Post: #126

My favourite playwright is Alan Bennett (who is a legend here in the UK). Well - in Bennett's play 'The History Boys', he actually bases a character on Niall Ferguson as a way of attacking his contrarian approach to the history of the British Empire, WW1 and WW2.

It is quite funny reading Ferguson's account of realising that one of his heroes was attacking him - as he sat in the stalls enjoying Bennett's latest play.

http://www.niallferguson.com/journalism/...-the-piece

Post: #127

(10-27-2013 03:38 PM)Easy E Wrote:  Question to the Europeans on this board:

Are there any political parties in Europe as right-wing as the Tea Party/GOP is here in America?

I have always wondered what it was that made our right-wing so far right. It would be interesting to get your responses.

I wonder if there is actually ANY other country besides the US that has a successful GOP-like party that espouses free market reforms, welfare and tax cuts, high military spending, jingoism and Christian folklore.

Like teedub said, even the most right-wing parties have a rather mixed political agenda besides their anti-immigration and anti-EU stance. For instance, the Alternative for Germany-party failed to make it into the German parliament in the recent elections as they only got 4,8% of the votes (5% was needed). Apart from their demands that Greece, Spain and Portugal should leave the Euro and that further EU integration should be halted, they did not support tax cuts or welfare cuts. I guess, in the US such a party would be considered moderate. In Germany, this is for now as conservative as it can get in mainstream politics.

From my point-of-view, the GOP and right-wing libertarianism are profoundly American phenomena. I think it's hard to imagine any other region in the world where such an agenda could enjoy relatively broad public support. Maybe poorer folks in most countries are just smart enough to not vote against their economic interests.

Post: #128

Didn't realise that Ferguson consulted on a military strategy computer game.

Quote:Finally, and perhaps most objectionably to Alan Bennett's generation, we need to computerise the past. History these days is literally a great game. Annual sales of war games - the majority of which are second world war-based - are worth up to $940m, 13 per cent of annual US video game sales. Most of these, admittedly, are rather crass "first-person shooter" games, but there are also serious strategy games such as Hearts of Iron and, most recently, Muzzy Lane's Making History. These games offer invaluable insights as well as entertainment, not least because they remind players that the unfolding of historic events really is more like a game than the linear and predictable narratives offered by traditional historians.

To the readers of most history books, there's never a shadow of doubt about how the second world war will end. But that's not how it felt to contemporaries. To be sure, even the smartest game can offer you no more than a simplification of the possible futures the world faced in 1941. Yet, like the models used by economists, serious war games are a wonderful aid to thought about complex causal systems.

After I became an adviser to Muzzy Lane, I was able to put some of my own second world war counterfactuals to the test, exploring ways in which (for example) a different Axis strategy in 1941-42 might conceivably have won the war. What if Hitler had attacked the USSR before the west? What if the Japanese had attacked the Soviet Union rather than the US? These are the kinds of question that a serious game such as Making History - which is based on meticulously accurate historical data and a superb artificial intelligence system - really can illuminate.

Post: #129

(10-27-2013 05:44 PM)Flint Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 03:38 PM)Easy E Wrote:  Question to the Europeans on this board:

Are there any political parties in Europe as right-wing as the Tea Party/GOP is here in America?

I have always wondered what it was that made our right-wing so far right. It would be interesting to get your responses.

I wonder if there is actually ANY other country besides the US that has a successful GOP-like party that espouses free market reforms, welfare and tax cuts, high military spending, jingoism and Christian folklore.

Like teebag said, even the most right-wing parties have a rather mixed political agenda besides their anti-immigration and anti-EU stance. For instance, the Alternative for Germany-party failed to make it into the German parliament in the recent elections as they only got 4,8% of the votes (5% was needed). Apart from their demands that Greece, Spain and Portugal should leave the Euro and that further EU integration should be halted, they did not support tax cuts or welfare cuts. I guess, in the US such a party would be considered moderate. In Germany, this is for now as conservative as it can get in mainstream politics.

From my point-of-view, the GOP and right-wing libertarianism are profoundly American phenomena. I think it's hard to imagine any other region in the world where such an agenda could enjoy relatively broad public support. Maybe poorer folks in most countries are just smart enough to not vote against their economic interests.

