This so naive! (Neo)Liberal politics is the reason the EU and the West is in such a mess in the first place. Wishful thinking! Lol.
French presidential election 2017
- Thread starter AdrienIer
- Start date
This so naive! (Neo)Liberal politics is the reason the EU and the West is in such a mess in the first place. Wishful thinking! Lol.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
But they will never win I think, even if elected. Money is too powerful, the electorate too fickle. Right wing populism is based on a hollow core of self-interest and thus must always seek the approval of the monied interests. Left wing populism might be more benevolent, but they too are beholden to evidence based policy and people who support that, which again is usually people with money. Friction is inevitable either way, but the end result is not I think. Which is the states implementing stronger social safety nets so people can keep buying more stuff.
Highest standards of life = mess.
This, but unironically.
Less democracy, more power to unelected elite and corporative fascism = mess
I don't like the term projecting and I've never used it before, but stop projecting the flaws of your country into ours.
Less democracy : we have plenty of parties, so no undemocratic two party system. And if you don't like political parties the guy who just won did it outside the political parties. So nothing like the 1-party state that is Russia nowadays.
Power to unelected elites : we don't have oligarchs running the country for us here. I don't know which "unelected elites" you're referring to but we have very little unelected leadership (except people named by elected people).
Corporate fascism : "fascism is an autoritarian political system that associates populism, nationalism and totalitarianism in the name of a supreme collective ideal". Exactly what MLP proposed. Also applies to Putin to some extent. Certainly not to Macron, or the EU. So unless you have a different rigorous definition of corporate fascism, stop applying random words at people.
There's a lot of nuance that you're ignoring. To say that it isn't good for a fascist to win power, even if it's the democratic will of the voters, is not to say that it would be better to ignore that democratic will. Rather, it's to say that the positive moral value in democracy does not magically make the outcomes of democracy good. Thus, the fact that a majority of voters opted for a fascist, would not make that choice an objectively good one, and it would not make the result of a fascist gaining power an objectively good result. Abiding by the democratic result would remain a good thing, but that good thing doesn't mean everything associated with it also, by definition, good.
In other words, the leap from "democracy is good and we should support democracy" to "the outcome of a democratic election is always good" is not logically sound.
There's the problem right there though. I'm someone who does not really believe there is a such thing as objective good and objective bad. Good and bad are a matter of perspective. So while you may see a fascist victory as a bad outcome, the fascists certainly wouldn't.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
No that's business as usual, democracy even in old Greece fell prey to baser instincts, more wealth, more loot, cheaper goods. Mess is defined by ethnic cleansing, starvation, riots, hiding in bomb shelters and fleeing ultranationalist paramilitaries who shelled you village. You should try it and then we'll reconvene on the definition of a mess.
You cant separate the mess of Syria, Libya, Iraq and other places from whats happening in the West. The material and human resources of the West together with its humanitarian and political capital was used for interventions and invasions by way of breaking international law, through commiting of war crimes and with disregard to democracy - popular will of either the Westerners or of the people in the supressed countries. The result is less democracy and less civil rights in the West itself.
Uh, no, I mustn't.
Kraznaya
Princeps
One of the slogans that FN supporters love to shout at rallies is "On est chez nous," trans. "We are at home!"
I actually happen to love the slogan! Why?
Because it has an even better effect when immigrants shout it.
I actually happen to love the slogan! Why?
Because it has an even better effect when immigrants shout it.
Strange complaints from a Putin fanboy.
You do realise that history matters? There is different development in various parts of the world and when you make judgments you need to take that into an account. On the top of that you cant expect govern China the same way as Switzerland for obvious reasons. And than there is the hostile geopolitical environment...
My point is that the democracy in the West is on decline. Prove me wrong.
This election just proved you wrong
Yeah, I'd say on the whole democracy throughout the world is getting stronger, despite some setbacks recently (looking at you Turkey).
One of the few things the Soviets actually did a decent job of, was building up a strong public education system.
Tell me you're not arguing that Western standards of democracy and general good governance are a priori inviable in Russia because they lack proper "development".
You might have a case if we were discussing Afghanistan. With Russia you absolutely do not.
"Hostile geopolitical environment" is even sorrier excuse.
If you count Turkey and Russia with "the West".
Kozmos
Jew Detective
Like I said, it's the same as it has always been. Democracy was always manipulated by the people in it and around it. You just didn't see it and/or didn't care. Every foreign policy that exploited other countries did so because people always vote on economic growth, comfort and security. Always have, always will. Singapore, China, Turkey, the West. It's the same all around. Democracy is doing exactly what you want it to.
So what is?
And? What in that perfectly reasonable strategy means "we hate Russia in its post-Soviet borders"?
And I don't consider "geopolitical situation" - no matter what it looks like - an excuse for corruption, although I understand this is a leading Putinist narrative.
"They all hate us - we need to stand together and refrain from questioning the Czar! There is no alternative!"
But we are hijacking the thread that should be about France - feel free to move to a Russian thread if you wish to respond.
I agree, but yet it's quite a twisted moral philosophy that says we can't properly pass judgment on the outcomes of the democratic process, because the majority choice is always good, by definition. That wouldn't free you from the role of judge in any case - it'd just mean you'd be always calling the choice of 49% bad, instead of 51%, without exercising any independent judgment.
In other words, whilst everyone has their own perspective, we don't have to be ardent positivists to maintain that some of them are wrong. We just have to avoid a completely unsophisticated understanding of the word 'wrong'.
Thorgalaeg
Deity
Glad madness did not prevail this time. I only hope that after all these scares the EU and all western governments examine themselves and get aware of what is broken, so freaks like Le pen, Trump or brexit wont happen again. At least the ones still on time to fix it.
