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On September 23 2013 08:11 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 08:06 smr wrote:If you just go by the Wahlomat pirates and greens have almost the exact same political agenda. I really hoped the pirates could finish stronger. They have a lot of good ideas which they try to communicate in an acceptable (ie not totally populistic) way. I like their concepts for decision-making but as soon as they started to care for more than their niche all the potential voters dropped their support again. As I said before the way the party wants to work might clash with the structures needed if you're in parliament but it has so much more potential to get people involved. As much as I was hoping that the fdp misses the 5% I'm now hoping that they can reinvent themselves as a truly liberal party. German SPIEGEL had a good article why that would enrich our political climate and I agree with them. + Show Spoiler + One of the problems I realized is that the German main media is never reporting about the pirate party. I swear I got more news about their activities over reddit than over any German media...
The election campaign from the pirate party was simply bad. I mean Germany had a huge debate about privacy and the protection of it for weeks up to the electionweeks and the pirates were not able to use it. That is simply inexcusable as a party which is so deeply linked to this topic.
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On September 23 2013 16:43 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 10:00 lord_nibbler wrote:On September 23 2013 08:55 JustPassingBy wrote:On September 23 2013 08:18 s3rp wrote:On September 23 2013 08:13 JustPassingBy wrote:On September 23 2013 08:12 s3rp wrote:On September 23 2013 08:08 JustPassingBy wrote:On September 23 2013 07:42 cLAN.Anax wrote:Juuuust poking my head in and dropping a thought or two. (at an airport with an hour to kill before my delayed flight is ready to board) Merkel appears an awful lot like Clinton if you ask me, based on the description zatic gives. A master at politics and able to sway people to vote for them, even if they ultimately disagree with the candidate. A publicly funded payment for parents who choose to stay at home and care for their children, aptly ridiculed by the opposition as the "kitchen premium". I don't want to deal too much with the specific politics here, but this made me laugh at the inanity of it all, lol. Was very intrigued to learn Germany doesn't have a minimum wage, since 2012 at least. O_o Eurostat says Germany has 5.3% unemployment, which has been steadily dropping since at least mid-2005. Wiki says this: None; except for construction workers, electrical workers, janitors, roofers, painters, and letter carriers. Minimum wage is often set by collective bargaining agreements in other sectors of the economy and enforceable by law.
The law states that paying a worker an "immoral wage" is illegal. There is no general consensus what constitutes "immoral" payment. One judge at a court in Krefeld, Germany, ruled that a cashier at a supermarket has to earn the equivalent of approximately 7USD per hour. The federal courts in Germany ruled that any wage lower than 75% of the average wage or salary for a specific occupation constitutes illegal payment. However, since there is no well defined legal minimum wage as of February 2013, courts are usually the ones who have the final say and will only rule for individual cases. Seems like a rather amorphous interpretation to me. :-\ Am I the only one who thinks that it's the union's job to bargain a minimum wage and that the politicians should keep out of it? Maybe we should think of giving the union more power, considering the current situation in the job market, but ultimatively it's the union's job to fight for the right of the employers. Well considering the raise of "Leiharbeit" ( not sure how to correctly translate it in context ) and the well non-toleration of unionizing in quite a of those lower income workfields i don't think you can completely stay out of it. Non-toleration of unionizing? That cannot be legal, can it? It's not technically BUT the people working in those fields don't have the means to change anything and nothing has really been done so far . I mean most of the people in those workfields don't have a permanent position and can basically fired on the spot without repercusion . And good luck proving you've been fired for trying to unionize. Those people most of the time badly need the money they can't risk their daily job . There was a something about "Leiharbeiter" at DHL a few months back ( maybe more ) where a reporter got undercover in as a postman. He got considerably less then the guys actually working at DHL ( almost half IRC ) while working more time and having to do unpaid overtime . The second he mentioned unionizing he got an extremely fierce warning about that . The second time he mentioned it he was fired ( he did it on purpose because he was done physically after a few weeks of backbracking work ). At least thats how i remember it. Edit : I found it , from 2011. + Show Spoiler +It's German btw So why don't you just either: a) force everybody to be part of some union (like with health insurance) (more restrictive, I don't like this option) or b) every contract signed with a unionless employee has to be signed with the biggest union amongst the other employees (the one who the majority of the employees belong to). These are just two random suggestion I cam up with in 2min, ofc. Well, you wanted the politicians out of the wage finding process, didn't you? But, these are two laws you are proposing! (And both arguably more restrictive than a simple lower limit on salary.) Union members have to pay their union fee. You want to force people to pay for something by law, you better have a good justification for it. Also, I personally don't really get this "keep out the politicians" sentiment on this one issue. I mean, rules and laws determine every aspects in life and business. Politicians set the business tax, the subsidiaries, the income tax, health insurance, working conditions, equality hiring and on and on. So, why this sudden outcry when it comes to minimum wage? Yes, but there is a difference between a law that draws a hard line (which might definitely needs adjusting in the future) and a law which declares part of the public responsible and give them the power they need to satisfy that responsibility. In the minimum wage scenario, the minimum wage needs to be continuously adjusted to inflation so the politicians have to repeatedly occupy themselves with that topic. In the other scenaio, the union will have to deal with it together with the employer. It's basically giving somebody fish vs. teaching them how to fish and giving them the proper tools to do so.
