Left and Right, Here and There

[Elok]

I've frequently heard that, compared to the rest of the Western world, the U.S. is extremely conservative; our "liberal" is Europe's "conservative," while our "conservative" is their "Tamurlane." Generally when people say this, they mention that few European/Canadian leaders would even dream of mentioning religion in a speech, though I sort of wonder about Germany's "Christian Democrats" in that context. I understand that most other countries have much higher taxes, and many of them are much more socialist--really socialist, not just OMG Obama-is-a-socialist socialist. Can any of you Euros, Canadians, et al educate me further on these distinctions?

I ask now because the latest Economist had a synopsis of the manifestos of the three major parties in the UK elections, and a lot of it sounded like it could be in the US. Labour wants more government involvement in ways I could imagine our own Democrats voicing support for if they weren't such ineffectual pansies. The Tories, meanwhile, want the government to get the hell out of everything and have citizens do their own work. Sounds pretty standard GOP, only without tax cuts for the rich. They even make vague promises to cut the deficit. Then there are the Lib Dems, who have no clear counterpart but seem to have a hodgepodge of ideas from "tax the **** out of the rich" to "decentralize control of schools." Bear in mind that until I read this I studiously avoided trying to fathom UK politics. I don't know what this recent gigantic scandal about personal spending in Parliament is, for example. So I probably got it all wrong. Have pity on the ignorant, arrogant Yank.

But I was pleased to note that, even in Britain, politicians sometimes say astonishingly stupid ****. Some local Labour candidate in Scotland apparently Tweeted a desire to eat a "slave-grown" banana and called the retired "coffin-dodgers." Awesome!

[Drake Tungsten]

"Tamurlane."

Tamerlane

[Guynemer]

Spelling varies. You're better than pedantics, Drake.

[Elok]

I could also have gone "Tamburlaine," as I kinda liked the Marlowe rendition.

[Drake Tungsten]

Spelling varies.

The only acceptable variants of "Tamerlane" are "Timur" or "Timur the Lame".

[Ben Kenobi]

Timurlane was ****in A.

[Elok]

That's nice. Do you have anything to contribute about the actual thread topic?

Er, Xpost.

[Ben Kenobi]

Frankly the USA is well to the left of the Mongols.

[Drake Tungsten]

The Mongols didn't even exist.

[Ben Kenobi]

Then who devastated Orthodox Russia? The Nazis?

[Elok]

No, that was "the Communists." IIRC Ghengis Khan was pretty good about religious freedom. I'm sure Drake will correct me if he wasn't. Now, anybody want to talk about political differences between the U.S. and Europe?

[Bosh]

Meanwhile over here in Korea, it's usually the Left that indulges in the sort of xenophobic frothing at the mouth nationalism that you usually see from the Right in the West.

In Korea the Left (as opposed to Center-Left, which is just slightly less stupid) Korean party is a big proponent of increased tariffs, despite being voter base being mostly among unionized workers in export industries (i.e. the ones who'd be the most hurt by tariffs and helped the least). You can't get too much dumber than that.

[BeBMan]

I've frequently heard that, compared to the rest of the Western world, the U.S. is extremely conservative; our "liberal" is Europe's "conservative," while our "conservative" is their "Tamurlane." Generally when people say this, they mention that few European/Canadian leaders would even dream of mentioning religion in a speech, though I sort of wonder about Germany's "Christian Democrats" in that context. I understand that most other countries have much higher taxes, and many of them are much more socialist--really socialist, not just OMG Obama-is-a-socialist socialist. Can any of you Euros, Canadians, et al educate me further on these distinctions?

I always think the anglophone terminology is kinda strange when it comes to "socialism". The Soviet Union and their satellites, while being led by commies, called themselves socialist because they thought communism is some utopia far, far away, coming only into existence after all the evil capitalists were put against the wall or something...what is called socialism when referring to continental/western Europe - market economies with more or less strict regulations and more or less explicit gov-run social welfare programs - goes usually under 'social-democratic' here. Most here wouldn't have described Germany for example as socialist under a social-democrat/green gov. So this seems mainly a question of labels.

