EPTIf I have to take my chances to get liberal basic rights, I rather take them based on democratic majorities than people that believe conservative "keep things as they are" populism is an argument and not the disease itself.
European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1081
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
If I have to take my chances to get liberal basic rights, I rather take them based on democratic majorities than people that believe conservative "keep things as they are" populism is an argument and not the disease itself. | ||
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Saumure
France404 Posts
On April 20 2018 06:14 Big J wrote: France and Switzerland are not people, so fundamentally put, they do not make decisions. Who makes decisions? Actual people. How does "France" or "Switzerland", so the people belonging to those societies, make decisions on a collective level? Through more or less accepted social mechanism. Which mechanisms are most supported? Those which lead to the most accurate representation of opinions. On a fundamental level you can describe a society as a set of people that accepts two fundamental rules: 1) They accept each other being a member of the society 2) They accept a general rulemaking process Anyone that doesn't accept these two rules is not really a part of that society. They can be a part of a similar society and the union of many similar societies, that rule over a certain piece of land, is what makes such people belong to a state. But in reverse this also means that a state becomes more unstable, the more societies it represents and the more the goals of these societies drift apart. In France for example you have a very strong nationalist society at this point, that does not accept many of the members of the French state as part of the "Nationalist French Society", because they were not born in France, or their parents weren't. That society is strongly against rule 1) of the "Republican Society", because they have a very different definition of French membership. And there are many other societies too, that are very fundamentally questioning the existing order. Switzerland works very well, because pretty much everyone is putting the "Democratic Society" first, before any other society they may also belong to. They do so, because they matter in that society. And it forms a strong common bond between them. It gives them an actually accepted hierarchy of rules, unlike what France has in Macron, or the USA in Trump (as the respective leaders of their Democratic Societies). Those hierachies are only accepted on paper, but they do not have large public support, which makes their positions in reality very weak and makes for the exactly opposite of what you want for these societies. Macron is dead in the water, same goes for Merkel, Trump or May at this point. Neither of them can really push their ideas anymore because they are hitting excessive civilian resistance. The EU is stuck in a democratic deficit with less and less support for ideas that are not derived by the people of Europe. What we are facing in large parts of the West is an excessive loss of control of the people (and thereby of their leaders), both politically and economically. And this is really scary to me. No, Switzerland works because it is a small country. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10605 Posts
This scale argument is just lazy, normally its used by americans defending their healthcareor voting system mess. It doesn't hold up well. The swiss goverment system with its inbuilt need for cooperation between the parties actually seems better for bigger countries. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On April 22 2018 19:26 Big J wrote: Everything you fear goes for minorities ad well, yet in the schools I went to there were fascist symbols called "crosses" This was what I actually thought when I was a teenager and took Richard Dawkins seriously. Come on now please. Fascism is throwing people into the gas chambers, not you having to endure looking at a religious symbol. Let's not abuse the word please. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
On April 23 2018 02:27 Nyxisto wrote: This was what I actually thought when I was a teenager and took Richard Dawkins seriously. Come on now please. Fascism is throwing people into the gas chambers, not you having to endure looking at a religious symbol. Let's not abuse the word please. Unless you mean gas chambers literally, that's exactly what Christianity did for 1500 years (+/-). | ||
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Artisreal
Germany9234 Posts
Leaving the symbol of institutionalised child abuse in a classroom full of children does sound a bit off to me, though. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13754 Posts