I dont actually see whats so hard about defining a minimum wage and adjusting it constantly. The same thing is done very year with pensions, Hartz IV, ect... The goverment constantly defines the ammount of money needed to life and take part in german society (the second part is important, it's not enough to just barely stay alive).
Operating on the maxim that someone that works should be compensated better then someone who doesn't you take the ammount of money needed to life and take part in society, add X% (Leistung muß sich lohnen :-D), divide it by the average hours of work and voila: Fair minimum wage.
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So what were the results for the pirate party? I can't seem to find them. I suppose since I don't see them mentioned in any of the mainstream news portals they did not make the cut, am I right?
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the pirates are at 2.2% see here
edit: nvm, those are not the results you are looking for, anyways they did not make the cut or any cut in that matter
edit2: nvmnvm, those are the results you are looking for
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As I am registered to vote in Bavaria chosing my votes this year was really easy again. Why would anyone sane vote for the CSU.
I disagreed with a lot the FDP did over the last few years and I certainly did not vote for them. Still I am sad that such a historic party is not in the Bundestag anymore. On paper, I could see myself voting for a liberal party in the future. Not for the current FDP though.
The party that is closest to my political views (65% wahl-o-mat) is the SPD. Thats why I voted for them.
After all I think we should not vote for cancidates, but for content. I think the discussion this year was too much focussed on personalities and not enough on content. I hope this changes in the future, though I am not optimistic.
I also agree with Steinbrück that the SPD shouldve used the Agenda 2010 because its one of the reasons we are as economically stable atm as we are.
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On September 23 2013 20:23 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
As I am registered to vote in Bavaria chosing my votes this year was really easy again. Why would anyone sane vote for the CSU.
I disagreed with a lot the FDP did over the last few years and I certainly did not vote for them. Still I am sad that such a historic party is not in the Bundestag anymore. On paper, I could see myself voting for a liberal party in the future. Not for the current FDP though.
The party that is closest to my political views (65% wahl-o-mat) is the SPD. Thats why I voted for them.
After all I think we should not vote for cancidates, but for content. I think the discussion this year was too much focussed on personalities and not enough on content. I hope this changes in the future, though I am not optimistic.
I also agree with Steinbrück that the SPD shouldve used the Agenda 2010 because its one of the reasons we are as economically stable atm as we are.
I certainly am not sad that the FDP did not make the cut, and that comes from somebody who voted for them last time.
FDP had all warning signals they needed for the last 2-3 years, and while they showed first signs of promising movement (Westerwelle down, Rösler new leader), they didn't move at all till the end. Even now, it's only Rösler who has stepped down. Brüderle, who was also responsible for a lot of quack the party did is still in power. 
What the FDP really needs is to get rid of all the current heads, start anew from scratch and concentrate on their liberal roots. Sadly, some parties don't realize this unless you whack them over the head...
But having said that, should they do exactly that, then I will gladly vote for them again, and again, and again.
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On September 23 2013 20:35 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 20:23 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
As I am registered to vote in Bavaria chosing my votes this year was really easy again. Why would anyone sane vote for the CSU.