Are you trolling me? Or is that the funniest misspelling I've ever seen?!

Post: #130

(10-27-2013 05:44 PM)Flint Wrote:  From my point-of-view, the GOP and right-wing libertarianism are profoundly American phenomena. I think it's hard to imagine any other region in the world where such an agenda could enjoy relatively broad public support. Maybe poorer folks in most countries are just smart enough to not vote against their economic interests.

Well the thing is, after watching the last Democratic convention, I'd say the dominant ideology of the left in America is cultural Marxism (not that there aren't other strains), but if you're not a member of the "oppressed" or don't buy into that view there's not much appeal in being a Democrat, is there? They were very blatant about the last election being all about demographics for them, which I think was a terrible message.

Also, on the economic stuff that really counts, both parties are mostly the same with a few differences here and there. It's now just all about the cultural stuff that's used to rile people up.

Post: #131

(10-27-2013 06:04 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

(10-27-2013 05:44 PM)Flint Wrote:  From my point-of-view, the GOP and right-wing libertarianism are profoundly American phenomena. I think it's hard to imagine any other region in the world where such an agenda could enjoy relatively broad public support. Maybe poorer folks in most countries are just smart enough to not vote against their economic interests.

Well the thing is, after watching the last Democratic convention, I'd say the dominant ideology of the left in America is cultural Marxism (not that there aren't other strains), but if you're not a member of the "oppressed" or don't buy into that view there's not much appeal in being a Democrat, is there? They were very blatant about the last election being all about demographics for them, which I think was a terrible message.

Also, on the economic stuff that really counts, both parties are mostly the same with a few differences here and there. It's now just all about the cultural stuff that's used to rile people up.

Well, the Tea Party wing of the GOP is a different animal. They really want to shrink the size of government at all costs...whether they will successfully take over the GOP is up for debate, but there is an emerging difference on the role of government between the GOP and the Dems.

Post: #132

(10-27-2013 05:59 PM)Teedub Wrote:  Are you trolling me? Or is that the funniest misspelling I've ever seen?!

Haha, maybe some Freudian slip after I saw the UK flag. It's fixed now.

Post: #133

Theres no difference between the parties. The democrats and republicans are exactly the same.

I'd vote for him.

Post: #134

but yeah, Russell Brand is the shit

One of the only popular - if not the only - free-thinking celebrities who speaks his mind, no holds barred.

Post: #135

The biggest problem is that 90% of any population are idiots. I'm talking about people with zero interest in learning a single thing of value. In a democracy, these people (often) vote. The absolute nothings refrain, good, but it's the middle class idiots that are the true morons, they should know better. That's not saying there are no intelligent people in the working class, it's just that they know voting for any mainstream party (UK or otherwise) is against their interests.

It's one of the biggest faults in democracy in my opinion.

Post: #136

Here is good video that explains the problem with democracy:

Post: #137

(10-27-2013 03:38 PM)Easy E Wrote:  Are there any political parties in Europe as right-wing as the Tea Party/GOP is here in America?

In these comparisons people forget that they're comparing a country of hundreds of millions of people to countries of millions of people. Most of the American anti-government scepticism is directed at the federal government, a goverment ruling over 300 million people, and it's a bit of a different thing from a national government in a country like Finland where I can bump into the President or the Prime Minister in a grocery store or a biking trail and he won't even have a bodyguard.

The closest comparison to US federal level government is the EU and hostility to *that* government is very popular. It's just that according to current fashions, the EU represents everything the media thinks is "good" from feminism to multiculturalism so the anti-EU people get the constant tarring as neo-Nazis, theocrats, chauvinists and whatever. I think the "far right" allegation is losing power, though, and as the EU assumes more and more powers of government the anti-EU "far right" is getting more and more popular across Europe.

Quote:I have always wondered what it was that made our right-wing so far right. It would be interesting to get your responses.

It's probably an illusion. My guess is that the main source of the bloated continental European government compared to English-speaking countries is the parliamentary system which needs every election winner to build a many party coalition and thus the system tends to intrisically favour handing out goodies all around while in the winner takes all system that Americans you either get institutions split between two parties (when system gets locked and nothing gets through) or everything is in the hands of one particular party and they start internal fighting over the spoils.

