Why do europeans vote for the left?

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by Munqi, Feb 28, 2012.

  1. fredc

    fredc New Member

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    Once upon a time and I can remember it, I remember when you could walk out of a job Friday noon and have another one by Monday morning.

    Now people with PHDs are asking you if you want fries with that and there are four hundred people chasing one job stacking shelves at Tescos.

    There are 2.7 million unemployed and 1.3 million working part time because they can't get a full time job.

    Employers don't have to compete for labour these days, workers have to compete for jobs.
     
  2. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    In its early days the left was very good for the workers of this country, but must we reward what passes for the left today with more support? Aren't we in enough debt?

    And as for Thatcher, far from being a tyranical woman, she was actually elected in landslide victories by the people of England (though not Scotland or Wales) three times. She didn't get everything right by any stretch of the imagination, but the Labour party reversed hardly anything of what she did. In spite of that they still managed to get us into massive debt that future generations will have to repay, with the Conservative party putting up very, very little resistance to that spending spree. Today's Conservatives aren't fit to clean her boots.

    Neither the left or the right (as represented by our large parties, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats) are very left or very right any more. They are a grotesque mixture of both doctrines, though risibly they like to portray themselves as "working together to find the best solutions". They're obviously not finding the best solutions for the people of this country. The smaller parties, mainly the Greens, the BNP (and yes, the BNP's economic policies are left wing, though from a racially based perspective) and UKIP offer really different policies. The left and the right need to keep each other in check and they don't. That's what's missing in politics here today.

    Why are you so concerned with UK politics anyway, and should any right wing voter be concerned with your opinions about our politicians?
     
  3. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    Why do people who support the left find this so difficult to understand? :confuse:
     
  4. Prof_Sarcastic

    Prof_Sarcastic New Member

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    Do they find it difficult to understand?
     
  5. Munqi

    Munqi New Member

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    Thats exactly what i want to change. Im not a business owner myself - im dependant on the jobs that the social democrats refuse to let me have.

    Why do you think that is? Why is it that people cant find jobs? If you knew anything about economics, you would know that the only thing that can do such a market failure is government or union interference.
     
  6. tamora

    tamora New Member

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    They do in my experience.
     
  7. kilgram

    kilgram New Member

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    The labour party in the 80s became a center-right party, and with Blair this center-right position was empowered. The labour party already does not represent the theoric ideals that this party should represent.
     
  8. janpor

    janpor Well-Known Member

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    Only issue I have with what is perceived as "the Left" is our inane position regarding immigration, integration and the bigger issue of "identity".

    Last year I've turned severely towards "the Right" on that one.

    Sarkozy is right. And I don't understand why the Left is going bonkers over his comments. There are too many foreigners in our lands...

    Small example. My mother works on radio theraphy. Since we are a developed society we have so-called "universal healthcare". Radio theraphy is enormously expensive. One treatment (often only takes a couple of minutes) costs EUR 3000. Bus loads of "foreigners" arrive every day on the department. The mothers and fathers of so-called "new Belgians"...

    I feel sorry for those folks they got cancer and all of that.

    But we, as a society, shouldn't pay for that.

    Add on that, that when they come to the hosiptal their hospitalization needs to be payed for as well. As does interpreters. If I should be as unfortunate to land in the hosipital in Rabat or Cairo or something, I have a slight feeling there isn't going to be a Dutch interpreter sitting next to my bed, nor will there be a social assisstent waiting in the hall way to make sure my family is contacted, etc.

    Yeah, but the Gov keeps on cutting the budget on the back of the folks who actually work for a change, who don't hazzle gay people on the street, who don't litter the streets, who pay their train or bus ticket, etc...

    The daughter of Nancy Pelosi, who is a filmmaker for HBO and married to a Dutch journalist, made a great clip that aired on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago. Actually she made two clips. One from dumb right-wing nutjobs who don't have any teeth who vote against their own self-interests, and the other clip was of so-called welfare queens. I'm thinking about the latter because of this thread.

    People who used to vote for the Left, don't do so anymore now.

    And I can't blame them.

    I vote for the "Left" despite all the above... I vote for the Green Party and I try to do my part to point out their craziness regarding immigration.

    However, I will make an exception at the end of the year during the communnal elections.

    I'm going to vote Conservative.

    Why?

    For the reason that I have eyes and a functioning brain.

    I live in the Green Belt around Antwerp. Not everyone can afford to live here.

    But the last couple of years you see more "strange people" coming closer to the area where we live. Oh, rest assure that those people don't own their home though.

    No.

    An other example. My sister is a single mother who rents an appartment just a couple of streets away from our home. The rent isn't low. The appartment above her stood vacant for months upon months. Until the owner decided to rent-out his appartment to "the State". They pay slighty less, but they pay on time every month. Two Georgians with a small child came living there. Completely paid for by "the State" (= every working man and woman). They are about my age. Every other week the young lady is beaten severely by the man. It kept my nephew up at night, in the beginning. He is a 7 year-old boy that has grown accustomed to hear a women cry because she is beaten severely.

