71–77 of 77 posts
vs. 535 representatives for ~323 million people in the US
The arbitrary capping of the size of the House of Representatives to 435 members is one of the biggest issues I have with the structure of the US legislature.
A few points from a German: It is not true that the Left is more liberal. They are more socialist, which is simply not listed in these article's diagrams. A strong socialist pariticipation in Germany results from a huge part of it being under Soviet control for a few decades. It is also not true that neither top party has aimed at the social system. Both actually do try to minimize it. But they frame it into pro-soci…
Ever since I first found the Nolan chart[1], I've always tried to tell people about it, but I think the reason why the distinction doesn't make a ton of sense is because reducing 4 dimensions to 2 will always be lossy, so something is going to get lost. There may be a lot more ways to slice this pie, but the quadrants seem to me to strike the right balance of pragmatism and descriptiveness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maajid Nawaz would disagree with your assessment of Islam and Islamism. For Christianity politics and religion used to be as inseparable as they are for Islam today. Not so long ago most heads of state were subject to the Vatican (whether ceremonially or literally) and granted their authority by divine privilege alone. The separation of church and state in the Christian world is largely a relatively new phenomenon an…
Indeed. Not to mention that German politics has both a "Christian Democratic Union" and "Christian Social Union". Let's not pretend that the West is a nice cleanly separated secularist utopia.
However despite Germany's faults at least Germany is not Christian by law. The reason Islam doesn't enjoy the same privileges as mainstream Christianity is that Christians are better organised and less sectarian.
The Catholic Church in Germany needs no explanation but the Evangelical Church in Germany is a union of Lutherans, Calvinists and other protestants. The Islamic sects are far too disunited to form an alliance like this. A single Islamic faith group (Ahmadiyya) managed to organise as a public corporation (i.e. a recognised religious group) and they only exist in two out of Germany's 16 states and represent a minority group compared to other Islamic sects.
To give you a better idea, here's the list of recognised religious groups in the most populous state of Germany:
http://www.bmi.bund.de/PERS/DE/Themen/Informationen/Religion...
Most of them are Christian, even including Mennonites and Jehova's Wittnesses. There are also numerous Jewish communities. There's even a Hindu temple. Yet not a single Islamic group. This isn't the result of a Christian bias, it's entirely on the Islamic communities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nationalist movements regularly combine widely accepted populist left-wing positions with xenophobic ideas (and proceed to disregard the left-wing ones once in power). I live in Denmark; the Danish People's Party here is also very left-wing on niche social issues and uses that to trick people into voting for them. Trump used this strategy so well that you had followers of Bernie Sanders switching allegiances to vote…
Out of interest, how is a cap on immigration xenophobic? Is the mere introduction of a cap xenophobic? Or is there some set limit on the cap you could have, below which you are xenophobic? I know the answer is probably 'X type of people want this cap on immigration, therefore the cap on immigration is X-ist!', but just wanted to make sure.
Of course, having positions that violate present law does not necessarily imply xenophobia, but it is quite telling that the AfD only wants refugees that are qualified workers and does not want to give foreign citizens the rights Germans have.
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> everyone categorizes anything that discusses immigration as "extreme-right" or "alt-right" No, not anything, just those which are clearly racially motivated. > beyond "They're stupid racist biggots" That, largely, is why he got 62M votes. The US is a deeply racist country with catastrophic social and economic problems that are imagined to be the fault of "others" and "liberals" - he pandered to that demographic and…
Like I said, if your analysis for not listening to 62m people stops at putting them in a bucket of "They're are white supremacists", then all you get is Trump. Which you got. So it might be time to change your approach. Haven't we been fighting for 20 years against prejudices? Is it time we stop having prejudices about 62m people who just elected the president, and start seeing them as individuals with a reasoning? I…
No, you get Trump when you have rampant gerrymandering, voter suppression, and an electoral system which greatly favours the (still racist) southern states.
> James Damore was also fired for digging up scientific facts
No, he was fired for publically posting a pseudoscientific screed that demeaned a third of his co-workers (and half the human race.)
> the Left reject facts when it doesn't match the conclusions they like
Good grief. If there's one side which doesn't do that, it's the left (not that the US actually has a left, mind; there's just "not as right as the GOP".)
The language used to describe AfD is strikingly similar to the one used to describe Trump supporters prior to the elections. The truth is, the influx of immigrants is a real problem in Germany, although in some places is felt more than in others. Normal people turn to AfD for help, not because they're aggressive or hateful. It's difficult to even have a civilized discussion about it without being labelled as "racist"…
> The truth is, the influx of immigrants > is a real problem in Germany, although > in some places is felt more than in others My belief, from what I've read, is that in most countries anti-immigrant sentiment correlates with area where there are currently few immigrants. I wonder if that's the same case in Germany?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Practically everything in that program is right-wing: * strengthening the role of the president, weakening the parties (the weak presidential role in Germany is a direct result of the experiences in Nazi Germany) * reducing the size of the members of parliament * reducing payments for members of parliament (they currently earn around 10k/month) * introduction of direct voting (e.g. reducing complex matters to yes/no…
* introduction of direct voting (e.g. reducing complex matters to yes/no decisions) As a Swiss I have to comment on this. First, is this really a right-wing point? Where I vehemently disagree is with the sentiment carried with the "explanation" of direct democracy that you added. Every parliament will boil down complex issues to "simple" yes/no decisions. Or how do you imagine a parliament can vote on anything? Furth…
[1] = http://www.wahlbeteiligung2013.de/fileadmin/Inhalte/Studien/... - search for "Stadtbericht Hamburg"