Post: #138

(10-27-2013 05:44 PM)Flint Wrote:  Like teedub said, even the most right-wing parties have a rather mixed political agenda besides their anti-immigration and anti-EU stance. For instance, the Alternative for Germany-party failed to make it into the German parliament in the recent elections as they only got 4,8% of the votes (5% was needed).

The post-WWII German system has been built on purpose to be incredibly hostile to new, small parties, though, so it's assumable that the party would have done a lot better in different circumstances as indeed similar parties have across Europe. For example, the True Finns (with a very similar agenda) now consistently poll at around 20 % and they may well become the largest party in the next parliamentary elections.

Quote:Apart from their demands that Greece, Spain and Portugal should leave the Euro and that further EU integration should be halted, they did not support tax cuts or welfare cuts.

I'm not sure about this particular party but most of these parties tend to roll with a populist agenda of cutting spending on "waste" like foreign aid or modern art or whatever while promising to spend lavishly on children's hospitals and such. This message can be very, very popular in northern Europe where everybody agrees that the taxes are too high and that most of the tax money is entirely wasted on utter bullshit.

The reason populist tax & spending cut parties only get occasional support in elections is that few people find the promises plausible. We've seen these parties pop up with some charismatic figure, promising to get rid of the army of no talent artists living on government art pensions and to instead spend all that money on caring for the elderly and so on, and if they manage to win seats we'll soon find them just as corrupted as all other politicians giving permanent handouts to themselves and their friends and relatives.

Quote:I guess, in the US such a party would be considered moderate.

Most of the American media considers them neo-Nazis. You can't even imagine a populist American politician running with a platform of combined protectionism, healthcare spending and anti-immigrationism.

The source of confusion here is that the label "far right" tends to get mainly applied to people that actually can be influenced by it. I'm pretty far right in the economic sense but people ignore it becuase they can instantly see that there's very little point in calling me far right (hello, I'm far right, and I like being far right). Instead, the "far right" label tends to get pulled out when a party is appealing to a group that has traditionally voted against the right.

Right now the archetypal "far right" party is a social democrat party that appeals to working class men by dropping the multiculturalism, feminism and the global free trade enthusiasm while keeping the welfare state program basically the same. Not really far right (I don't like these parties at all) but the people who might vote for a party like that are traditionally anti-right so the establishment tries to keep them voting for social democrats by insisting that their programs are "far right".

Post: #139

(10-27-2013 06:08 PM)Easy E Wrote:  Well, the Tea Party wing of the GOP is a different animal. They really want to shrink the size of government at all costs...whether they will successfully take over the GOP is up for debate, but there is an emerging difference on the role of government between the GOP and the Dems.

I agree with that - I had the mainstream GOP in mind when I wrote that. I was thinking of issues like the bank bailouts, which showed that when push comes to shove both parties vote together to maintain the system. If the Tea Party had been in power at the time at prevent the bailouts, the situation would have become a lot worse in the short term, but it would have presented an opportunity for cleaning house and real change. And I believe we would be recovering faster instead of going through the long drawn out slump we're in now. The US economy seems to be 5 years into what may end up being a 10-15 year period of stagnation.

Post: #140

Very interesting discussion, you can see very clearly the ideological differences between Europeans and Americans. As an European I share Starke's and Flint's opinions/views.

I think this flavor of right wing libertarianism that exists in the US is not found in other parts of the world, at least not to this extent or these same molds. I suppose libertarianism is part of the American psyche, after all, you have this immense country with 300 million people so different from each other, you have whites and blacks and asians and latinos and indians and who knows what else, all vying and competing with each other, it can't be easy to create a society that's not suspicious of others.

Post: #141

(10-27-2013 05:23 PM)cardguy Wrote:  I love Niall Ferguson. He has a great documentary series analysing the second world war as well (called The War of the World).

Cardguy, you're one of my favorite posters on here but I have to disagree with you on this one, Ferguson is not very highly regarded, neither as an historian nor as an economist.

