I'm not that well versed in politics, but I do usually lean towards far right extremism. At least it works for me anyway.

 

What is it about the far right that appeals to you?

 

I'm more of a compassionate libertarian but I guess you guys tend to have smart uniforms.

 

There's your problem.

 

I assume either because of the lack of familiarity with politics, or because it's what he feels somehow Jim Morrison would have wanted.