I disagreed with a lot the FDP did over the last few years and I certainly did not vote for them. Still I am sad that such a historic party is not in the Bundestag anymore. On paper, I could see myself voting for a liberal party in the future. Not for the current FDP though.
The party that is closest to my political views (65% wahl-o-mat) is the SPD. Thats why I voted for them.
After all I think we should not vote for cancidates, but for content. I think the discussion this year was too much focussed on personalities and not enough on content. I hope this changes in the future, though I am not optimistic.
I also agree with Steinbrück that the SPD shouldve used the Agenda 2010 because its one of the reasons we are as economically stable atm as we are. I certainly am not sad that the FDP did not make the cut, and that comes from somebody who voted for them last time. FDP had all warning signals they needed for the last 2-3 years, and while they showed first signs of promising movement (Westerwelle down, Rösler new leader), they didn't move at all till the end. Even now, it's only Rösler who has stepped down. Brüderle, who was also responsible for a lot of quack the party did is still in power. What the FDP really needs is to get rid of all the current heads, start anew from scratch and concentrate on their liberal roots. Sadly, some parties don't realize this unless you whack them over the head... But having said that, should they do exactly that, then I will gladly vote for them again, and again, and again.
What the FDP really needs is to disband and never come back.
I will gladly not vote them again and again and again
also, calling Rösler as a leader a promising movement is just....
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When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a single election?
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On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a parliament/diet?
Well the FDP was never considered as a "large" party. They were more like the kingmaker in the system of german parties and made coalitions with CDU and SPD in the past.
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On September 23 2013 08:16 cLAN.Anax wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 08:08 JustPassingBy wrote:On September 23 2013 07:42 cLAN.Anax wrote:Juuuust poking my head in and dropping a thought or two. (at an airport with an hour to kill before my delayed flight is ready to board) Merkel appears an awful lot like Clinton if you ask me, based on the description zatic gives. A master at politics and able to sway people to vote for them, even if they ultimately disagree with the candidate. A publicly funded payment for parents who choose to stay at home and care for their children, aptly ridiculed by the opposition as the "kitchen premium". I don't want to deal too much with the specific politics here, but this made me laugh at the inanity of it all, lol. Was very intrigued to learn Germany doesn't have a minimum wage, since 2012 at least. O_o Eurostat says Germany has 5.3% unemployment, which has been steadily dropping since at least mid-2005. Wiki says this: None; except for construction workers, electrical workers, janitors, roofers, painters, and letter carriers. Minimum wage is often set by collective bargaining agreements in other sectors of the economy and enforceable by law.
The law states that paying a worker an "immoral wage" is illegal. There is no general consensus what constitutes "immoral" payment. One judge at a court in Krefeld, Germany, ruled that a cashier at a supermarket has to earn the equivalent of approximately 7USD per hour. The federal courts in Germany ruled that any wage lower than 75% of the average wage or salary for a specific occupation constitutes illegal payment. However, since there is no well defined legal minimum wage as of February 2013, courts are usually the ones who have the final say and will only rule for individual cases. Seems like a rather amorphous interpretation to me. :-\ Am I the only one who thinks that it's the union's job to bargain a minimum wage and that the politicians should keep out of it? Maybe we should think of giving the union more power, considering the current situation in the job market, but ultimatively it's the union's job to fight for the right of the employers. If they don't make whatever they agree upon into law, I'd be cool with it too. National Review is calling the AfD a German version of the Tea Party. Lol? (link: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359145/germanys-tea-party-john-fund )
This is actually pretty accurate.
The AfD and Tea party both have partly very conservative ideas, but they also both want the government to be as weak as possible and have not much say.
With the AfD, its just that they have this one topic (euro and EU) that makes them popular.
I think the tea party might have that with the Obamacare?
And i am so happy the FDP is out.
They were openly corrupt and parasites. And in their decadence they started to openly fight for the spoils for like 2 years.
And now the voters told the politicians that this is not accapteble and is not forgotten at the next election. Very nice, the masses arent always as dumb as a 5 year old.
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On September 23 2013 20:52 Gesperrt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a parliament/diet? Well the FDP was never considered as a "large" party. They were more like the kingmaker in the system of german parties and made coalitions with CDU and SPD in the past.