Post: #142

Meanwhile our socialist hellhole of a nation we call Canada presents the following horrors:

1 - A balanced budget by 2015.

Quote:The Canadian government’s march toward its goal of a balanced budget in 2015 continued uninterrupted Friday with another set of decent fiscal results.

http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2013...scal-data/

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/0...ster-says/

2 - Record levels of immigration for any developed country

Quote:Alexander expects that the country will attract 240,000 to 265,000 new permanent residents and this will be done without affecting the chances of Canadians getting jobs.

http://www.expatforum.com/canada/canada-...-2014.html

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/pdf/researc...ts2012.pdf (page 33 shows the country of origin of the immigrants)

3 - A Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU

Quote:Full elimination of duties on all non-agricultural goods.
99 per cent of industrial goods will be duty free immediately (100 per cent after seven years), including forestry, chemical and plastic products that will be duty free on Day 1.
95.5 per cent of fish and seafood products will be duty free immediately (100 per cent after seven years), including live lobster, frozen lobster and frozen shrimp.
94 per cent of agricultural tariffs will be eliminated, with tariffs immediately eliminated from items including maple syrup, fresh and frozen fruits, cherries, fresh apples and cat and dog food.
Canadian beef producers will be able to sell 50,000 tonnes of beef; pork producers will be able to sell 81,000 tonnes of pork
There will also be duty free, quota free access to the EU dairy market.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/summary-...-1.2286695

4 - Jobs in the west for those who are willing to move

Quote:The unemployment rate, calculated on an unadjusted basis, was 3.8 per cent, a decrease from the August 2013 rate of 5.0 per cent and also 0.2 per cent lower than in September 2012.

That gives Saskatchewan the lowest unemployment rate in Canada, beating Alberta's 4.1 per cent. "We've had the lowest unemployment rate in the country since January 2013," Minister Tim Mc-Millan boasted Friday morning, highlighting the falling unemployment rate among young people (8.1 per cent last month, compared with 10.6 one year ago) and the creation of almost 50,000 jobs since December 2007. Full-time employment, at 465,100, was down from August's 477,800, but up from 453,300 in September 2012.

5 - And of course thirst from China for the resources we can make money off

Quote:China’s state-owned companies are still keen to invest in Canada’s energy sector, but worry about the slow pace of infrastructure development to connect Western oil and gas producers with Asian markets, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver says.

The ball is in our court, if/when we build the pipelines westward we'll see more increases in demand for labour.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on...e15111354/

6 - Healthcare system that is free at the point of use (yes, we're taxed for it, but we still have lower corporate taxes than most Americans, and in Alberta and Saskatchewan, lower personal taxes too).

Healthcare costs have decreased over the past decade.

Quote:The report said Canada will spend roughly $6,000 per person on health care this year in Canada.

And on a per capita basis compared to gross domestic product, Canada's health-care spending in 2011 placed the country as the fifth highest spender, after the United States, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Repo...story.html



If this is what socialism is, sign me up.

*Truthfully we know Canada is not a socialist nation. It's just better run than America is at the current point in history.

We have a conservative government that doesn't race bait and keeps its eyes on the economic growth prize, a liberal government that is more or less neo-classical liberal and not a quasi communist clique, and a true leftwing opposition that will never rule, and even if they do they are more concerned with green spaces and public parks.

Not sure of the state in Britain, but Mr Comedian Russel Brand can keep his (what seems to be a true communist ) Brand revolution on that side of the pond.

Post: #143

(10-30-2013 03:48 PM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:  If this is what socialism is, sign me up.

*Truthfully we know Canada is not a socialist nation. It's just better run than America is at the current point in history.

Canada is far from "socialist" but I have said this before and I will say it again far too many members on this board use the "left", "right" and "socialism" as absolute terms when they don't understand the political spectrum.

Yes, Canada's healthcare system isn't free but people also don't know we have one of the lowest corporate tax rates amongst OECD nations.

I will say that it will be a challenge to maintain the healthcare system with an aging population but I still rather have this than the mess in the US.

Post: #144

(10-25-2013 10:25 AM)kosko Wrote:  The USA has been moving more to the right. Both look like the same in its extremes but Flint is right.