    What on Earth is wrong with our society that we try to justify to allow "those people" in?

    There is nothing wrong with borders or with drawing a line in the sand...

    Anyways, I only get angrier typing this so I'd better stop...

    Also, Belgium is a complete outlier here... I saw on Dutch television that Belgium takes 5x (!!!) more immigrants in that France, Germany, Netherlands, etc.

    I was blown away by that statistic. And it is the responsibility of the Walloon PS and CDH. All Flemish parties are in favour of stricter policies...

    Then, my blood boiled over when in that same segment, the Dutch journalist asked one of the "refugees" why they didn't came to the Netherlands. They answered that they surely wouldn't get any papers...
     
  9. The Third Man

    The Third Man Banned

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    You saw that on TV? You believed it? It is not true.
     
  10. kilgram

    kilgram New Member

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    Janpor, have you asked if that immigrants work in Belgium? If they work in Belgium they pay taxes then they support the system, so I don't see the problem.
     
  11. raymondo

    raymondo Banned

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    Well done Janpoor ,
    You have returned from your presumed enforced rest , invigorated and in part enlightened .
    It is one small sign of a young man's growing stature and intellectual perspective when he can start to see issues from different angles .And invariably this means from left toward right .
    Your Post gets to the heart of the Immigration issue -- on one side you have the idealists , and , to the right , you have those who insist that practical application of social change must be dictated by:-
    a strict understanding of priorities within the total social set up , plus affordability, where that area is forced to consider immigration effects on infrastructure capabilities .
    Put another way
    You can only afford to give when you have the paid - for means to actually offer something .And
    No money in pocket equals no Charity now OR next week .
    I also would be very wary of anything coming out of Holland that is concerned with Immigration . Sectors of them seem to have totally lost contact with reality at both ends of the political spectrum . Just look at one or two of the Forum contributors with this background . Quite dangerous people imo .
    However the Belgium figures look as though they might be awful EVEN IF they have been distorted 100% , which , hopefully , is very unlikely .
    The Labour party came close to harming Britain with their crazed Social Mantras that became obsessed with doctrine but totally ignored social consequences .--- ironically the Left doing a Margaret Thatcher but starting from the other end of the spectrum .
    Trite admittedly , but , one needs a Conservative head which is guided by a Socialist heart .
    Not biologically feasible for the bulk of the young .
     
  12. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It has been sad to watch a small country like Belgian become leader of the xenophobia brigade.

    http://rac.sagepub.com/content/53/1/28.abstract

    I watched a friend on another site, on all other matters a decent person being taken in by all the xenophobia propaganda. very sad.

    Big problem for Europe now in general. One which Sarkozy has also been exploiting in order to try and win votes in the electiions

    When someone comes onto a thread complaining that citizens of their country, of different ethnic background are allowed cancer treatment then I know we are back in 1930's mentality. Quit the excuses. Look in the mirror at what you have become through being willing to listen and believe xenophobic propaganda without thinking.
     
    Paris and (deleted member) like this.
  13. fredc

    fredc New Member

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    Why can't people find jobs? In the days when people could find jobs Britain had a car industry, they had a Merchant Navy and a fishing industry, they had a textiles industry and a mining industry. All these people earning money in the industries and paying tax meant there was money to pay people in the service industries and the public sector.
     
  14. raymondo

    raymondo Banned

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    Here we are , straightaway , Janpoor ,
    The post following mine ends with these words

    "When someone comes onto a thread complaining that citizens of their country, of different ethnic background are allowed cancer treatment then I know we are back in 1930's mentality. Quit the excuses. Look in the mirror at what you have become through being willing to listen and believe xenophobia propaganda without thinking."

    It represents everything that we must fight against , vigorously and if necessary, to the point of repressing them .They will bankrupt all of us .
    The Poster completely misses the key point and then gets lost in some doctrinal rant , totally unconnected to the very serious subject being discussed , and in hackneyed terms hinting at a higher moral plane they can see but which we cannot .
    Of course it is sanctimonious garbage , but there are many people like that who rush into complex subjects only able to see solutions in Jesus like terms .
    The tragedy is that they want good , but , until matured , they are the Enemy within .
     
  15. raymondo

    raymondo Banned

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    Fred , Appreciate what you are saying, and to understand the reasons you must fully realise the position that the UK was in by the end seventies .
    You must do that research .
    But if we had tried to follow your prescription , we would now have a GDP that is 137 in the world , rather than 7th , or have been the first EU bankrupt State .
    We were forced to reinvent , or go under .
    The Thatcher era saved us but it was done badly in social terms . It was similar in principle to what happened in China but narrower and a million ( ?) times smaller .
     