Haha, I used the word "large" in comparison to the CDU which is a "major" party and the Greens which is "minor." I guess I should've referred to them as medium sized?
Pardon my vocabulary :/
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On September 23 2013 20:39 Paljas wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 20:35 JustPassingBy wrote:On September 23 2013 20:23 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
As I am registered to vote in Bavaria chosing my votes this year was really easy again. Why would anyone sane vote for the CSU.
I disagreed with a lot the FDP did over the last few years and I certainly did not vote for them. Still I am sad that such a historic party is not in the Bundestag anymore. On paper, I could see myself voting for a liberal party in the future. Not for the current FDP though.
The party that is closest to my political views (65% wahl-o-mat) is the SPD. Thats why I voted for them.
After all I think we should not vote for cancidates, but for content. I think the discussion this year was too much focussed on personalities and not enough on content. I hope this changes in the future, though I am not optimistic.
I also agree with Steinbrück that the SPD shouldve used the Agenda 2010 because its one of the reasons we are as economically stable atm as we are. I certainly am not sad that the FDP did not make the cut, and that comes from somebody who voted for them last time. FDP had all warning signals they needed for the last 2-3 years, and while they showed first signs of promising movement (Westerwelle down, Rösler new leader), they didn't move at all till the end. Even now, it's only Rösler who has stepped down. Brüderle, who was also responsible for a lot of quack the party did is still in power. What the FDP really needs is to get rid of all the current heads, start anew from scratch and concentrate on their liberal roots. Sadly, some parties don't realize this unless you whack them over the head... But having said that, should they do exactly that, then I will gladly vote for them again, and again, and again. What the FDP really needs is to disband and never come back. I will gladly not vote them again and again and again also, calling Rösler as a leader a promising movement is just....
I never said Rösler is a promising movement...?
Also, it is the beginning of a first step that has to be done before anything can change: get rid of all the "Altlasten".
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On September 23 2013 21:00 Shiragaku wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 20:52 Gesperrt wrote:On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a parliament/diet? Well the FDP was never considered as a "large" party. They were more like the kingmaker in the system of german parties and made coalitions with CDU and SPD in the past. Haha, I used the word "large" in comparison to the CDU which is a "major" party and the Greens which is "minor." I guess I should've referred to them as medium sized? Pardon my vocabulary :/
No problem  But to answer your question: No, the downfall of the FDP is unique in the post-war history of the german democracy (at the federal level). At the federal state level however it's a much more common thing that parties (besides CDU/CSU and SPD) lose their seats.
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On September 23 2013 21:06 Gesperrt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 21:00 Shiragaku wrote:On September 23 2013 20:52 Gesperrt wrote:On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a parliament/diet? Well the FDP was never considered as a "large" party. They were more like the kingmaker in the system of german parties and made coalitions with CDU and SPD in the past. Haha, I used the word "large" in comparison to the CDU which is a "major" party and the Greens which is "minor." I guess I should've referred to them as medium sized? Pardon my vocabulary :/ No problem But to answer your question: No, the downfall of the FDP is unique in the post-war history of the german democracy (at the federal level). At the federal state level however it's a much more common thing that parties (besides CDU/CSU and SPD) lose their seats.
Ah, that does clear some things up for me.
And quick question about the relationship between Die Linke and SPD. Is there any bad blood between them that goes back all the way to 1918? Or is it fair to say that the party is leaving the past behind them for the most part?
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well it was mindboggling to me anyways that so many people voted fdp in the last one. they just got what the deserved finally.
merkel going even higher... well there was little in other options. spd is just weak , linke just wont go big, grüne failing to use their time and opportunity, pirates jsut making a joke of themselves... but still that this person really gets a even longer period shwos how fucked up german politics are nowadays.