America was more "left" in the 80's then it is now. Welfare has been gutted and for what Americans pay into the system you recieve little.

Obamacsre isn't socialist healthcare it's a corporate wealth transfer.

America is a right wing faccist state not a "socialist" one.

Exactly.

Post: #145

(10-27-2013 03:38 PM)Easy E Wrote:  Question to the Europeans on this board:

Are there any political parties in Europe as right-wing as the Tea Party/GOP is here in America?

I have always wondered what it was that made our right-wing so far right. It would be interesting to get your responses.

Not a European but from what I see, in Europe right wing parties have their defining characters tic as restricting immigration and maintaining a national ethnic identity. It's not like in the US where social conservatism and being against welfare spending comes along with it.

I remember Bryan Magee (a Brit) writing about when he used to interview political figures for a TV show he ran. He would refer to the people who had ideals that would fall under the libertarian label as the "radical right". I found that to be kind of interesting cause in the US, libertarians like to say that they full outside of the left-fight, conservative/liberal spectrum but it seems like in Europe or at least the UK they are associated with the right wing.

Post: #146

(10-30-2013 04:12 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

(10-25-2013 10:25 AM)kosko Wrote:  The USA has been moving more to the right. Both look like the same in its extremes but Flint is right.

America was more "left" in the 80's then it is now. Welfare has been gutted and for what Americans pay into the system you recieve little.

Obamacsre isn't socialist healthcare it's a corporate wealth transfer.

America is a right wing faccist state not a "socialist" one.

Exactly.

The USA is FAR from Far Right. Both political parties are left of center.

And Fascism is a sect of the left.... govt. control.

Post: #147

(10-30-2013 05:14 PM)It_is_my_time Wrote:  

(10-30-2013 04:12 PM)thegmanifesto Wrote:  

(10-25-2013 10:25 AM)kosko Wrote:  The USA has been moving more to the right. Both look like the same in its extremes but Flint is right.

America was more "left" in the 80's then it is now. Welfare has been gutted and for what Americans pay into the system you recieve little.

Obamacsre isn't socialist healthcare it's a corporate wealth transfer.

America is a right wing faccist state not a "socialist" one.

Exactly.

The USA is FAR from Far Right. Both political parties are left of center.

And Fascism is a sect of the left.... govt. control.

Fascism is the right.

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power. - Benito Mussolini

That is what we have in America.

Post: #148

^ As I said on the previous page of this thread.

America is fascist in the original sense of the word. Fascism is indeed corporatism.

Post: #149

My speculation on why right wing movements have ran so rampant in the US is because unlike with other Western countries, there has never been a big leftist movement to push back against it outside of brief periods of time such as the early 20th century when Communism, Anarchism, and Socialism started making waves and the counter-revolution in the 60s and 70s.

In Europe, there are people sitting in government seats that openly identify as Socialists or even Communists. Communist parties run openly for positions and actually win. In the US, what's one of the most common political slurs? Accusing someone of being a Socialist. And what is the response of the person who was just attacked with such a label? It isn't to accept that he stands for Socialist values. Rather, the response is to deny deny deny because it's simple to see that being painted as a Socialist is equivalent of being branded with the mark of Cain in the US political scene.

I do realize there are people like Elizabeth Warren out there but even she tends to get identified as "progressive" as I said the words "Communist" or "Socialist" carries with it massively negative connotations in American politics. And she is only one person - not an entire Tea Party. It wasn't too many years back that a wave of right wing populists and their supporters banded together to bring about a total reversal in the power balance of Congress. And it was just recently that a group of these people were nearly able to bring the shut down the Federal government. I simply can't imagine a similar movement happening on the other side of spectrum. I don't foresee a bunch of incumbent Democratic representatives being tossed out of their districts and being replaced with Elizabeth Warrens in the next midterms election nor having a group of radical leftists refusing to fund the federal government until it legalizes gay marriage or (insert your favorite leftist cause).

Post: #150

Someone I've always found pretty funny and bizarre about European parties: all the "Christian Democrat" ones. They seem to actually get votes too. It's very amusing considering how Europe is held up to a bastion of secularism.