On April 22 2018 23:43 Velr wrote: And France doesn't because its big? Can you connect these dots for me? This scale argument is just lazy, normally its used by americans defending their healthcareor voting system mess. It doesn't hold up well. The swiss goverment system with its inbuilt need for cooperation between the parties actually seems better for bigger countries. Look at india. A fairly advanced space and nuclear program and yet has a problem with people shitting in the streets and defending child rape. France is a very similar ethno, geographical, and cultural state with 67 million people in it. Thats the American west coast and thats not anywhere near aas similar as france let alone adding in the differences between Florida and New york. There are radically different people that have to work together and have struggled with that. what changes has the swiss gone through sense Mogarten? They still live in the mountains under the same basic system as they have for hundreds of years. Do they have some massive civil war I wasn't made privy to? Do they have massive immigration and expansion. People are different and nations are different. Larger nations inherently have large differences between them as small nations do. Its clausewitz's friction if nothing else. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
I don't demand that. But putting an end to the billions of subventions that conservatives pay the churches of the world would be a start. That money would be well spent helping refugees or supporting the poor, instead of supporting fascist foreign countersocieties, even if their Führer currently happens to have a friendly face. On April 23 2018 06:23 Sermokala wrote: Look at india. A fairly advanced space and nuclear program and yet has a problem with people shitting in the streets and defending child rape. France is a very similar ethno, geographical, and cultural state with 67 million people in it. Thats the American west coast and thats not anywhere near aas similar as france let alone adding in the differences between Florida and New york. There are radically different people that have to work together and have struggled with that. what changes has the swiss gone through sense Mogarten? They still live in the mountains under the same basic system as they have for hundreds of years. Do they have some massive civil war I wasn't made privy to? Do they have massive immigration and expansion. People are different and nations are different. Larger nations inherently have large differences between them as small nations do. Its clausewitz's friction if nothing else. Maybe they aren't meant to be nations then. Just because some right-winger believes in claiming someone else's achievments as "cultural collectivism" doesn't give them the right to first conquer these people and afterwards deny them rights of self-governance as well as a broad democratic say "because it wouldn't work due to cultural differences". | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
The reason why we can work together isn't that we're naturally so similar and that made it easy for us. We put some work into it. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On April 23 2018 07:33 Nyxisto wrote: How different are they really? How many significant socialist or communist movements exist in Switzerland, how many far-right reactionaries? How many foreign policy hawks reside in Switzerland that would favour joining NATO, while others would suggest partnering up with Russia? That's real difference in policy. Nobody doubts that Switzerland is a culturally and ethnically diverse country, but politically it's insular and homogenous. It's like a European California. Quite different, I don't know? I'm annoyed with answering this cause I don't have some super stats that I could give you, and I'm not sure why you're so sure you have it figured out. The political landscape will be quite different in Romandy vs Deutschschweiz, the german cantons typically have either a way weaker left or a strong left with the far right as main contender, we typically have a strong left with centrist right (that often sides with the left on economic issues but is conservative on social issues) or liberal right as main contender. It does move your Overton window quite significantly. First example that comes to mind is something like this: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfsstatic/dam/assets/469802/master Which are the results of the popular initiative "against mass immigration" that we had some time ago. Can you tell the different political cultures on this map? Cause I sure can. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
That's the kind of thing that never comes up in Switzerland because it is incompatible with the Swiss system, which is why the country goes to great lengths to assert neutrality. It's a question that leaders in France or the US or the UK have to deal with on a weekly basis. Should a country that possesses nuclear weapons really have the population vote on their use? There are different things at stake in large countries. It's not about popular polls on a universal income or if you want 100k or 150k migrants, it's about who has control over weaponry that could blast a billion people of the planet. