Reply #17: The European right is still way to the left of the American far right [View All]

[DFW]

Sarkozy and Merkel will still leave intact social programs
that would make even the most progressive Democrat running
in terror for cover. Health care and education are, while
getting more expensive, still negligible in cost to almost
any citizen in France and Germany. Any American politician
who proposes such a thing is immediately labeled "socialist!"
and spends the rest of the month trying to shake off the label.
Trying to raise American taxes to a level sufficient to pay for
anything close would be suicide at the ballot box.

Also to be considered is the fact the much of the European left
(I am not well familiar with the situation in Nederland) has
made total fools of themselves while in power. In Germany they
have become so staid that much of the far left has already split
off into another leftist party, and allied themselves with the
Easterners who were all for shooting people at the Berlin Wall, thus
removing much of their shot at being taken seriously by mainstream
socialists who would otherwise be receptive to such a movement.

In France, Ségolène Royal spouted the populist "Soak the rich and
give it to me to give to the poor" line that always inspires most
French to cheat on taxes, a national pasttime there. No wonder Sarko
won, despite heavy baggage. He has proved so far quite sly, inviting
prominent Socialist Party members into his cabinet, something Ségo would
never have done for her opposition. That election was hers to lose. The
people were plenty tired of Chirac, even though they supported his staying
out of the Iraq invasion. She blew it anyway.

In Belgium, the former leftist government pandered to a huge population
of Islamic immigrants, even forbidding the media to state, in reports of crimes,
that the perpetrator was an Arab. Moroccans who commit violent crimes are
invariably let back onto the street, with the mitigating circumstance that
they were poor foreigners in need of understanding. Belgians, understandably,
gradually are having enough of this, and this whole attitude has given rise
to an extremely ugly Nazi-like xenophobic movement there. Not pretty, but
predictable. I'm in Belgium once a week for work, and I can tell you that
not only Belgians feel this way. Most Arab immigrants feel this way, too.
After all, it's no fun for them to be lumped into one category by their host
population just because the government gives every violent criminal de facto
immunity for the sole reason being Moroccan.

By the way, I want to know how a 59 year old German, who could have been
born in 1947 at the earliest, escaped the Nazis in 1933?

In Spain, it is worth noting, it was the right who made fools of themselves by lying
and coddling up to Bush (Aznar). The people there got tired of that, too, and voted
the left (Zapatero) in when the last elections came around. It's less of a left-right
thing here, and more of a how-stupid-is-the-other-guy thing. Italy ditched Berlusconi
and voted in Prodi because Berlusconi was a rightist clown. A rich and flamboyant one,
to be sure, but enough was enough.

I wish that in 2004, the American electorate had reacted the same way. Had we had French
voters or British voters at our ballot boxes, Bush wouldn't have gotten enough of a percentage
to advertise for a savings account.