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In Spain, Politics via Reddit

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Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#61

Post by crdoconnor »

mercurial wrote: post #45
blueskin_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the tax hikes that effectively drove the rich out of France (to Switzerland mostly). Are those not left wing now?

Considering that Sarkozy was increasing tax pressure by the end of his mandate and would have probably done so again, had he been re-elected, not really. As for the rich, they've been practising tax evasion for a long time. I'm not aware that hordes of rich Frenchmen fled to Switzerland since Hollande got voted in, but I'll be happy to see numbers which prove me wrong.

There were probably a lot more articles in the popular press that tried to give this impression than there were actual fleeing hordes.

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#62

Post by crdoconnor »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #16
blueskin_ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UKIP are centre-left, not 'extreme right'. On economic issues, they're to the left of the big 'left' party in the UK (Labour, who are really a more centrist party) and only really go to the right on immigration rather than social issues in general. You're confusing them with the BNP.

I wouldn't call them centre-left, they're a bit of grab-bag of policies e.g. some member have been a bit libertarian (which can be socially "left" but economically "right" depending on particular issues). But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself: http://www.ukip.org/issues

>But Xenophobia is the biggest theme, see for yourself:

It resonates with the working classes who have had their wages held stagnant by competition from immigrants from low-income countries.

Unfortunately, no other party has even begun to address that issue so they get to collect a lot of votes.

Furthermore, the way that all of the other parties dismiss any complaints regarding immigration as "pure xenophobia" only hands them even more votes.

Which is unfortunate because they're total assholes.

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#63

Post by crdoconnor »

spindritf wrote: post #2

Hard to imagine a better place for leftist populism than Reddit. The fact that it's not popular in Spain is a feature here, allowed them to target the most engaged first. With the language barrier, probably also younger and better educated. It’s still early to predict what is in store for Podemos. I'll take a shot: it'll fizzle out, just like Occupy, just like dozens of parties across Europe who manage a decent showi…

>I'll take a shot: it'll fizzle out, just like Occupy

Fizzle != Violently repressed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNvxp8qSOKU

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#64

Post by r0dia »

mercurial wrote: post #58
r0dia wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Representativeness: not possible in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Portugal among others, since they use the proportional list system. > I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Are you talking about undue importance given to small parties in such systems? No. The proportional list system prevents representativeness. The people whose name is on the list represent the one that put them on it. They do not represent the…

> No. The proportional list system prevents representativeness. The people whose name is on the list represent the one that put them on it. They do not represent the electors. Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time? > > Separation of powers: not…

> Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time?

I'm going to focus on this one. Most european so-called democracies lack representation of the elector, and we can thank the proportional list system for this.

This lack of representation, in combination with the imperative mandate to the party instead of to the electors in Spain causes that we have, lets say, 150 legislators from party X, 75 from party Y, and 30 from party Z. The leader of the X party is going to be PM, which means it's going to execute the law. Law that he is going to decide(his legislators that he did put on the list).

In the spanish system we can get rid of the Parliament and the system wouldn't be affected, I'll prove it to you.

When the leader of party X votes Yes to one proposal, all of the X representatives vote always in the same direction. The same happens with the opposition. What this means is that we can get rid of all the legislators apart from the leader of X, Y and Z. The vote of X leader would value 150, vote of leader Y 75 and so on, and both us and the system wouldn't notice.

We don't need almost 500 representatives of their respectives leaders because their leaders are already present. There is no need to represent someone who is present, right?

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#65

Post by r0dia »

mercurial wrote: post #59
r0dia wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't care how you feel. The Constitutional Court of Bonn (Germany) states that there is no representation in proportional list system. (I'll look for the quote). > What's not democratic is first-past-the-post systems, where if in my city 30% of the people vote for candidate A, 25% for B, 25% for C and 20% for D, only 30% of the people get a representative and the rest of the votes go directly to the tras…

If you mean a two-round first-past-the-post system, it works about the same as a one-round system. This is what got Jacques Chirac elected with 82% of the votes in France in 2002 in the second round. Whatever the number of rounds, it's a broken system designed to favour the two main parties.