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On September 23 2013 20:56 LaNague wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 08:16 cLAN.Anax wrote:On September 23 2013 08:08 JustPassingBy wrote:On September 23 2013 07:42 cLAN.Anax wrote:Juuuust poking my head in and dropping a thought or two. (at an airport with an hour to kill before my delayed flight is ready to board) Merkel appears an awful lot like Clinton if you ask me, based on the description zatic gives. A master at politics and able to sway people to vote for them, even if they ultimately disagree with the candidate. A publicly funded payment for parents who choose to stay at home and care for their children, aptly ridiculed by the opposition as the "kitchen premium". I don't want to deal too much with the specific politics here, but this made me laugh at the inanity of it all, lol. Was very intrigued to learn Germany doesn't have a minimum wage, since 2012 at least. O_o Eurostat says Germany has 5.3% unemployment, which has been steadily dropping since at least mid-2005. Wiki says this: None; except for construction workers, electrical workers, janitors, roofers, painters, and letter carriers. Minimum wage is often set by collective bargaining agreements in other sectors of the economy and enforceable by law.
The law states that paying a worker an "immoral wage" is illegal. There is no general consensus what constitutes "immoral" payment. One judge at a court in Krefeld, Germany, ruled that a cashier at a supermarket has to earn the equivalent of approximately 7USD per hour. The federal courts in Germany ruled that any wage lower than 75% of the average wage or salary for a specific occupation constitutes illegal payment. However, since there is no well defined legal minimum wage as of February 2013, courts are usually the ones who have the final say and will only rule for individual cases. Seems like a rather amorphous interpretation to me. :-\ Am I the only one who thinks that it's the union's job to bargain a minimum wage and that the politicians should keep out of it? Maybe we should think of giving the union more power, considering the current situation in the job market, but ultimatively it's the union's job to fight for the right of the employers. If they don't make whatever they agree upon into law, I'd be cool with it too. National Review is calling the AfD a German version of the Tea Party. Lol? (link: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/359145/germanys-tea-party-john-fund ) This is actually pretty accurate. The AfD and Tea party both have partly very conservative ideas, but they also both want the government to be as weak as possible and have not much say. With the AfD, its just that they have this one topic (euro and EU) that makes them popular. I think the tea party might have that with the Obamacare?
Possibly, but that only makes the Tea Party popular with right-winged individuals; I doubt it garners any support from the left. I think part of the appeal of the Tea Party is it's a group that both American conservatives and libertarians can feel relatively comfortable together with. There's some social conservatism espoused, but it appears to be more of a fiscal libertarianism that they can mostly get behind, so on the general matter of economic freedom, they share a lot of common beliefs.
I wish I actually knew more about our Tea Party, lol. I'm a conservative, but I've never fully referred to myself as a Tea Partier; principles always preclude party for me. Though I've been called a "bagger" for my stances on a regular basis elsewhere, hahaha (never on TL).
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On September 23 2013 21:06 Gesperrt wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 21:00 Shiragaku wrote:On September 23 2013 20:52 Gesperrt wrote:On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a parliament/diet? Well the FDP was never considered as a "large" party. They were more like the kingmaker in the system of german parties and made coalitions with CDU and SPD in the past. Haha, I used the word "large" in comparison to the CDU which is a "major" party and the Greens which is "minor." I guess I should've referred to them as medium sized? Pardon my vocabulary :/ No problem But to answer your question: No, the downfall of the FDP is unique in the post-war history of the german democracy (at the federal level). At the federal state level however it's a much more common thing that parties (besides CDU/CSU and SPD) lose their seats.
Well to be fair in the past the FDP never had any competetion besides the two bigs . Then the Green became a serious political power . After that Die Linke , a few years back when they absorded alot of the left wing of the SPD that became unhappy and left , also gained enough of a following to be serious enough force in the parlaments .
Now with the continued political unhappieness of quite a large chuck of the population other new parties like now the AfD become threats to make the cut or at least take a away a decent amount of votes.
In the past all the FDP had as smaller competion where rightwing loons like NPD,DVU etc and extreme leftwing parties like the DKP that were way too extreme to ever get taken serious by enough people .
On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
And quick question about the relationship between Die Linke and SPD. Is there any bad blood between them that goes back all the way to 1918? Or is it fair to say that the party is leaving the past behind them for the most part?
Die Linke doesn't really have anything to do with the KPD from back then. Alot of it is left parts of the SPD that left when the SPD became too central/right wing for their taste these days. There's also still back then mostly young remnants of very late DDR times when the regime was already in collapse.