Also euro conservatives often simply have different political traditions than those in the US. For example - if I understand that right - in the US conservatism seems to stand often for small gov, while that is historically not the case in much of Europe, certainly not in Germany or France. What is 'conservative' here simply isn't always identical to what is 'conservative' in the US.

As for the Christian Democrats, their party program says stuff like Christian view of man/society, responsibility towards God or so, and sometimes they say they want to promote Christian values, but often it's general terms that don't translate into practical politics. Also 'Christian values' is a wide term - culturally most of Europe has certain values derived at least to some extent from Christianity anyway, so just mentioning them is rather vague.

There are some issues where the Christian background shows more clearly in their politics (abortion, family stuff, bioethics, some more) but overall as a catch-all party which wants to win country-wide elections they have to appeal to broader parts of the electorate. So focussing only on the religious aspect wouldn't help them, since religion is hardly an important issue in domestic politics here (I'd guess not even amongst religious voters).

[Robert]

Well, the dutch social system is very very very leftish, compared to the USA.
I'm myself dutch right-wing but I would never support the American social system (or the lack of it). I do support a lot of the dutch public social system and I think it's good that it's there, though I think it's over the top and encourages people to stop working or stop trying to find work.

But if I hear all the opposition to ie. Obama's health plan, then I'm really shocked. Are you guys crazy overthere? Such a health system is only good. I don't know the details or the ins and outs of his system, but in general I think it's good that a civilized nation has a public health system. All right-wing people overhere in The Netherlands agree with that.

The entire guns discussion shocks me as well. I think it's crazy that everybody can have guns in the states. And then it's supported with arguments like: "people kill, guns don't" or "cars kill more people then guns."
C'mon guys, that's like a little child is making up excuses to keep his toy.
I understand that it's hard to seperate from something you've had for a long time.

Well, if it's about abortion, I'm pretty conservative there, compared to the rest of The Netherlands. Though I cannot imagine ever using violence to support my opinion here.

Despite being a christian I'm not opposed to gay marriage or euthenasia.
I don't understand how in the 21th century there's still a "don't tell, don't ask" policy about gays in the army. I think that even our most ultra-orthodox christian political parties would not support a "don't tell, don't say" policy. Eventhough they do not accept gay-marriage (or gay relations), they still do not handle gays as if they're evil. (eventhough that of course is already considered to be an unacceptable point of view overhere in Holland).

Regarding our 'christian' political parties.
We also have christian democrats. (I am one).
A christian democtratic party is not a christian party. It is often confused to be one, but it's not. christian-democracy has the opinion that there's not such a thing as christian politics because christianity is not a political system.
There is such a thing though as a politician that's inspired by the Bible.
So the party is not christian but the members can be christian (don't even have to be).
There are also christian parties here (christen union and reformed party).
These parties are christian and want to translate the Bible into politics, but they're pretty small. (though the christian union was a part of the government past period, as the smallest party)

a christian democratic party would never give "the Bible" as a reason for an opinion, a law or an objection. In fact christian democratic translates into: "christians commiting democracy" not "people committing christian politics"

I think parties like christian union and reformed party do reflect american christian politics like anti abortion, etc. more. So it's still a small minority here.

Hope that helps

[BeBMan]

Regarding our 'christian' political parties.
We also have christian democrats. (I am one).
A christian democtratic party is not a christian party. It is often confused to be one, but it's not. christian-democracy has the opinion that there's not such a thing as christian politics because christianity is not a political system.
There is such a thing though as a politician that's inspired by the Bible.
So the party is not christian but the members can be christian (don't even have to be).
There are also christian parties here (christen union and reformed party).
These parties are christian and want to translate the Bible into politics, but they're pretty small. (though the christian union was a part of the government past period, as the smallest party)

a christian democratic party would never give "the Bible" as a reason for an opinion, a law or an objection. In fact christian democratic translates into: "christians commiting democracy" not "people committing christian politics"

Probably a good description of our C-Ds too. Also, many of them here view themselves as centrist more than conservative, but then our CDU has certainly an explicit conservative wing (by Kraut standards). But for example the current Merkelesque style is more moderate than strictly conservative.