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On April 23 2018 08:11 Nyxisto wrote: The point is simply that some political issues that would test real, geopolitical positioning never come up in Switzerland. Imagine the Swiss people would have to make the decision whether to participate in an attack on Syria within 48 hours. How would this be possible? Nobody could organise a vote that fast. Who has executive authority in that moment? Is this something that the average Swiss citizen should have a say in without having access to classified military information? That's the kind of thing that never comes up in Switzerland because it is incompatible with the Swiss system, which is why the country goes to great lengths to assert neutrality. It's a question that leaders in France or the US or the UK have to deal with on a weekly basis. Should a country that possesses nuclear weapons really have the population vote on their use? There are different things at stake in large countries. It's not about popular polls on a universal income or if you want 100k or 150k migrants, it's about who has control over weaponry that could blast a billion people of the planet. Well it's manifestly not "the point", cause we were talking about the diversity of Switzerland and now we're into a different subject entirely... For this new topic, there will be a presumption that the Swiss citizen is against intervention based on the history of Switzerland, so yeah, if you're going to intervene it better be for a damn good reason and you better ask me about it (This one might even be anticonstitutional btw so I'm not even sure you would be allowed to ask me about it). If your country has a history of intervening more and faster, I would suggest that you work your direct democracy around that fact and create some different standards for action in that context. You can also ask that to the people in your country, and figure out whether they'd rather you intervene fast or not in general, perhaps you'll be surprised at the result. Either way I'd still expect some accountability at some point though, in the sense that either way you can still ask them later if you have their approbation. I really, really don't understand why you feel safer when nuclear weapons are in the hands of a representative rather than in the hands of a people. I dislike both, personally. I certainly think Trump is more likely to misuse a nuclear weapon than most countries' populations, but I'm fine with neither. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10605 Posts
On April 23 2018 06:23 Sermokala wrote: Look at india. A fairly advanced space and nuclear program and yet has a problem with people shitting in the streets and defending child rape. France is a very similar ethno, geographical, and cultural state with 67 million people in it. Thats the American west coast and thats not anywhere near aas similar as france let alone adding in the differences between Florida and New york. There are radically different people that have to work together and have struggled with that. what changes has the swiss gone through sense Mogarten? They still live in the mountains under the same basic system as they have for hundreds of years. Do they have some massive civil war I wasn't made privy to? Do they have massive immigration and expansion. People are different and nations are different. Larger nations inherently have large differences between them as small nations do. Its clausewitz's friction if nothing else. There were civilian/religious wars. We have *massive* immigration when accounted for population since we aren't poor anymor (so 100+ years). Our constitution was revisited several times, new political parties rose to prominence in the last century... Morgarten ffs... You might also bring up Willhelm Tell. Counterquestion... Do you have 2 major and 1 minor language and 3 way bigger neighbours influencing these parts culturally? Are there 2X% foreigners constantly staying in the US? I get that you shouldn't compare Switzerland to way bigger countries on various issues but we are never actually talking about these... | ||
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Dangermousecatdog
United Kingdom7084 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland11933 Posts
On April 24 2018 02:52 Dangermousecatdog wrote: For national matters Switzerland doesn't apply decentralised canton direct democratic ideas anyways, so the point that Switzerland may or may not be able to decide on political military matters in 48 hours due to this appears to be moot. We do though, to some extent; there are votes on national matters pretty regularly, sometimes on military stuff (we rejected the purchase of some new military planes three or four years ago) The thing with the 48 hours is that most issues that are so limited in time are already "settled" or treated as such, either because it's obvious ("Should Switzerland defend itself against a foreign attack?") or because of some other principles like that of neutrality. | ||
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SoSexy
Italy3725 Posts
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Silvanel
Poland4692 Posts
On April 24 2018 16:43 SoSexy wrote: Spaniards, has the Jacinto story made major headlines in Spain? For a second i though i am in Big Programming Thread and i had chills down my spine. Lol. Jacinto is widely used processor line made by Texas Instruments. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain17852 Posts
On April 24 2018 16:43 SoSexy wrote: Spaniards, has the Jacinto story made major headlines in Spain? I have never heard of it/him, and a quick search for Jacinto on Google doesn't enlighten me... so... no? | ||
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Dapper_Cad
United Kingdom964 Posts
As a Brit, I'd like to offer my Swiss brethren a tax-haven-economy-soaked-in-the-blood-and-poverty-of-the-most-vulnerable-people-in-the-world HIGH FIVE. With luck the masters of Britain will exterminate 90% of the British population so as to stop the whining so we can truly become a "Switzerland off the coast of France". | ||
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