Before the PDS back then merged with the WASG ( left parts of the SPD that left under Oskar Lafontaine ) they where nothing more than remnants of the SED for the most part. Now in most parts of East Germany their a serious player on the federal level and in general now strong enough to make the cut even in the western parts.
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On September 23 2013 21:24 Shiragaku wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 21:06 Gesperrt wrote:On September 23 2013 21:00 Shiragaku wrote:On September 23 2013 20:52 Gesperrt wrote:On September 23 2013 20:43 Shiragaku wrote:
When I was looking at the results, I was puzzled to see that the CDU, SPD, and CSU with pretty sizeable gains and The Left and Greens suffering moderate losses overall then I saw the FDP. Holy shit did they get wrecked. Is there another example of a large political party losing every single one of their seats in a parliament/diet? Well the FDP was never considered as a "large" party. They were more like the kingmaker in the system of german parties and made coalitions with CDU and SPD in the past. Haha, I used the word "large" in comparison to the CDU which is a "major" party and the Greens which is "minor." I guess I should've referred to them as medium sized? Pardon my vocabulary :/ No problem But to answer your question: No, the downfall of the FDP is unique in the post-war history of the german democracy (at the federal level). At the federal state level however it's a much more common thing that parties (besides CDU/CSU and SPD) lose their seats. Ah, that does clear some things up for me. And quick question about the relationship between Die Linke and SPD. Is there any bad blood between them that goes back all the way to 1918?
The bad blood between Die Linke and all the other major and minor partys lies in the DDR past of Die Linke. Die Linke evolved from the SED who were some kind of the "natural" enemy of the parties in Westgermany (of course the SED has a history which goes back to the Weimarer Republik and further). And they still have a few items on their agenda (for example the dissolving of the NATO, no engagement of the Bundeswehr regardless the cause,...) which makes a coalition with the other parties impossible.
Hope that helps you a bit.
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On September 23 2013 21:24 Shiragaku wrote:
And quick question about the relationship between Die Linke and SPD. Is there any bad blood between them that goes back all the way to 1918? Or is it fair to say that the party is leaving the past behind them for the most part?
Well, historically there was bad blood between SPD and the left after a leftist movement was beaten down by the SPD government and the Reichswehr in the Weimar Republic. But that doesn't really play a role any more.
The major issue is the history of the PDS (the successor of the SED) and the fact that the WASG (
which joined the PDS to form Die Linke) consisted of former SPD members who seceded after a disagreement over AGENDA 2010 (a number of reformations which were introduced by the SPD/Grüne government)
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On September 23 2013 20:35 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2013 20:23 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
As I am registered to vote in Bavaria chosing my votes this year was really easy again. Why would anyone sane vote for the CSU.
I disagreed with a lot the FDP did over the last few years and I certainly did not vote for them. Still I am sad that such a historic party is not in the Bundestag anymore. On paper, I could see myself voting for a liberal party in the future. Not for the current FDP though.
The party that is closest to my political views (65% wahl-o-mat) is the SPD. Thats why I voted for them.
After all I think we should not vote for cancidates, but for content. I think the discussion this year was too much focussed on personalities and not enough on content. I hope this changes in the future, though I am not optimistic.
I also agree with Steinbrück that the SPD shouldve used the Agenda 2010 because its one of the reasons we are as economically stable atm as we are. What the FDP really needs is to get rid of all the current heads, start anew from scratch and concentrate on their liberal roots. Sadly, some parties don't realize this unless you whack them over the head... But having said that, should they do exactly that, then I will gladly vote for them again, and again, and again.
'concentrate on their liberal roots'. I read that - as you so succinctly say - again, and again, and again, but mostly from people who wouldn't dream about voting FDP in the first place. Strangely the party got their best result in history just four years ago, when they were by no means concentrating on liberal roots, but running on an agenda of reducing taxes and more importantly simplyfying the absurd german tax system.
If I had trusted them then, I would have voted FDP, but unsurprisingly they caved in to special interests and passed one major law, benefiting their contributors in the hotel industry.
Already campaigning under a 'liberal whatever' mantra are Greens and Pirates. If FDP wants to compete for that overestimated amount of niche voters, they can happily be my guest. It will virtually ensure we will not hear from them again.
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EPT