Still, a representative democracy would be a way better than a partitocracy, don't you think?.

Podemos can use State power to improve things(social justice) but that is a totalitarian way of doing things.

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#66

Post by mercurial »

r0dia wrote: post #64
mercurial wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No. The proportional list system prevents representativeness. The people whose name is on the list represent the one that put them on it. They do not represent the electors. Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time? > > Separation of powers: not…

> Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time? I'm going to focus on this one. Most european so-called democracies lack representation of the elector, and we can thank the proportional list system for this. This lack of representation, in combination…

I'm puzzled. Surely MPs in Spain are supposed to represent a particular area in the country and defend the interests of their voters? I understand how that closed list system[1], which I was not familiar prior to find the correct Wikipedia article, is not awfully democratic. This could be alleviated by switching to an open list system like in Denmark, where a "personal vote" makes it possible to vote for individual candidates within a party, if you don't want the "party vote".

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_list

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#67

Post by r0dia »

mercurial wrote: post #66
r0dia wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then I'm not sure what you mean. That you don't like standard representational democracy, whereby voters grant power to politicians for a limited timeframe but cannot control directly what they do during this time? I'm going to focus on this one. Most european so-called democracies lack representation of the elector, and we can thank the proportional list system for this. This lack of representation, in combination…

I'm puzzled. Surely MPs in Spain are supposed to represent a particular area in the country and defend the interests of their voters? I understand how that closed list system[1], which I was not familiar prior to find the correct Wikipedia article, is not awfully democratic. This could be alleviated by switching to an open list system like in Denmark, where a "personal vote" makes it possible to vote for individual c…

I don't know how good the open list system is working in Denmark. In Italy a experiment showed that only 3% of the electors use their right to change the candidates, making it useless.

A majority system where you can choose directly your MP would be way better to achieve representation. Why voting a list? Why not elect one representative for an area of about 100k citizen?

That way you do know who is your representative, in the list system (even in the open list) who is your representative? All of them?

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#68

Post by im_dario »

joeyspn wrote: post #32

Podemos is undoubtedly an Internet phenomena. A modern and open party that not just uses Reddit for coordination and keeping in touch with its voters, but also makes use of tools like Agora Voting[0] for Liquid Democracy/online referendums, and mobile apps for transparent group decisions. They say about themselves that "they're not really a Party but a tool for disrupting politics" and I think this is quite accurate.…

Actually, there were other parties in Spain using Agora, like Confederación Pirata [0] (the Spanish pirate party). Indeed, Agora's core developers are tightly related to the Pirate movement.

As a pirate, I'm happy to see other parties using our tools and I'm also glad to have somebody disrupting our political landscape but pirates are also "a tool for disrupting". We just disrupted it sharing our experience and favorite tools! :)

[0] https://agora.confederacionpirata.org/

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#69

Post by mercurial »

r0dia wrote: post #67
mercurial wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm puzzled. Surely MPs in Spain are supposed to represent a particular area in the country and defend the interests of their voters? I understand how that closed list system[1], which I was not familiar prior to find the correct Wikipedia article, is not awfully democratic. This could be alleviated by switching to an open list system like in Denmark, where a "personal vote" makes it possible to vote for individual c…

I don't know how good the open list system is working in Denmark. In Italy a experiment showed that only 3% of the electors use their right to change the candidates, making it useless. A majority system where you can choose directly your MP would be way better to achieve representation. Why voting a list? Why not elect one representative for an area of about 100k citizen? That way you do know who is your representati…

That's the French way of doing. The results are so far unconvincing.

Re: In Spain, Politics via Reddit

#70

Post by sebkomianos »

lukeschlather wrote: post #52
ep103 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the meaning of left in America is so far off the definition for the entire rest of the world, it is hardly worth considering.

When you're speaking on a predominantly American message board, you should either avoid using terms that mean radically different things to you than what they mean to most Americans, or you should consider what they mean to most Americans very carefully and make sure that your meaning can't be misinterpreted.

Ouch. Really?
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