Post: #1

As someone with an interest in Politics, I found the Euro election results quite interesting.
Whilst I'm not an exponent of the Far Right parties (some of whom did very well in the elections), I am glad to see that some of the populist liberalist parties got a bit shaken up and saw a drop off in their support, in some countries at least.
Equally with UKIP, sure they still have a few old codgers in their ranks who come out with pretty un-PC comments, but the overall thrust of UKIP's policies have some merit, from what I can see.
Sadly there has been some serious trolling of them and Farage in the mainstream and trendy leftist media circles, but ultimately the UK public voted with their feet, which was refreshing.
The Spectator has had some excellent articles on UKIP in recent weeks, here's one:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse...-thursday/

On another somewhat related point, I was recently having a discussion with a Swedish girl I know, she's married with a kid, early 30s, very much on the Left.
I challenged her with a couple of jibes about Sweden's obsession with Gender and Equality, etc.
First up, she was quite taken aback, clearly she's not used to anyone challenging her views.
Second of all, she made a comment(half in jest), about my being a Right Wing extremist!
I laughed about it at the time, but afterwards I began to realise that that she was half serious in her comments, effectively her thought process went 'If you do not support us on the Left, then you must therefore be a Right Wing extremist'!
And a perusal of Swedish media reveals a similar thought process, across almost the entire Swedish MMS.
There's even been cases of parties on the right being persecuted by the liberal press.
The same happened to author Mikael Jalving (who wrote a book about his concerns about the direction Sweden was going in, particularly in regards to accepting so many immigrants from poor countries and the negative effects this is having on Swedish society).
All this in supposedly tolerant liberal civilised Sweden!
I could throw this stuff back at my friend, but am pretty sure she'd never speak to me again, so have refrained for now, but it certainly gives one food for thought.

Post: #2

Left and liberal ideology at its core is supplication to a larger power.

When anyone tells me that they're a democrat/liberal, I respond back with a, "So you like supplicating yourself to a more powerful entity like a government or president?"

Normally they'll argue some kumbiya type of crap here at which point you say, "I want to be the individual that forces you to comply even if you are already in compliance just like the KGB in communist Russia! Be careful or I'll send someone I don't like (you) to a re-education camp."

I've made many a libtard squirm this way.

An easier response to their arguments is, "I don't have a problem with totalitarianism so long as I'm the one doing the totalitarianing."

Post: #3

@amity: Yeah, i notice that too in the press coverage of the elections. Here in Argentina is tipical to call anyone not a populist (be Peronista or left-wings types of populism) a neo-liberal (think the Chicago Boys) or right-wing member.

Post: #4

As far I can tell from Scandinavian EU countries is that all the big parties are socialists but in just different degrees. I don't know about the other EU countries but most likely German and France are similar though. The Left are socialists focused on social justice, equality and redistribution, while the Right are otherwise similar socialists but more focused on privacy and economic growth -- they are still socialist though.

The problem is that there is no asymmetry. The problem is that there is only one prevailing ideology. Say something bad about socialism, democracy, equality etc and you are laughingstock, something not to be taken seriously and even "radical". There are people having different views but they are from very small parties which will never have chance to play with the big boys. At least in US there are lots of non-socialists giving counterbalance to political issues and debates.

My favorite MEP is Daniel Hannan but he is a rare kind here in EU.

Post: #5

It's a mistake to confuse the consensus the media plays at with the actual beliefs of the people.

This is the reason mainstream media is dying painfully. A degree in journalism these days is a fastline to burger flipping.