Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn has just been shot

[Sprayber]

This was a terrible thing of course, but don't allow that to determine how you will vote. Vote for the people that you think will be the best for the country. If this has changed that view then fine, but don't vote for any person or party out of sympathy.

[Oldenbarnevelt]

Originally posted by Sprayber
This was a terrible thing of course, but don't allow that to determine how you will vote. Vote for the people that you think will be the best for the country. If this has changed that view then fine, but don't vote for any person or party out of sympathy.

I agree.

However, all 15 participating parties are democratic parties, so a massive sympathy vote would not be the end of the world.

-

[Sprayber]

I'm not saying that a sympathy vote would bring in the next Hitler. It's just that sympathy voting can get dangerous over time. Just vote for the party or person that you think will help the country so that in a year, you want be saying "damn I wish I hadn't voted for them"

[S. Kroeze]

Hung be the heaven's with black, yield day to night!
Comets, importing change of times and states,
Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourge the bad revolting stars

[Ned]

If one thinks back on history, I think the assassination of Julius Caesar had a lot to do with the creation of the Empire. Caesar himself was very controversial and even hated by many. But once assassinated, he literally became a god to the average Roman. The affection given Augustus was largely due to the reverence the Roman world had for the assassinated Caesar.

I see in this thread a lot of respect and genuine affection for the fallen Pim. I doubt that he would have received that last week.

Ned

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by Ned
I think the assassination of Julius Caesar had a lot to do with the creation of the Empire. Caesar himself was very controversial and even hated by many. But once assassinated, he literally became a god to the average Roman. The affection given Augustus was largely due to the reverence the Roman world had for the assassinated Caesar.

I see in this thread a lot of respect and genuine affection for the fallen Pim. I doubt that he would have received that last week.

Ned

It's not just that a politician has been killed because of his opinions.
In my view this was a direct attempt at Democracy and the Freedom of Speech itself!

Imagine an exciting presidential election campaign! Than a week before election day, one of the likely candidates is eliminated by some lunatic.
Even when it's not your preferred candidate that is killed, the result is devastating. Democracy itself is assaulted!

I would certainly not have voted for Pim Fortuyn.
Yet in a short period of time he has done a lot to reopen the democratic debate. Dutch politics had become marginilized, because the established political elite systematically avoided important issues. Political parties have become primarily a useful leg up to governmental office.
The country is actually governed by public servants.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Locutus
A little background on the suspect: He's a 32 year old white man from a small town in the middle of our country and had a wife and +/- 3 month old kid. He worked for an animal rights organisation (of which the core activity was sueing companies who are cruel to animals or pollute the environment) and recently complained he was getting overworked. According to a collegue he was hardly interested in politics and wasn't ultra-left or anything of the kind. He's by everyone who knew him described as overall 'a nice guy'...

When was the last time that something like this happened and you heard the perpetrator described as "An evil, violent, psycho b******"?