  16. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You have shown your own position now Raymondo. You are in agreement with stopping cancer treatments for citizens of ethnic minorities. If you have not already joined Dino dino will arrange your card.

    You need to read posts and react to what they said rather than just give snide personal attacks -going once again against forum rules. This is an serious issue but for you, who only come here it would appear to troll as your life is so barren, it is just another opportunity for personal attack. Attack the argument not the poster or just ruin yet another thread.

    I have wasted my time replying to you as your only intent was a flamebait.
     
  17. raymondo

    raymondo Banned

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    Stop and think before you rush into print .
    You are only embarrassing yourself repeatedly by showing that you have completely failed to grasp the point I made .Quite a simple one -- no big words or convolution .
    By all means end up having your own views . Obviously .
    But don't resort to asinine personal name calling before you know what on earth is being talked about .
    Frankly I don't think you are ready to enter discussion . You seem far happier spitting out your dogma , switching off your listening ears and being deaf to anything and everything that does not meet your ideas .
     
  18. fredc

    fredc New Member

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    But we didn't reinvent, if we had everyone would have jobs now. If you look at per capita GDP Britain is 33rd and if you look at disparity of income Britain is 45th.

    I know the state Britain was in at the end of the 70s, I lived through them. They were as a result of a loan we took out with America at the end of WWII which was two small to meet our overseas commitments and invest in the future as well and had conditions attached like the convertibility of Sterling which were a time bomb as who was in power. Then there was the blind doctrine of Keynsian economics, Keynes was a Liberal by the way. Then there was the Arab oil embargo which just about finished us off.

    So war and blind doctrine were the major causes, shame we didn't learn from our mistakes.
     
  19. Munqi

    Munqi New Member

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    And why are those industries gone? A) because of capitalist greed or B) because of union greed and government involvement ?

    If you wage war on business then business leaves.

    Some day you're going to look back at this and ask yourself why were you the last multicultural zealot. Why was it that everyone else got it but not you.

    So it was americas fault?:juggle:

    Britain was destroyed from the inside by a cancer called labour unions. The leadership of those unions used the greed and stupidity of the british worker to bring down what was once a great nation, perhaps the greatest on the planet.
     
  20. parker

    parker New Member

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    How exactly did labour unions destroy Britain?
     
  21. fredc

    fredc New Member

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    Just because of greed, greed is not partisan, from the greed of the ship owner who could pay Philippines peanuts to the greed of the shopper who bought cheap inferior imported goods it was greed to blame.

    Where did I say it was America's fault?

    Blind doctrine and greed to blame, neither left nor right have a monopoly on those, I see that spurred on by the failure of the privatisation of the rail network Cameron is proposing privatising the roads.

    No, it wasn't the unions responsible for the economic crisis of the 70s, that is just a rumour spread by Tories. There was no one reason and all sides have their share of the blame. All capitalists were not saints and all union leaders were not evil and visa versa.
     
  22. raymondo

    raymondo Banned

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    There you are mistaken .
    Invention was the one thing we did .
    I can't be bothered to recount 1976 to 1997 in detail ad infinitum . We both were there .
    All I rhetorically ask is that you explain how we went from bankruptcy and begging the IMF for money , to leaving with the strongest EU base economy -- hiccups along the way -- under the latter stewardship of Ken Clarke . We stripped inefficiency , made real productivity improvements -- not difficult because we were hopeless until then --- pruned Union anarchy and dishonesty , and created niche businesses and allowed the working and middle classes to breathe responsibility and wealth creation .An amazing period .
    And if you are telling me we achieved all of that , despite those negative reasons you outlined , our success was that much more thrilling and exceptional .

    I am surprised you have forgotten how essentially criminal the Union movement became . The movement was challenged by a hugely changing world and I can see how working class people were essentially only interested in their own circumstances rather than the implications of their closed shop policies and the tyranny of Socialist Worker and Militancy Tendency -- movements which were riddled with Communist and Moscow loving individuals . Nevertheless , the dishonesty of Union practises had reached unbelievable depths and we fought literally for the future decency and respectability of our country .It was the nearest thing to class war I have ever lived through and we were perilously close at one time to having the tail wagging the dog , and in doing so , scuppering our future viability .
     
  23. Munqi

    Munqi New Member

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    By demanding wages that had no basis in reality.

    Coal miners demanding 35% wage increases when the coal mine they're working in is loosing money as it is. You can not sustain a strong economy with that kind of stupidity.
     
  24. Paris

    Paris Well-Known Member

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    I personally vote for the left because the right never fails to convince me not to vote for them.
     
  25. Iolo

    Iolo Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Total drivel. Thatcher deliberately destroyed British Industry to give power to the City, as you know. She was more interested in class war than the country, like all the tory foreigners: the thieving class has no country.
     

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