German guy
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2010
- Messages
- 5,187
- Reaction score
- 4,255
- Location
- Berlin, Germany
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
As political leaning, I chose "moderate", although I'm not sure I am by American standards (many of which is mainstream and moderate over here is probably considered "liberal" in the US, while this term has an entirely different meaning in Germany). I believe in individual liberty and think the state should not tell people what to do in their private life, especially when it comes to lifestyle and sexual orientation, yet I believe the state should make sure there are basic social safety nets for the unfortunate, within reasonable limits. I think protecting the environment is important, but where possible, market mechanisms should be used to achieve that rather than rigid regulation. I'm not a pacifist, but I think war should not be considered a common, legitimate tool of politics, but must be the very last resort.
Welcome to Debate Politics!
By US standards, you lean to the left. How far to the left depends on the details of your stances on any of a number of subjects, I'm just giving you a best-guess estimate.
Generally speaking, the rule of thumb from the European perspective seems to be that our left is your right, which puts our right even further out than your right. :lol:
At least that's what ArcanaXV tells me, she's in Switzerland.
Can you recommend a particular debate for a nice start?
Welcome!
From your description I'm guessing you're an FDP supporter, correct? For comparison, on social issue the FDP is solidly on the American left while on economic issues they wind up close to the American center. In American terms you would probably wind up as a left-libertarian rather than a straight up moderate and the Democrats would likely be the party you're politics are closest too.
welcome, i'm guessing you're from somewhere in Africa? :mrgreen:
Hey, you know about the German parties? Where do you live? Are you European as well?
I'm fond of some of the FDP's stances and part of their basic ideology and would have almost voted for them in 2009. But now I'm glad that I didn't. I think their actions in the government have been rather weak so far (except for their corrections on internet censorship plans by the CDU, maybe). I ended up voting for the Green Party, like I did most of the time, although I'm clearly more fond of their "right", more realistic wing than of their more extreme ideas. It also happened in the past that I voted for the SPD.
So I guess I'm somewhere in the triangle between these three parties. I don't like the socialist Left Party at all, and am generally suspicious about the CDU.
What about you?
Hahahaha ... I wish! I wish!
Don't tell me you're into football(soccer) as well?
I'm an American myself but I find European politics fascinating. Unfortunately I don't know German politics in quite as much depth as I do American or British politics, but I know enough to understand the basic positions and ideologies of each party as well as who is most likely to form coalitions with each other.
As for who I like the best, its the FDP hands down. I'm an economic conservative and social liberal and the FDP's ideology matches well with mine. For the Greens I'd probably vote for them if I couldn't do FDP but I have major reservations about them (including their opposition to nuclear power). The CDU/CSU kind of reminds me of a moderate republican party which means they're OK on economics but kind of suck when it comes to social issues.
The SDs I'm not huge fans of and the SP kind of seems like a bad joke to me (seriously in 2005 they could have had a left-coalition of the SDP, the SP, and the Greens but the SP decides not to because of some bitter feelings between the ex-SDP members and those who stayed in the party? There really wasn't that great a difference in their programs from what I saw).
I do have a couple of questions, I heard about the North Rhine-Westphalia where the CDU kind of took a beating. First, did this cause the CDU/FDP to lose the Bundesrat or not?
Second, why do you think that result happened?
Kudos to you! I don't often meet Americans who care so much about Europe, let alone know so much about our politics!
Their social conservatism is the main reason for my skepticism towards the CDU. To be fair, though, it has moved quite a lot into the center under Merkel. You even hear some CDU politicians advancing stances they would have ridiculed the Greens for only 15 years ago. Take for example CDU minister for families, 31 year old Schröder: She said "homosexuals in a marriage are living conservative values, because they take responsibility for each other".
When that's the new CDU, it may soon become electable for me. :mrgreen:
The problem was that the socialists (or Left Party, as they call themselves) only got that strong because of their fundamentalist opposition of Schröder's (SPD) reform of the unemployment support system. The Left Party's entire success was based on anti-SPD-populism -- their voters would have never bought it if they had allied immediately with the SPD of all parties.
And then, there is another problem: The Left Party's predecessor was the PDS, which was the successor of the former communist state party of the East Germany, the SED. And although they had reformed their party, thrown the hardliners out and generally embraced the democratic system, they still had the stigma of communist dictatorship, Berlin Wall killings and stalinism attached to them. Ironically, that didn't keep them from being successful in the East part of Germany, but resentment against them was (and still is) very strong in the West. So if the SPD had allied with them, it would have likely resulted in many West German supporters to turn away from the SPD in protest. The SPD didn't want to risk that (and only slowly try to make the voters accustomed to it, by first forming coalition with the Left Party on local and state level, until the outrage has worn off).
The second major reason was discontentment with the current CDU/FDP national government. That made the CDU's losses even worse. The national government has really been given a bad impression in the last 6 months: The coalition partners seemed to be more busy picking on each other, than on the opposition. The FDP clinged to the mantra of tax cuts, although nobody believed them anymore, nor was it popular anymore, because of the tensed budget situation -- and finally, the FDP skipped this one big promise. Then the FDP was blamed for advocacy of lobby groups. Then Merkel lacked leadership during the Greece and euro crisis, first took one stance, only to change it the next day.
Much like the midterm elections in the US, state elections in Germany often are used to slab at the incumbent national government. I think this was very much the case this time too.
Hope I could help!
Welcome aboard, German Guy.
Thank you. Though I must say the multi-party system tends to make European politics more interesting to me (two-party dynamics get a little boring after a while). I've kind of got a soft spot for Germany in particular because of all the places I've visited in Europe, the Germans have been the most polite, friendly, and approachable (even more so than the Dutch who have a higher proportion of English speakers than Germany, but are a bit more withdrawn in my experience).
actually no, i find the whole idea of soccer morraly abhorrent, i'm Australian
Welcome to DP! I commend you on your facility with English. Better than some Americans.
LOL ... which makes me realize that I know very few about Australia. I don't have the slightest idea what kind of sport is most popular there. Considering the climatic situation, I doubt it's ice hockey.So my next best guess it's something weird that stems from British rule, like Cricket. Or, because of your local animals giving a good example, it may be sack race!
So what do you guys like to play and watch down under?
in the summer its cricket, and in winter its our own version of footy, called Australian Football Leauge, which stems from a combination of rugby and an Aboriginal game, and is the best sport in the world.
Interesting. I have to admit, I have only a rudimentary idea of Cricket ... just that it's just veeery British.
It's interesting that each continent seems to have a different idea about how to play football. So rugby is in the Australian version ... does that bring it closer to American football? And what's the Aboriginee contribution to it? I assume you can't have a World Cup on Australian football, though, because it wasn't possible so far to convince other nations to play it too... or do the New Zealanders play it too?
Anyway, thanks for sharing!
in the summer its cricket
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